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Comment by Commodore63 | Hacker News Reader

The cries of racism really ring hollow when they're talking about actions of a government, not a people or a culture.

I think this is explicitly the danger of nationalism. It has always been odd to be, because criticism seems the cornerstone of a democracy. You need to recognize what is wrong (because you're never perfect) and improve upon that. You can do this and have pride in your country too. But we need to disassociate the idea that a people (or race) and their country are one in the same. There's relatively little difference in people due to their race. But similarly we need to be able to allow others to criticize our country without taking it personally. An outside perspective can be valuable.

But I think we end up making it a family issue. I can make fun of and pick on my brother, but you can't.

Wait, what? So Jim Crow or Apartheid were not racist because they were promulgated by governments?

For context, in the article the mainland Chinese student association leader mentioned that by the mere mention of Xinjiang and the CCP’s culpability was seen as being racist toward them as Chinese people.

Did we read the same article?

William Wang, president of the program's student government body, drafted a letter that was signed by more than 80 Chinese students in the program and sent to the administration on Thursday evening, then sent to all program students on Friday.

"We left today’s colloquium because we felt that the atmosphere in that room was extremely hostile towards us," the letter stated. "At that moment, we were not sitting in a classroom; we were crucified in a courtroom for crimes that we did not commit."

Yes we did.

“we were crucified in a courtroom for crimes that we did not commit.”

These students are confusing criticism of a government and leadership with criticism of an entire race of people. Either that or they’re being disingenuous.

Saying that Xi Jinping and the CCP have terrible policies is not racist.

For the record I am also Chinese.

Since we’re on the subject, Jiang Zemin is more fit to rule. That’s something a lot of different factions both inside and outside of China can agree on. Xi Jinping is a disaster not just for China, but the entire world.

I think you've misunderstood the GP. The Chinese students are claiming the people criticizing the Chinese government are being racist. The GP is saying criticizing a government (and not the people) is not inherently racist.

GP is saying that if some is criticising the Chinese government, it does not imply that they are being racist towards Chinese people. But these students try to muddy the waters by conflating the two issues.

Sounds like the “criticise Israel and you’re anti semetic” thing

Different people have different motivation: among people who criticize Israel there are people driven by antisemitism. Of course not all critics are antisemitic. The same with China - some can be right (in critics of CCP) for wrong reasons (xenophobia/nationalism). Or one can criticize specific policies for good reasons and be labeled as a racist.

Not really. When someone is very anti Israel, more often than not, if you dig a little deeper you find an antisemite.

But when people criticize China, they criticize the politics and you almost always find them praising Taiwan and Hong Kong, invalidating the idea that they're racist.

No, it's more like this:

    if you criticize certain policies of the Chinese government:
      if you are not ethnic Chinese:
        you are racist
      else:
        you are treasonous

Remove the negation from the else please, otherwise LGTM

>"we were crucified in a courtroom for crimes that we did not commit"

They don't mean for crimes they personally did not commit, but alleged "genocide" that plurality of UN members who has formal position on the matter states PRC did not commit. When the dominant narrative is PRC government actions in XJ is counter-terrorism/deradicalization, the anti-China racism being complained about is "false" western propaganda, i.e. completely opposing foreign policy. And TBH some of the past alleged racism is pretty apt, like posters of Chinese curlers throwing a corona virus for the Winter Olympics. Rest is just Chinese idpol finding their place on Western campus culture, foreign students protest over diasphora shit all the time. So why wouldn't Chinese play the racism card.

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