Comment by delta_p_delta_x | Hacker News Reader

Comment by delta_p_delta_x | Hacker News Reader

delta_p_delta_x

Can someone explain why every single thread about Indians—whether it be here, on Reddit, or on Quora—is somehow allowed to become insidiously racist?

'Indians are sycophants', 'Indians don't speak English well', 'Indians are corrupt', 'Indians are good at office politics'—all from this thread alone.

I am trying to respond as civilly as possible without swearing, but this phenomenon is making it increasingly hard to do so.

Somehow white people are allowed to be 'sycophants', but Indians aren't? Somehow white people were allowed to trod all over Asia and Africa (many still are) for half a millennium, and coughed up racist theories to justify their borderline enslavement of non-whites, and evangelise their religion and culture[1]. But then when non-white people succeed, it's 'corruption' or 'nepotism'?

India is a country of 1.5 billion people. Include the rest of the Indian subcontinent and that number becomes nearly two billion. One quarter of the human population is from that region. Given these numbers, is it that surprising that Indians are quickly reaching the highest echelons of corporate America/Europe? By numbers alone, Indians still outnumber both the US and the EU, combined.

The region is still developing. India is a democracy, and the democracy is an absolute cacophony. It has taken its time to develop, and is frequently compared to a certain other neighbouring country with a similarly large population. That country had (and still has) no qualms in murdering millions of people to achieve its goals. India does not do that, and will bring its populace forward and upward, slowly but steadily.

These stereotypes are old, unfair, and unjustified. I am extremely unhappy that this is silently accepted, while racism against Blacks is white-knighted against.

[1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Civiliza...

I don't really see racism here. In fact, I think it's counterproductive to label all frustrations as racist when they aren't.

It's okay to prefer working with people (particularly managers) who speak your language natively. Labeling or shaming this preference is wrong, and counterproductive.

There are cultural differences in the world. There are even huge cultural differences within India. We are allowed to observe the factual reality that these cultural differences matter in hundreds of ways, and we'd be irresponsible NOT to. If you ignore the differences between Indian and non-Indian how are you going to make sure your workplace doesn't partake in caste-based discrimination?

> It's okay to prefer working with people (particularly managers) who speak your language natively. Labeling or shaming this preference is wrong, and counterproductive.

This is a fair take. As you say, when this is labelled as 'nepotism' (as was done below), I take issue with it. It happens everywhere worldwide: Chinese prefer Chinese, Indians prefer Indians, etc etc.

As for Indian diversity and caste-based discrimination, I think that's an entirely different matter.

For the record, a majority of the Indians indirectly or directly mentioned in the article are South Indian Brahmin (Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Raja Koduri, Indra Nooyi, Vasant Narasimhan, Sowmyanarayanan Sampath, Jayathi Murthy; heck, even Kamala Harris' mother is Brahmin).

Could you explain why being South Indian Brahmin is significant here?

>Can someone explain why every single thread about Indians—whether it be here, on Reddit, or on Quora—is somehow allowed to become insidiously racist?

Covert Racism - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_racism (see also "Casual Racism")

When a easily-identifiable group rises in the World and challenges/changes the status-quo, those who have profited from it so far and feel "entitled" to it in perpetuity, will feel threatened and thus resort to "Racism" to simply deflect from their waning importance in the "New World Order".

But Everybody needs to stand up against this; here is a how-to: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/smarter-living/how-to-be-...

It’s ok to question any hiring discrimination and share personal observations about group behavior.

However I agree with you that some of the comments are close to being derogatory.

In my experience (as I have shared below) many Indians are more career oriented than, say, Europeans. No criticism here, I personally don’t care and love my Indian colleagues.

It’s left over resentment over Indians being cheaper for the sake of being cheaper. It’s a more economic resentment than a racial one.

I personally don’t think this dynamic is as true anymore because Indians can command market rate globally and are going to have to compete less on undercutting price.

> It’s left over resentment over Indians being cheaper for the sake of being cheaper.

You're actually presenting this as an excuse for racism against Indians? Holy shit.

> 'Cheaper for the sake of cheaper'—India launched a probe to Mars for $75 million. That's less than the budget of many Hollywood films about space.

India manufactures drugs extremely cheaply and supplies much of the Global South that is unable to afford the rates demanded by EU-US pharmaceutical companies.

Your 'market rate' cannot be afforded by about two-thirds of the human population.

You're actually presenting this as an excuse for racism against Indians? Holy shit.

I am not presenting it as an excuse, I am presenting it as a probable reason for it. It’s like if a historian explains to you the Treaty of Versailles and all you take away from it is that I’m presenting an excuse for Nazism and WW2. It is merely an explanation for what fermented the situation, not a justification. It’s up you to accept the reality or not.

I don’t think it’s racism. It’s resentment. No one likes an undercutter.

Take it for what it’s worth, that’s the reason you are seeing all the anti Indian tech worker vibes here.

Indians are hella racist towards Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, they also have a rich history of conquest and slavery.. But we're white so we're the bad guys.

> they also have a rich history of conquest and slavery.

Slavery? Whom did indians enslave?

Other Indians

Yeah people here are being extra racist. Sorry :(

Generalizations about culture are different than generalizations about race, but conversations using generalization are still dangerous because they can be misconstrued to apply to all or to the race rather than culture. India is really a bunch of different cultures all in a sub-continent.

white people are plenty criticized, rightfully, for their past transgressions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com