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Comment by siva7 | Hacker News Reader

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It's the other way around - it's racist if you're a US American, because in USA every problem is somehow ultimately called or blamed on racism.

Elsewhere in the world, we'd all it xenophobia, or Indophobia if one has something against Indian people specifically.

Though in this case, it's driven primarily by economic stereotypes, coming from the country becoming a cheap services outsourcing destination for the West, so there should be a better term coined for it. The anti-Indian sentiment in IT seems to be the services equivalent of the common "Made in China = cheap crap" belief, and because it applies to services and not products, it turns into discriminating people.

It is mainly because the majority of scammers that we hear about are Indian. I am not sure it has anything to do with xenophobia, whether they (or we) call it as such or not.

Nothing racist about it, India is essentially the #1 outsourcing destination. Not everything that involves an explicit mention of ethnicity / origin is racist.

Not racist but offensive indeed. It's like relating school shootings to white people. A white child sitting in Norway might not relate and may find it offensive and insulting.

India is a country, not a color of person. It's more like relating school shootings to the US, where an American child sitting in the US would definitely relate and find it accurate.

I don't see this parallel, sorry.

It is reality. Reality cannot be racist. :P

Uhm.. Do you include human social structures in reality?

Even of you replace 'reality' with 'true' amd 'truth' the logic doesn't quite work out.

Others have already mentioned why it is grounded in reality. Call your ISP, Indian picks up. You are being scammed? Probably an Indian. It is not racist, I have nothing against Indians in particular, but the trend is there and it is quite obvious, hence, reality.

If I replace "reality" with "truth", it does not work out because it makes no sense: "truth cannot be racist" makes no sense whatsoever. In relation or correspondence to what? It does work with reality, however.

I am trying to argue that something existing in reality, does not make it not rascist. Like say apartheid or whatever.

As a comment on "Reality cannot be racist".

But how is it racist? I am not afraid of Indians. I have nothing against some Indians, albeit I do have something against Indians who are celebrating something by stepping on manure, but since it does not affect me nor my country, I do not care what they do. UK might care though, it does affect them, but it does not make them racist either by not agreeing with some of their practices.

FWIW my best friend is South Indian. In the North, he is hated for unknown reasons, different caste or whatever, I do not know. He usually tells me everything about Indians that I do ask.

Another FWIW, he likes a barista (he is currently studying in the UK where he does not face any racism), and he came to me with help as to how to approach her. It is a good thing he did (he admitted it) because he would have ruined it by seeming so desperate, which seems to be a common trend among Indians, too. This is reality, too. To what extent? I do not know, but enough to notice. He is otherwise (despite being an Indian) a very well-mannered, curious, and smart person. He does seem to care much less about hygiene than one should, and blames things on diet, rather than just lack of hygiene. We discussed it in detail and he agreed, eventually.

While we are at it, I dislike Indian accents, too, generally. This is a preference. It does not make me racist. Do you think it does?

At any rate, if you have any questions, I am willing to answer (with his permission if it concerns him), but ultimately, I do not think it is racist.

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