I'm Asian, wasn't born in America and didn't grew up in America as well. I don't have a horse in this race. I don't feel annoyed to change that term. I'm only annoyed if someone guilt trip me if I don't change the name out of ignorance (i.e, I don't follow politics, no time for social media). I don't think I have any bias against women or minority in tech. Changing main or master or slave doesn't ring a bell or evoke an emotion in me. If my boss wants it master or main or slave or white or black, I'll do it.
I'm very very surprised about this whole identity politics thing. First time I came to the US and I conversed with this Asian women friend, who told me that she wanted to go to business school, and I asked her "why business school?" and suddenly another Asian women (friend of her) cut me and said "Oh why not, because she is a woman?" and I was like "wow, where did that come from? what does that even mean?" and since that day I know that US racial issue is fucked up big time.
I just keep my mouth shut talking to anyone in a minority status, born in the west, that I don't know well. I've seen it go wrong several times so I'm just 100% business. I'll get hate for admitting this, but what am I supposed to do? No one wants to think critically or challenge their beliefs on the matter, so if I'm not willing to 100% toe the line if I do make a mistake then either I have to debase myself in an Orwellian "there are two fingers" moment, or I get in trouble. I'm not willing to do either.
In my mostly 99% Asian circle of friends, we have a few white people, and I can't help but be super uncomfortable every time the topic of racism being brought up, because I was thinking "dang, how would these white friends in our circle feel, they must've felt uncomfortable in these kinds of conversations". Yeah, heads you lose tails I win kinda situation.
In my circle of Asians, we have our own trouble as well. My wife is Japanese, and I grew up influenced heavily by Japanese culture (I'm Indonesian Chinese), but majority of my circle is 99% Koreans and Chinese. So yeah every time WWII or Japan/Korea/China thing gets brought up I also just stay silent and will just ask my wife to go home early or pretend we have some business to do. Definitely something will go wrong. We are in our 20s - 30s, and WWII are our grandparents generations battle. We are aware of Japan's WWII problem, but we aren't gonna pretend we know what to do.
It fits the bill. Asians are treated as white in tech. There's never any conversation around Asian-Americans. It's awkward because we're not quite Asian, but not quite treated as fully American either. Many programs have checkboxes to identify as minority groups (black, LBGTQ+, women, LatinX, which is great), but not Asians, who are statistically one of the biggest minorities at ~5%.
Despite my family being refugees, much of which died getting here. Despite eastern culture being almost the polar opposite of western culture. I wish that counted for something more.
Not asking for any special treatment because I feel Asian-Americans just put their head down and do the work. But it's stark how silent the conversation around Asian-Americans is, except for when we talk about Crazy Rich Asians.
> It fits the bill. Asians are treated as white in tech.
Or are they treated as asians? This whole thing is complicated, but including asian people as 'white' when it is colloqially used to mean 'caucasian european' for the most part, is just disigenuous and moving the goalposts.
Never in tech have I seen conversation about Asian Americans been brought up. When I say, they're treated as white, it's more like they're treated "not a POC", which only leaves a designation of white. Except Asians don't get put in leadership positions as easily as white counterparts (bamboo ceiling). I've seen many times (online at least) where people have explicitly said Asians don't count as POC, despite facing a large brunt of racism.
It is a time where we are getting violently targeted. And while people are jumping at the bit to speak up for every other group, we’re forced to uncharacteristically muster it up ourselves. I imagine if I was any other minority group talking about my experiences, it'd be taken more seriously.
What if I made a similar argument except I replaced "asian" with "french"? How would you prove there's a difference between that argument and your argument?
It is a tautology in a sense, but the point is that the case isn't "asian people are treated like white people in tech". The case is "white and asian people are treated like X in tech".
Okay, sure. I’m just drawing an equivalence to how Asians are treated to how whites are treated, rather than how I think they should be treated, as POCs. That’s my point, a point of comparison and contrast.
I've seen discrimination against Asians. Sometimes a current of disrespect or resentment exists. I also notice a distinct different between how an Asian, or non-white in general, is treated when they are in a superior position vs an inferior position.
You never feel uncomfortable when you are the only non-white? I too am non-white and see myself as white, due largely to the way my mother raised us.
My Father is white and my mother is hispanic, but I've been asked if I am Asian or Pacific Islander many times. I've also noticed a distinct difference in how people treat me when they see me, vs virtual or phone.
I meant to draw attention to how many non-whites are forced to immerse themselves in mostly white groups and can feel ostracized in the US.
Doesn't matter. If you take a particular viewpoint, there's a whole strata of American society that will call you white/black based on politics alone. Or you'll be called a race traitor, etc... e.g. "Asians are considered white because they have privilege."
The only problem with your statement is you didn't include women, the disabled, gays, any trans person, or any other newly conjured victimized group in your 100% business attitude. It is simply too politically incorrect to deal with people in these groups as critically thinking beings even if they are so best to just avoid any conversation that isn't absolutely necessary. The best bet is to pretend to be a hapless robot and make the interaction end as soon as possible, much in the way minority groups attempt to minimize their interactions with the police. It is a useful survival mechanism in a no win scenario. Stray into victimization territory and you'll either be asked to self-flagulate or be accussed of an '-ism'. I waiting for the word 'conversation' to be redefined by the intersectionalists much like 'racism'.
It sucks, too. I am super progressive but rather critical of solutions. Which is to say, i agree with an assessment of almost all problems and want to discuss solving them. BUT, discuss, is the key there. I'm interested in peoples views. On what actually can solve the problems. Racism for example i believe as a series of mitigation strategies and a core principle of education and standard of living.
Yet, i don't discuss this stuff with anyone interesting. Just my core group, and my core group has had this conversation to death.. nothing to be gained anymore.
So i don't grow on these subjects. I don't feel more progressive. I don't feel like i understand the problems better, or the solutions, and certainly don't know which areas i'm motivated to help in.
Because i want to discuss, to critically analyze the problem space and try to question and verify solutions, i'm terrified of being labeled an -ist.
This isn't a "woe is me" post. Rather, this is my explanation that in my eyes i am _less progressive_ as a result of this culture. I _act/help less_ in this culture. This culture shuts me - a self identified very progressive liberal - down.
Purists of any ideological bent have a tendency to alienate potental friends and excite their adversaries due to their overwhelming emphasis on argument by authority and appeals to shame. They are divisive by definition and generally lose their struggle because of it. Your comment is an excellent reflection of how the purists cut off their noes to spite their face.
>> First time I came to the US and I conversed with this Asian women friend, who told me that she wanted to go to business school, and I asked her "why business school?" and suddenly another Asian women (friend of her) cut me and said "Oh why not, because she is a woman?" and I was like "wow, where did that come from? what does that even mean?" and since that day I know that US racial issue is fucked up big time.
It is, but I'd encourage you to examine that a bit more from the perspective of the person weighing in. Yes, you meant nothing by the question, and you would have asked it regardless of the other person's gender, but what is interesting is -someone got defensive-. Why? She's hypersensitive; is it more likely she got that way apropos of nothing, that she has just bought into some victim culture that is determined to create claims of systems issues wholecloth to rail against, or because she -has- run into misogyny enough times that she assumes the worst?
Again, it's not reflective of you, but take an empathetic view to where people like that are coming from, as it's not a vacuum.
Oh yeah for sure, but this conversation already derailed, so no further dialog was necessary. I was coming from a point of view "small talk on a dinner table during hangout" and she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you" so, better to let the conversation die down and continue another time.
> she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you"
Is it fair to you? No, it isn't.
However you need to realize that _that question_ has been used, probably verbatim, in bad ways against her or her peers... therefore she has pattern-matched this into a sexist question too.
This is not an irreversible state. 99% of these communication breakdowns can be solved with a polite correction: "no, didn't cross my mind. I am sincerely curious about what drives that career decision, if I may ask".
I won't get entangled into a straw-man battle-royale, so if the person cannot recognize they made a mistake and correct course: sure thing I'll retreat.
That hasn't happened to me just yet, but I know it could. Fair? No, but it is what it is.
I am aware we are dissecting a quickly summed-up situation here, so my argument might not apply to the actual encounter you experienced. But if it does, I think you and lots of others are skipping on conversations that you actually wanted to have due to a very small and temporary defect on the dialogue.
Because the alternative is she's hypersensitive without any reason. You can, of course, -decide- that the person is just unreasonable, rather than try and figure out what might have caused her to respond the way she did, and be empathic towards it, but it doesn't seem like it'll get you far in life.
Well, the alternative is that a lot of people around her are misogynistic for no reason, so your empathy for her means you're assuming a lot of other people are unreasonable assholes. How far does this get you in life?
I'm a bit sad to see that awkwardness is seen as worse than resolving the conflict. I don't know the situation but I like to think that I would find it worth it to have a difficult conversation rather than keep everyone smiling.
But then I also am not part of any minority group. I'm a white male in a western country who is good at what he does, which would let me incur a lot of awkwardness before someone thinks that the problem is me. That might be different in your situation, or simply in that context, I don't know. Regardless, it makes me sad that there was a need to bury the topic.
Honestly, you're absolutely correct in encouraging an empathetic perspective but I would counter that your dismissing the very common reality of the victimhood mentality being a root cause to a lot of these types of outbursts is a bit short sighted. While the underlying reason this mentality exists is certainly, as you described, born from decades of misogyny, there is an entire population that has not necessarily experienced it to nearly the degree that warrants the level of hypersensitivity they exhibit.
I am not saying misogyny doesn't continue to exist, but it is now very often misattributed in scenarios that technically fit the criteria (man didn't hire woman, etc) but are in fact the result of other factors (woman wasn't a good hire). It's a slippery slope and the reason we have such outrage in response to equality movements in general. Kneejerk reactions to non-misogynistic interactions are counter productive and serve to undermine the validity of the complaints against misogyny by giving naysayers a reason to dismiss them.
I grew up as part of the overwhelming majority in a place with a small but distinct minority. I tried to befriend the minority and was often harshly pushed out. I came to think they were oversensitive because of some victim culture.
Then I spent some years in a culture where I stuck out by skin color, hair color, language skills, height, shoe size--pretty much every way possible. People were not mean to me or racist towards me. But every waking moment I knew I was different. And I knew I would never have the right hair or skin or height or accent to fit in. I would always be an outsider.
For the first time, I understood in some small way that minority from my youth who seemed to have a chip on their shoulder. I can't say that I have had their experience, but I have had an experience that opened my eyes to realize what it means to always know you are an outsider.
I wish they didn't react so negatively. But I think I know better now than to condemn their hostility outright. My experience was some short years as an adult. And I wasn't treated as inferior. How would it be to grow up under that and to expect it for your entire life?
>> there is an entire population that has not necessarily experienced it to nearly the degree that warrants the level of hypersensitivity they exhibit
Does it need to though? A black person may never have been a victim of police brutality, but if they have experienced a couple of questionable stops, is hypersensitivity really "victim mentality", and not -completely understandable-?
Most racism, misogyny, etc, nowadays -isn't- overt. Almost no one is going to say "I didn't hire you because you're a woman", because they know doing so is going to get them socially ostracized at best, legally culpable at worst.
Of course kneejerk reactions are counter productive, because it's easy for people who -weren't- coming from a racist, misogynist, etc, position to get defensive. That doesn't mean they aren't understandable, warranted, and that someone on the receiving end of that claim doesn't need to seek empathy in how they respond. That's allyship; understanding that a cry against injustice, even directed at you, isn't something you need to get defensive about, but to instead see for what it is. Trying to blame them for having a victim mentality is to dismiss the basis they even made the claim in the first place, thereby making us part of the problem.
Is this a term for something real, or just a contentless way to denigrate people who claim to have been victimized? Is there some diagnostic criteria other than "that person annoys me"?
It's real. The most privileged people I know (and later cut out of my life entirely) are the first to play the victim card. We're talking the type of people who would choose to show up to work late every day and then complain that they were fired because they were [insert trait]. Or people that refused to study and then demanded they get extra support and financial aid because they came from a 'difficult' background.
Some definitely white people claim to be minorities because some percentage of people will use every card in the deck to get ahead. The tragedy is that these people sour the conversation and make people distrust those who bring up the actual issues they face.
I’m reminded of an incident at a local school. The principal, a black woman, became increasingly incompetent. The teachers, many of them POC themselves, were now collectively doing her job for her. They tried to get her removed.
The NAACP got involved. There was outrage and shame to spare. The principal wrapped herself in righteous indignation, despite herself being in the position of power.
Months later, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Oops.
I’m sure this person definitely experienced racism and sexism in her life and career. There were undoubtedly many incidents when she was slighted by white people. It’s America, after all. But in this particular case, she was not the victim. The teachers were the victims. The students were the victims. Yet she still acted the victim. Hence, “victimhood mentality”. “Contentless” can cut both ways.
The insidious thing about these types of incidents is how it discredits the rest of the racial justice movement. We need to hold our outrage to a higher standard.
It's real, but it's rarely ever just one or the other. There's no situationally objective criteria for whether someone has victimhood mentality or is actually a victim.
When you get into the territory of microaggressions and subconscious bias, which are real problems but aren't necessarily clearly benign or bad on a case by case basis, the lines can get very blurry depending on who the observer is. Generally you should give the benefit of the doubt, because part of the nature of the social problems we talk about come from blaming the weak for being weak.
Does that logic work for why I cross the street when I see a black person coming my way?
Why? I'm hypersensitive; is it more likely I got that way apropos of nothing, that I just bought into some racist culture that is determined to create claims of issues wholecloth against blacks to rail against, or because I -have- been mugged by a black person enough times that I assume the worst?
Would you take an empathetic view to where I'm coming from?
A black man, or just any man wearing street clothes?
Any man wearing street clothes, or just any man wearing street clothes on an otherwise empty street?
Because if you do that in broad daylight, on a well populated street, because a black woman in business clothes appears to be a possible threat, but you don't do it for the white man in street clothes on an empty street at night, then it sounds like maybe you have a pretty racist heuristic.
Otherwise, yeah, I'm pretty empathic; race may indeed be an additional input, especially given your history, but if it's just one more heuristic that makes you slightly more likely to cross the street, and you also -recognize- that it's a generalization you're making, and that it's unfair to the individual even though it's based on personal experience...yes, I'm empathic towards where you find yourself. Certainly, as a man, if the input of "a man approaching" on its own caused you to be more likely to cross the street, I don't view it as some sort of misandry, and would not take it personally.
(And yes, I know this is an attempt at a rhetorical counter argument, but I'm purposely treating it as a real position to make clear I don't view it as a particularly compelling argument)
What if you had been mugged by a white person? Would you then carry the same fears moving forward? I have to assume you are not black, and thus, to you, black is "the other". You are making the assumption that because one person was dangerous, everyone else with that skin tone is dangerous. I'm sorry, but that is textbook racism
EDIT: After a second look I realize this is probably what the parent post is trying to get at :-)
It's a bias. Let's assume that all muggers wear red pants (or you have been mugged mostly by people in red pants). So when you see somebody in red pants you cross a street. It's surely not a textbook racism, since no race is involved. Also how do you know that anybody wearing red pants is a mugger? The tragedy of blacks is that they can't change skin color, unlike pants. This bias will exist until crime percentages will at least equalize between blacks and whites (do they?). You can call it a racism if you want but it doesn't change anything. I have worked with many blacks, I had zero problems with any of them, I don't consider them worse than me in any way, but I will cross that street. Sorry. There is a difference between a concrete person and statistics.
Now for jumping to the defensive the moment a man asks you a benign question, because you assume he is sexist because of his gender - isn't that sexism?
It's not an American thing, this happens everywhere. I moved to London from the US a few years ago, and when I first moved here, interacting with unfamiliar cultures, I made these kind of mistakes all the time.
I thought some people might find it amusing the kind of mistakes I made. Here are a couple.
I asked my Pakistani heritage boss when he immigrated, innocently. Note I'm an immigrant to the US myself and now the UK, so I thought it was not a bad question to ask. He's British born though, and considered himself a British citizen foremost. And given the rampant racism in the UK against those of Pakistani origin (many white Brits don't consider anyone Pakistani to be "proper British"), well you could see how he might be offended at my question. Fortunately he just laughed at my rudeness.
Another time, I made a bad joke to a French colleague of mine who I'd been working with for a couple weeks. I think he said I didn't seem like a normal American, and I responded saying I didn't think he looked French, not wearing a striped shirt and a beret. Oh man, that really dug my grave right there. Saying he didn't look French was probably the greatest insult I could ever have said. He is of Turkish heritage, and Turkish people have been persecuted and treated poorly for a long time in France, including lots of racism based on "they don't look French". He was angry with me for a very long time over that. I apologized to him profusely, saying I was just an idiot American, and I think he forgave me eventually.
I imagine so for monorepos with plenty of developers working on it. But wouldn't that be solved easily with "git rebase -i " and maybe some other CI/CD pipeline.
It would be a pain, but they're not changing any existing repos so it's up to the team to coordinate if they want to adopt such a change themselves (and GitHub have enhanced some of their tooling around branch renames to make it easier to do as well).
> "Oh why not, because she is a woman?" and I was like "wow, where did that come from? what does that even mean?" and since that day I know that US racial issue is fucked up big time.
Not race in particular. Just identity politics. In this case, it seems one of the woman friend in my circle thought I was being sexist to her friend. We were Asians, but I didn't grow up in the US, but these 2 women do. The immediate reaction to that question must had evoked something deep within her, that I attribute to her upbringing here in the US.
You are right, but I would add another item. She forcefully inserted herself in the conversation you had with your friend, and did it in a way that changed the conversation to the worse, with the tone becoming adversarial, and the direction of the thought rather different from what the original participants of the conversation intended. When it happens to a friendly group of people (as was the case here) it is okay, the confusion can be resolved peacefully and the conversation can move whichever way the three of you choose, being friends and all. But sometimes it happens in a larger scale, and then the conversation can be destroyed. I really wish people had been more conducive to maintaining a dialogue, we need to maintain a decent level of discourse in the society (and, more particularly, in our industry).
I'm very very surprised about this whole identity politics thing. First time I came to the US and I conversed with this Asian women friend, who told me that she wanted to go to business school, and I asked her "why business school?" and suddenly another Asian women (friend of her) cut me and said "Oh why not, because she is a woman?" and I was like "wow, where did that come from? what does that even mean?" and since that day I know that US racial issue is fucked up big time.