Soon after delving into the fundamentals of digital computing and binary code this past spring, Santiago Gomez, a Boston University engineering student, came across two words in his textbook that stopped him cold: master and slave. In engineering and computer programming parlance, they are used to describe the control relationship between circuits or codes, to emphasize how one component can trigger others, from brake and clutch systems in cars to Bluetooth technology.
But for Gomez, computer science or computer engineering, who had recently started the graduate engineering program, it evoked a violent history of human trafficking and America’s enduring struggle with slavery and racism.
“How is this the type of language that exists in science and engineering?” Gomez said. “It’s just a word — but language, it shapes how we see the world and what we create.”In mid-June, amid the Black Lives Matter protests, the toppling of Confederate statues and the re-evaluation of racial justice by government and businesses, Gomez decided to do something about it — and it worked.
He urged the textbook publishing giant Pearson to banish the master-slave metaphor from its technology and engineering books, and the publisher quickly agreed.
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