Comment by GuiA | Hacker News Reader

Comment by GuiA | Hacker News Reader

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A few of your remarks are solid in an ideological sense, but sadly the bulk of your comment comes across as "white dude mansplaining to an indian dude why he doesn't have to worry about racism".

Racism is alive and well, and a real problem that people have to deal with. Advice like "embrace your proud geek culture and be your own person learning and pursuing the things that interest you" is generic feel good woowoo that is just not relevant here.

"11) Don't take advice from people who don't have experience with what they are giving advice on. Like the post above in some cases."

Or like yours, as someone "born and raised in North America, [who] speaks perfect english"

Sorry man, but sometimes you have to accept that you don't have much to bring to a conversation, no matter how strongly you feel about it.

tl;dr: the post you replied to is linking freaking research papers to support what it says and your reply is "don't worry just think positive and everything will be fine"

Hi, I'm not white. Not even close. I'm not sure why someone as openminded as yourself would jump to a conclusion. Sincerely have not meant to do it myself.

I assure you I'm among the most visible and targeted of minorities.

Racism is sadly, absolutely alive and well. The question is are you going to resign to it or engage with it in a positively unreasonable and relentless way? Ending racism is also a startup.

The first step for me to get used to taking a strangers and making them a human being so it's not as easy to dismiss them, or their experience.

It's concerning you might automatically think what I wrote is ideological. I practice these things every day. Happy to chat about any points above you'd like to know more about me, I just wanted to share what I have learnt by my own experience with the original poster, and the results it has helped achieve.

As for "generic woo woo culture", there's no need to put someone down, my message was for the original poster. If this has a hit a nerve with you of what you feel the world is, I agree it's not an easy place, and it gets harder, but the only peace I'm finding is when I'm getting better.. leave me no choice but to take responsibility for improving myself.

I also belong to another woo woo culture/practice that fiercely promotes manifesting yourself in action in the world through positivity action towards other, treating all of humanity as one and your extended family, and selfless service towards all. So why not be that way.

reachj45@gmail.com, would love to learn more about you :)

10x

Especially the American name thing. You can only know the disadvantages of having a non-western name if you've actually used one. There's a reason why so many ethnic (particularly Asian, from what I understand) lawyers use American "professional names".

I have a non-western name, and I get no problems. More curiosity and questions, rather than outright discrimination or anything of that sort.

The other advice really is solid: Don't fit the stereotype when you meet new individuals, and they won't treat you like one. First impressions count a lot, so you can't change someone's mind after the fact without a lot of work.

I have a non-western name. I don't have an American or professional name. Not saying everyone should, or not, only that it exists.

Shortening one's name is a common practice among American names.

Ironically I grew up in a school environment where I was one of the few minorities, and when I got to university, people of a shared background shortened my name.

What? Why do you think he's white? And even if he was -- his post is full of great advice. Any job candidate (or person, in general) would benefit from implementing those ideas to the best of their ability.

It's not "feel good woowoo," it's fundamental human psychology, and I think it's absolutely relevant here.

edit: I should add that I don't actually recommend blindly taking his, or anyone's, advice. Educating oneself should come first. I would recommending reading "Influence," by Robert Cialdini, if you want to learn more about the type of stuff discussed in j45's post.

Thanks for the recommendation for the read, just bought it.

Pursued understanding a little too inefficiently myself, means a lot.

I could counterpoint his/her entire comment, but I'll just briefly say that citing the success of certain ethnicities (backgrounds of the CEOs of Microsoft and Google) is like implying racism/sexism is over because Obama was President and a woman almost became President.

CEO is just publicly visible example, but at every level in Microsoft there're Indian, VP, managers, product managers, principal developers, regular developers. I think you can just browse/search Microsoft product managers thru linkedin to verify that. I'd be very surprised to see any bias towards any nationality at MS, given >50% of employees are foreign.

I don't doubt that Microsoft might actively try to counter implicit racism which is evident in their demographics, but I do believe there are stats that show there are clear disparities between number of Asians in professional jobs and number of Asians who end up getting promoted from their positions to C-level positions.

There's no doubt "diversity" is corporate bs when it doesn't exist from the top down.

Such reflection also shines a light on how unreasonably hard some people, in any group are having to work to ensure organizations reflect society, and the nature of their sacrifices and commitment compared to others.

The main reason I mentioned the CEO's, is outside of perceived differences or challenges, achieving goals often require becoming a lot better than one probably should have had to.

Attitude, curiosity, work ethic, being easy to get along with and work with others go a long way.

Respectfully, it's not about counterpointing, or there only being one way to be right.

It's more about developing a positive and healthy inner mental and emotional dialogue that allows you to live in a viewpoint of seeing and acting on possibility instead of worshipping doubts to drag ourselves and others down.

Innovation, improvement happens by pushing yourself to grow, not finding faults in everything around you and in yourself.

No one will be in your corner if you aren't.

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