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Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

I'm always fascinated at how common it is for people (almost universally cynics from outside the US) to try to discredit the US winning this competition by proclaiming that the participants aren't really Americans, because they're of some other ethnicity than white. It usually goes like this: 'well, they're mostly Asians, so it doesn't count.' I saw it constantly with the US winning last year's International Math Olympiad, and I'm seeing it again on various forums this year. Often it comes in stealth form, they'll ask intentionally leading questions about where the competitors were educated, or where they were born, trying to avoid being too blatant about their racism and or anti-US cynicism. Some people just can't stand for the US to do well in anything.

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I think they are Americans. It is not like countries are buying children to win at maths competitions as some do with athletes for the Olympics [0]. It is just notable that they are all of Asian descent. It is also notable that they are all male. You are not instantly racist when you realize that a group that represents a country at a competition or the overall starting field of a competition has different characteristics than the general population.

[0]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics/2016/07/07/seven-kenyan...

The racism isn't from noting the race, it's from attempting to proclaim that the competitors are not Americans due to their race eg being Asian. As an example, that claim was made up and down the threads on Reddit about last year's US Olympiad win.

The U.S. does have a long history of importing foreigners to win competitions, so it's not really an unreasonable suspicion. E.g. a large percentage of athletes at Harvard are from Canada or eastern Europe, since their grades and SATs don't get included in the U.S. News & World Report rankings.

Harvard does have good hockey teams

Rowing, too. It's substantially harder to win races when your school isn't allowed to import eastern Europeans for that purpose.

It's entirely possible that some of those haters are Caucasian-Americans who don't consider Asian-Americans real Americans.

That hasn't been my experience so far in discussing it over the last two victories. I see it almost universally out of Europeans who prefer to think of the US as backwards on education and capability, so they'll take any angle they can to discredit the US if it achieves something in that realm.

I one time met an Asian American woman that did a graduate study in Italy. She said it was constant that the Italians always assumed she was from Asia, and never believed she was really from the United States.

People outside of North America just assume that Americans come in two colors: white and black. And why wouldn't they? That's all the American entertainment industry shows.

> People outside of North America just assume that Americans

Based on Just Italy?

> where the competitors were educated, or where they were born, trying to avoid being too blatant about their racism and or anti-US cynicism

Why is this "racism" or "anti-US" cynicism?

I don't disagree, at the same time you're not giving much of a counterargument to the examples you brought up except saying "I don't like them saying this"

There is no counter argument to be made in that sense, one is not necessary. The victors are Americans. The critics in this example attempt to proclaim that the victors are not American due to race in order to tear down the accomplishment by the US, while pretending the US is a homogeneous white nation because that's the only way they can set up the fraudulent attack.

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