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Comment by terda12 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a business leader by any means so keep that in mind.

I'm an Asian, and I don't see this as a problem tbh. American leaders have, historically, tend to be white men (think the first 49 presidents). We're definitely starting to see diversity in leadership positions. Obama, Sundar Pichai of Google, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Yishan Wong/Ellen Pao of Reddit are some examples that come to my mind.

Even Ellen Pao, who received flak for some reddit drama, was never criticized for being an Asian female.

So yeah I'm not too worried. I think we're seeing a shift towards a more diverse country for sure. It won't happen overnight but it's definitely shifting.

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> Even Ellen Pao, who received flak for some reddit drama, was never criticized for being an Asian female.

Yes she was. They referred to her as "Chairman Pao" as well as other racist and sexist slurs which I do not care to repeat.

The "Pao" moniker was reference to her perceived "authoritarian" grip on reddit not a reference to her ethnicity. You're race baiting by trying to make this conversation about racial discrimination when it really wasn't about that.

Things only kicked off when she said she was going to ban lots of sub reddits.

Are you pretending that she was criticized for her demographics, rather than for her actions? That is ridiculously out of touch.

Wasn't she on the board of Reddit? Making her a chairman (or is the PC way to say that chairwoman and you're trying to make this a sex issue)

Ok, fine, here is a link to a comment from a year ago that is both racist and sexist: https://www.reddit.com/r/opieandanthony/comments/36mx0n/redd...

The Chairman Pao nickname was used to draw comparisons between Ellen Pao and Chairman Mao. Yeah, not racist at all.

How is this racist? Pretty much all of us Asians resemble Chairman Mao near the end of his life if you catch us early enough in the morning. (Especially if hung over.) It's much the same as pretty much almost all babies resembling Winston Churchill. You can't draw any comedic comparisons with any famous Asian, or it's racist?

You know, Asians are normal, ordinary, "default" people too.

Is it racist to compare a white male leader to Hitler?

I don't think you can categorically say that (but are welcome to make that accusation). Are you saying that because we as a society make comparisons to Hitler, it's okay to call an Asian woman in a leadership position something like "Chairman Mao?"

If a black person were compared to Mugabe, is that also racist? What if you compared an Italian person to Mussolini? is that racist?

You can ask more asinine questions but you're really skirting around the real question here (with a fairly clear answer).

You're right, context matters. In the case of Pao, the fact that the names Mao and Pao are so similar is the more important context. If Ellen Pao was any other race she would have still been called Chairman Pao because the point of the comparison isn't to point out that Pao and Mao are the same race.

Did you think it's the Asian-ness of Pao that was being called out when people called her Chairman Pao? Or was it her leadership style? Do you think if she was Asian but her last name was Titler that she would have still been called Chairman Titler because she's Asian?

Not every comment made about a minority is racist. Context matters.

> Are you saying that because we as a society make comparisons to Hitler, it's okay to call an Asian woman in a leadership position something like "Chairman Mao?"

Are you trying to guilt trip everyone by making it seem like mocking power is a racist thing just because people of many races are involved? Rather than this passive aggressive attempt to trap someone, why don't you come out and simply say that you think it is racist and inappropriate?

> What if you compared an Italian person to Mussolini? is that racist?

Just some random Italian person you see walking around Rome? It's likely just wrong.

But when comparing some bossy jerk to a tyrant, is it more racist to pick Mussolini for an Italian person? Probably not, because the dictators were a product of their cultures. Italians probably are more like Mussolini than Mao.

Your post insinuates that people are insulting black people, or asians, and just throwing out any insult that fits. Yes, it is racist to just insult someone just for their color - regardless of who you compare them to. But if you're going to insult someone for non-racist reasons it doesn't suddenly become racist just because you pick Mugabe to compare them to, for instance.

We don't do anyone any favors by over-reporting racism and in fact that's a common racist troll tactic; call everything racism to water it down or make victims look like complainers.

Wow, I didn't expect anyone to reply to those specific examples. My point was that they're asinine. Context matters and those situations are clearly vague enough that it's doesn't warrant any further discussion.

In Pao's context, the comparisons drawn does suggest a racist undertone, an issue the parent commenter in my post seems to try and skirt around by asking another question.

Basically, you're literally missing my point. I'm pointing at the moon and you're too busying looking at my finger.

As an aside, it's hilarious to me that you think it's accommodating to compare Italians to Mussolini (over Mao or other dictators due to their shared cultural connection).

You're focused so hard on the moon while everybody else has been talking about the stars the whole time.

Pao sounds a lot like Mao. It would regardless of the race of the person with the name Pao. Mao was an oppressive dictator. The people that called Pao Chairman Pao weren't doing it because she's Asian, they were doing it because they didn't agree with her leadership style and were comparing it to the style of an oppressive dictator.

You are the one who saw it as a racial thing, the problem is with you.

That and there are a number of under the radar small to mid sized businesses (tech and non-tech) founded by Asians which are not publicly run companies who for the most part are run by Asians (mostly of the same ethnicity, but not always).

2 of those examples are Indians, and the same corpus of research has shown that they face differing sets of stereotypes.

There's no way of denying that there is a pronounced dearth of East Asian leadership in tech relative to the substantial number of East Asians working in the field.

Not really. I'd expect more workers from a company to be foreign than the management.

Most jobs are somewhat standardized. You can essentially follow instructions. Management, for all the donut eating they do, is less standardized and much more shmoozing based. Much harder to do with even a small language barrier. And old-boys-club or not, you'd expect locals to have more alumni and other attachments which could be useful.

Not all things that result in racial differences are racist.

> American leaders have, historically, tend to be white men (think the first 49 presidents).

You mean 43 US presidents. President Obama is number 44.

Yes, my bad. Must have been confusing # of states with # of presidents

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