Comment by hazn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hazn | Hacker News Reader

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I agree that the article did not talk about racism, or at least discrimination enough. I am a german citizen of Turkish descent and work in IT. I am a native German speaker as I was born and raised in Germany. However, I had to endure countless of sublimely racist comments in many job interviews, ranging from asking where my parents came from to openly asking if I was “like one of the a-social (read: thrashy/criminal) turks”.

Even though the demand for workers in IT is high, people like me still face discrimination. I wouldn’t want to know how it is for people who don’t speak German on a native level.

Whenever I mentioned this to Germans with a brighter hue than me, they all chalk it up to some bad apples being racist. That is not the reality a lot of middle-eastern/brown looking people deal with. It impacts our day-to-day.

Being white south american in europe is quite strange, people (usually old people) ask you were you are from assuming you are going to say germany/france/italy/spain and when you say a country in SA they first frown, then, in their heads, they try to reconcile their views of that country with their views on your skin color.

For example I got told several times I don't look Brazilian and one time I remember someone completely changing their attitude (for the worse) after mentioning I was brazilian

I have one last name or German origin and one of Portuguese origin, I started putting only the german one in CVs

I see!

Your story hits home for me. It's interesting to see how the social integration of migrants is judged in middle Europe. People with a Greek and Italian descent share cultural similarities with people of Turkish descent. However, they often have a brighter hue than middle-eastern people. It appears that this fact is critical in how they are treated/thought-of/questioned.

Just like the story you just told, looking “white/western” is more important than sharing the cultural values of the country you live in. I apologize for the stupid “white” and “western” terms everyone, I couldn't put better words to such a fickle concept. I also apologize for the overgeneralization, I love Germany and the wider German society.

In Germany and Europe there might be another reason why (especially older) people frown at a white German from South-America [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(World_War_II)

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