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Comment by orange_tee | Hacker News Reader

As always people on here bitching about the US. As an outsider one thing I find to be really good in the US is inclusion. Americans really don't know how backwards the rest of the world is.

For example, I currently live in Germany. Germany is currently importing boatloads of Latino and South East Asian STEM workers. Now if you look at the structure of German companies two things stand out:

1. there is a huge disparity between management and workers and this is reflected also in the salaries 2. all management are German (99.9% ethnic with maybe one 3rd generation ethnic Slav/Turk)

This situation is very likely true for most of Europe, except for maybe the UK.

So of course migrants in the US are more productive. In most countries immigrants are imported to fill a niche and the glass ceiling is held firmly just above that niche. And let's not even talk about entrepreneurial opportunities for immigrants.

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Some data to support this: https://fortune.com/2020/06/19/corporate-germany-race-divers...

> There are 179 people on the management or executive boards of Germany’s 29 Fortune Global 500 companies. Just two of them are not white—both hailing from South Asia—and none is black.

Contrast the US: https://deloitte.wsj.com/riskandcompliance/2019/03/12/women-...

> Total minority representation increased to 16.1 percent (912 board seats) from 12.8 percent in 2010, the first year Fortune 500 data were captured.

> Just two of them are not white—both hailing from South Asia—and none is black.

"Whiteness" is a US concept, which doesn't make much sense in a German context. That sentence only tells me that some South Asians are neither white nor black.

I have no idea how they'd classify e.g. Turks. I think Greeks are considered white in the US, so maybe Turks too.

The other big immigrant group in Germany are Vietnamese, but they're kind of hamstrung by mostly having moved to East Germany. (East Germans in general are economically disadvantaged.)

I think statistics about ethnicity would be more useful if they were based on easily interpretable categories like own country of birth, country of birth of parents, grandparents, etc.

>"Whiteness" is a US concept, which doesn't make much sense in a German context.

This is true, unfortunately the supremacy of American culture over the last century means that all of these concepts that do not fit very well into other contexts have been exported, I often run into situations in Denmark that would be horrifyingly racist in the U.S (not to say that Denmark doesn't have it's own racist traditions, but the grafting on of the American viewpoint does not exactly fit).

Of course when the concept is exported it in some way becomes the thing over time, and then people try to import the solutions to the problem.

Wait... how could Greeks not be considered white? I’m afraid to ask, but what would a “white” European consider the race of Greeks to be?

I'm pretty sure these racial categories are American abstractions, whose names have only reflected their composition in recent decades. The Irish, for instance, were long not considered 'white'; they were just 'Irish'.

So, white and off-white (I.e., lesser whites)?

And white-adjacent.

I live in the US, but was born and raised in France and Greeks are considered white there. If the 1998 football team described as "black-blanc-beur" had included players of Greek descent (and maybe it did?), they would have been part of the "blancs", just like Youri Djorkaeff.

Take what you read with a grain of salt. I'm certainly very skeptical of the implied claim that Germans wouldn't consider Greeks as white.

Note that being considered white doesn't preclude Greeks from being discriminated against, just like some people discriminate against e.g. white Poles.

Greeks, like Armenians in USA are kind of a tossup case, see for example the YA novel "The Westing Game" where a black character compares themselves to a Greek with darker skin

Depends on the place and the person, but some certainly are racist against Greeks.

The point is that Germans are not in the habit of classifying people by race unless they're racist, and even then they don't tend to think in terms of Whites vs Blacks. For Nazis, it's about Aryans vs Jews, where the "Aryan race" is considered to consist of tall, blond, blue-eyed people. Most Greeks would not be considered Aryan, as would most Germans, for that matter.

I find it quite telling that you are surprised Greeks might be considered anything but white, while not showing any surprise about Turks. I don't think there's any difference in skin color, so that confirms my suspicion that "whiteness" isn't just about looks.

> I find it quite telling that you are surprised Greeks might be considered anything but white, while not showing any surprise about Turks. I don't think there's any difference in skin color, so that confirms my suspicion that "whiteness" isn't just about looks.

There are many more people of Greek descent than of Turkish descent in the USA. It's very possible that the person you replied to is simply not familiar enough with people of Turkish descent to express surprise at your claim.

So, first of all, "white" and "black" are not good terms to use in Germany. Most of Germany's migrants are not from Africa and most are from the EU. Germany has a "black" population of about 2%, compared to the 10+% in the US.

Then, you get the fact that the minorities in the US are more qualified than the ones in Germany. Germany doesn't attract the most talented in the world, like the US and due to the lack of two oceans protecting it from the rest of the world, Germany doesn't get to be too picky about its migrants. The biggest attraction to foreigners is its welfare state. So I would hesitate to conclude to much from such a simple comparison.

I don’t understand, am I supposed to think it’s a problem that German companies are being managed by native Germans?

If the makeup of management doesn't reflect the underlying population, especially if non-management does, then yes of course that's a problem.

I as an ethnic German can echo the GP's point. Non-management can be quite diverse, but management is very much old, white, ethnic Germans as far as the eye can see.

There are still a lot of conscious/unconscious ethnic biases in Germany, especially among the older population.

Management is usually made of middle aged experienced people with really good speaking skills who have lived in the country for a decade or two at least. I suppose that the migrants in germany meet none of these criteria.

Management is actually usually made up of previous management’s social circles.

I suspect that is the only criteria migrants don’t really check, and that is the point.

> am I supposed to think it’s a problem that German companies are being managed by native Germans

Yes, you are supposed to think that now for some reason.

If by native you mean citizen, then there are also non-white natives of Germany. Without data on the ethnic makeup of the population it's difficult to say how poorly they're represented

Germany doesn't have many black people because Germany didn't import them as slaves and never really colonized Africa.

This whole statistic is worthless without context. Like how Germany's first immigrants after WW2 were low skilled Turkish workers and only recently Germany became more attractive for high-skilled immigrants because the US effectively shut down its visa program for the majority of people.

I'm not saying Germany is perfect but just whipping out some numbers without context doesn't cut it.

Also, it's pretty bold for Americans to lecture other countries on racism while their police is gunning down people simply for the color of their skin and is separating children of refugees from their parents to put them in cages. Meanwhile Germany is providing healthcare and shelter for all refugees but apparently doesn't currently promote a few dozen high-skilled workers that very likely could've made it anywhere to be CEO.

> Germany doesn't have many black people because Germany didn't import them as slaves and never really colonized Africa.

Yes, that was a weird point to make in the article because it's not as if there are many Black people in Germany. But you have to admit that having just two non-white people out of 179 (1.1%) on corporate boards is pretty odd. Germany is white, but not 98.9% white. Turks make up over 5% of the population.

Definitely true. Germany made a huge mistake not integrating 1st and 2nd generation Turks better and the 3rd generation is now feeling especially lost as Turkey isn't home and Germany doesn't feel like home either.

Aren't Turks white?

This specific distinction doesn't really make any sense in Europe.

> Germany doesn't have many black people because Germany didn't import them as slaves and never really colonized Africa.

Germany did colonize Africa and committed its fair share of attrocities in Namibia, but the colonies were taken away after WWII - way before the African independence movement took hold (which was immediately followed by an uptick of citizens in those former colonies migrating to colonial powers)

You mean after WWI. But yes, both to having colonies, but being a smaller player than others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_colonization_of_Africa

Germany is no stranger to slave labor and didn’t abolish it until much later than the US did (1945). And not by choice either. The US has never had genocide on the industrial scale of what Germany has done in the 20th century. Slave labor today doesn’t seem to be an issue for Merkel either, as evidenced by recent trade deals.

Germans playing the moral superiority card is humorous to me.

You missed my point entirely. I never compared past atrocities as it is unfair to the current generation. What I compare is the current state of affairs.

Germany today is giving shelter and free healthcare to refugees but apparently not CEO positions.

The US is gunning down blacks and forcefully taking children of refugees away from their parents but some immigrants became CEO of large companies which apparently makes the US more immigration-friendly and less racist than Germany.

US is doing no such things and Germans are far more racist than Americans it’s not even close.

Yes, I am always shocked to hear how "non-racist" Germany is when I have friends who failed to climb the corporate ladder their because of their Greek last name, as they were explicitly told by their coworkers. In America, they are doing well now as an executive at a F500.

It is because Germany also takes in a lot of lower class/uneducated migrants in who have almost no prospects of getting a good job. Whereas America doesn't really do that as much (at least right now, I'm not talking about the past). Germany also doesn't have a lot of black people, which in my opinion if they had would make the racism more visible.

So this is an important point.

An American in Germany would probably knee-jerk to 'racism' for a few reasons, and although there are different kinds of unfairness, I'm not sure if that's quite the right word.

America is an open place, Germany, not so much. America has tons of really high-level aptitude migrants, Germany doesn't quite have that.

With respect to 'glass ceilings' - it's more complicated.

As a resident of Germany for some time, as an outsider ... I would have expected to be promoted well enough if I was materially 'that much better', but frankly, not otherwise.

I actually accepted the fact that 'this is a German company, it's going to be run by Germans'.

I was in France I felt the same way.

I don't believe in the notion that a random person from country XYZ has the 'right' to be an executive for example at a local company.

Definitely treated with respect and not face racism, definitely promoted rank and file based mostly on performance, definitely the same material, legal rights - but beyond that ... I always felt 'it was their country, not really mine'.

Also, there are quite a number of these countries run by foreign nationals anyhow, it's just not quite as common as in the US.

Having lived in Germany for a few years, I was pretty surprised by the level of casual racism. The level of casual anti-semitism in Poland was even more surprising.

Interesting. I've checked [1] and it seems that number of antisemitic incidents in Poland is rather low (for instance is smaller than in Sweden, which has much smaller population), not to mention France, where number of incidents was 5 times bigger than in Poland.

I am curious what is source of you information about Polish antisemitism.

[1] https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2020/antisemitism-overv...

I am really curious how a report like this can capture casual racism or antisemitism. When I was working in Switzerland a long time ago, one of the comments I heard frequently is that I am not like other Indians - I dress well, speak well and I am tall. I would consider it as a "racist" comment, but not something that would get reported. One of my other friends from India felt similar, if he is not dressed in a suit, he would be treated differently. I doubt he would report it either. You are different and will be treated differently. Jariel made a similar point above - you are constantly aware that it is not your country. I do not feel the same in US.

That’s because the US is one of the most harmonious multicultural societies in the world. It just doesn’t seem that way if you read the news because it’s the rest of the worlds political punching bag.

I’ve lived and worked all over Southeast Asia, and just openly being racist is perfectly normal there. Employers will openly tell you that they don’t want to hire foreigners, because they don’t trust them. Local ethnic minorities are consistently discriminated against, especially if there’s a local ethnic Chinese population (who in Indonesia for instance are often referred to as babi which means pig, or mata sipit which means slanted eyes). Contempt for people from neighbouring countries is very common. Working in KL it was very common to hear my colleagues talking about how much they don’t like Thai people. India takes things to a whole different level with their caste system and extreme distaste for dark skin.

Ive never got particularly wound up about it, because I see myself as a guest whenever I go and work in a foreign country, so I’ve just got to play by their rules. But try applying that logic the US and see how long it takes for an outrage mob to come after you.

> When I was working in Switzerland a long time ago, one of the comments I heard frequently is that I am not like other Indians - I dress well, speak well and I am tall. I would consider it as a "racist" comment, but not something that would get reported.

Yikes. Very Joe Biden: https://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/31/biden.obama/

> "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."

I've never gotten a comment like that as a South Asian (Bangladesh) in the United States.

Yeah. The dude was in the Senate during the Nixon administration. He's (we hope) recovering from a seriously poisonous culture, particularly with respect to race and gender equality. But he's also the guy that forced Obama's hand on marriage equality. I'm inclined to watchfully wait and see how he handles things from here. In the meantime: he's said some stupid shit. What'd you expect?

I’m just cringing at the comment itself. I think Biden’s a good guy who cares about people, even if he’s not always so great at saying words.

Totally fair. He's exasperating, for sure.

I actually find it quite endearing (aside from this instance). I'm a big fan from when I was in Delaware.

My own ex-boss (Bangladeshi immigrant from Dhaka) told me (Pakistani-American born here) when I asked him for a proper W2 in order to lease my car as opposed to a handwritten one that "suspicion runs in your veins like everyone else from the subcontinent" (I managed to extract it from the HR person)

Lol!

Well that's why he's my ex-boss and he apparently outsourced most development a few years after I quit.

Personal experience. I was talking to some absolutely lovely Polish friends of mine one evening, and somehow we were discussing Christmas growing up. Somehow it came up that many of my childhood friends celebrated Hanukah instead, and the response was a puzzled "You like Jews? Really?" After some mentions of typical stereotypes as to why that would be strange, I said that that wasn't my experience and changed the subject.

From talking to other Polish people, my impression is that this is a fairly typical attitude. I think that the reason this doesn't show up as incidents in the news is simply that there are hardly any Jews in Poland because they were virtually completely wiped out in the Holocaust.

I'm not German but I live in German. I didn't notice racism. Maybe some don't like immigrants (especially from eastern Europe, same in UK). And what the hell is causal racism? Give me examples please.

> In America, they are doing well

This is taken as further evidence of American racism!

You also lose a lot of the cultural baggage when you go somewhere new, which when it's holding you back is a great thing to be rid of.

As a guy from northern England I have been held back in my career when working in the south because of my accent, which is not very strong anyway. For example not being allowed to give presentations, or meet clients, as there was someone who "Would give the right impression".

In the US I just have a weird accent. No cultural baggage, no jokes about being thick etc. If you can get past people trying to get you to say lines from Game of Thrones, you're accent doesn't mean anything.

I happen to prefer a Scottish accent over a BBC accent.

> 2. all management are German

Questions from someone that knows very little about Germany:

How much of this is the German culture to be educated to a master/PhD level in order to get into management roles? Perhaps that increases the barriers to entry into these levels for immigrants.

How much of this is a language barrier? Immigrants to English-speaking countries have often learned some English before they arrive (often from their schooling) which might put them in a more advantageous position relatively speaking.

To be honest, I do not want to speculate about the why and philosophize about the justifications, as the issue is very complicated and would needlessly deviate the discussion.

My comment was very matter of fact: because of the current lack of diversity in management, immigrants have virtually no opportunities to break into management, and because high compensation is almost entirely reserved for management, this means that immigrants cannot be deemed high-achievers in this business environment.

Does this also apply to 2nd generation immigrants?

It's hilarious how a thread about US immigration studies turned into discussion on German corporate ladder. And, various european attitudes about ethnicities.

Germany is not US. Europe is not US. How they deal with societal situations will be different from how US deals with societal situations.

Are there lots of German/Europe HN users? I am US centric so I tend to think HN is US thing, specifically tech cities, mainly, San Francisco.

Yet the US is is the most racist country in the world with "systemic racism", so much so that even China asked the US in UN to reflect upon their systemic racism instead of attacking other country's human rights.

Seriously, the US is a really fair country. You want to assert that the US is a racist country, do please define what qualifies "systemic racism". Don't be like that URI professor who hates everyone who "asks for data".

> do please define what qualifies "systemic racism"

It means whatever it needs to mean in a pinch.

It's defined as the racism inherent in the structure of the system, such as longer sentences for crack cocaine (preferred and used mostly by low income black people) versus powder cocaine (preferred and used mostly by well off white people).

Sometimes people use it to describe racism between people, but it's actually supposed to mean the structural racism which exists in a societal system. It doesn't mean that someone designed it that way, but it could have been or it could be an accidental thing.

Discounting a concept because it's used improperly by some of the "other side" is common today but not helpful.

Oh, good, then US doesn't have systemic racism, as proven by Thomas Sowell in "Disparities and Discrimination."

Please! All european countries have equal opportunity laws. If you are less qualified and do not speak local language, you will have a hard time!

Compared to most european countries, US is very xenophobic. We offer clear path to citizenships, after 5 years you get passport. Not this dreamer BS.

>Compared to most european countries, US is very xenophobic.

As an european who have worked for european and for american companies[1]... no, very much it's the reverse: european companies pay a lot of attention to university, nationality (home culture, really), and social class for matters of promotion; american companies are more results-oriented and much more cosmopolitan.

You might be judging it by what's being broadcasted in popular media - the european "we're enlightened all the way through" versus the american "we still have ways to go".

>All european countries have equal opportunity laws.

Only really useful for bilking the big multinational companies for moderately stingy fines. Nobody gets ahead because of a lawsuit.

[1] selection bias caveat applies, obviously

There is no "European" in the same way there is "American".

Europe country cultures are massively more different and diverse than US states.

There's only been free pan-EU movement since the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009. 11 years is not enough time to achieve the homogeneity that US citizens have from being single(dual at most) language, single currency & no borders for hundreds of years. Not to mention the similar pan US TV they all shared for decades.

To be fair, this applies even more directly to the parent of the comment you replied to (GP), which asserted that you get a passport after 5 years. That's true in a few European countries but explicitly false in many others.

The "dreamer BS" isn't in any way comparable. I seriously doubt you're offering citizenship in 5 years to anyone who shows up and sneaks across the border. I do think we should offer citizenship to the dreamers but it'd involve passing actual laws so...

Well, if they work, pay taxes, can have a driver licence... Yes they will get citizenship after 5 years of residency.

I just hate this smug american BS. "We love XYZ", but will exploit it, and change rules every 4 years.

> Well, if they work, pay taxes, can have a driver licence... Yes they will get citizenship after 5 years of residency.

As far as I can tell, it is eight years of legal residency. You also must not be dependent on welfare, which implies that you're either already wealthy, dependent on someone, or you have permission to work. Very similar to the US.

So effectively you have to apply for a work visa just like in the US, you can't just walk in and expect to be tolerated - unless you're a refugee.

> citizenship after 5 years of residency.

This is literally false in many European countries. I live in one where it is false. Please verify details before posting with specific numbers.

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/becoming-a-citizen/29288376

Which European countries provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who have lived in that given country for 5 years?

> Not this dreamer BS.

To be fair, the dreamers stuff is about people who came here / were brought here illegally by their parents.

We definitely have work to do on our immigration system but I would imagine if I immigrated to Germany illegally they wouldn't make the process very easy on me either.

Of course, but the law is a joke in practice (which btw is something I found typical of German law). It is very hard to prove discrimination and no immigrant would have the money, time and energy to pick such a battle.

What most of them do instead, (which is smarter than trying to fight a German employer in a German court) is they use Germany as a stepping stone. They come here, get a couple years of experience and move to a more welcoming country afterwards. And German bureaucrats and employers wonder why retention is so low.

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