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Comment by ceilingcorner | Hacker News Reader

> Asians, particularly Asian men, have the most active obstacles that manifest on _basis of their race_ than any other minority group in the US

Sorry, but this is patently absurd. African-Americans have faced (and continue to face) an order of magnitude more difficulty and lack of opportunity than Asian-Americans. The statistics of a dating app or the number of Oscar winners are in no way comparable to centuries of slavery and legal discrimination.

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Asians were enslaved to build the West though. That is just true. While 'paid', they were not entitled to full legal rights and were held in conditions akin to slavery. We talk about reparations for african americans despite not being able to properly track who is an ancestor of whom. On the other hand, we know full well which Japanese were held in concentration camps by America, and some are even alive today, and they receive nowhere near a proper compensation.

I have a hard time believing that any reasonable person would think that the poor treatment of Chinese laborers (which was exceptionally discriminatory) or the confiscation of Japanese property (a crime, no doubt) compares to being kidnapped, transported across the ocean, and enslaved as property for hundreds of years.

I don't want to argue. I read what you wrote and genuinely wondered about the working conditions of Chinese laborers in the distant past in the USA.

> 8,000 Chinese focused on building the tunnels while another 3,000 laid track ... The Chinese had seen a pay increase from $31 to $35 per month by Spring 1867, but it fell short of the $40 monthly salaries whites were pulling in ... They were also toiling longer hours, often under dangerous conditions, whipped or restrained if they left to seek employment elsewhere. And unlike whites, the Chinese had to foot the bill for their lodging, food, and tools

> When the strike went down ... "They went to their camp and they sat" ... Crocker, meanwhile, took the step of cutting off all food and supplies to the Chinese laborers, hoping that starvation would force them back to work.

> It did.

( https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/150-years-ago-chi... )

I'm not making a comparison between groups. I just think being whipped, restrained, and starved would probably rise above "poor treatment ... which was exceptionally discriminatory" as a description for any reasonable person.

> Denis Kearney, an Irish immigrant ... Responding to high unemployment and a nationwide railroad strike, Kearney in 1877 founded the Workingmen’s Party of California ... the party’s anti-Chinese views were rooted in racism and revulsion at the newcomers’ unfamiliar customs.

> "A bloated aristocracy has sent to China ... for a cheap working slave," Kearney proclaimed in 1878. "It rakes the slums of Asia to find the meanest slave on earth - the Chinese coolie - and imports him here to meet the free American in the labor market

> "These cheap slaves fill every place. Their dress is scant and cheap. Their food is rice from China. They hedge twenty in a room, ten by ten. They are whipped curs, abject in docility, mean, contemptible and obedient in all things."

> The Workingmen’s Party quickly became a force in California and national politics, exerting pressure on Congress and President Chester A. Arthur to act.

> In early 1882, Congress overwhelmingly approved the Chinese Exclusion Act

( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/08/03... )

Apparently some people at that time thought of the Chinese laborers as "cheap working slave", "the meanest slave on earth", who lived "twenty in a room", "are whipped", etc.

This is just historical context. I know other groups had it terribly as well... I'm not making comparisons.

I’m not really sure what objective you’re after. Obviously Chinese workers were treated badly. All working class workers were treated badly, including ‘white’ people like the Irish or Polish. I already said this, so stop stoking this conversation for absolutely zero reason.

The point is that being an abused lower class worker is not the same thing as being an actual piece of property, which is what black slaves were. This is not even remotely controversial among historians.

> I’m not really sure what objective you’re after. Obviously Chinese workers were treated badly. All working class workers were treated badly, including ‘white’ people like the Irish or Polish. I already said this, so stop stoking this conversation for absolutely zero reason.

The experience of the Chinese was nowhere near that of a poor Irish or Polish worker. That is a blatant rewriting of history.

I think Asians pay a high price in terms of handicaps in legislation in the modern day to account for those historical injustices perpetrated onto other minorities by the historic majority.

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