Hacker News Reader

Comment by etanazir | Hacker News Reader

Discrimination based on race and discrimination based on the foreign nationality immigrant status are very different things, no?

View on HN

Xenophobia is racism's twin sister.

I don't believe anything in the article indicates this was Xenophobia. It sounds entirely plausible that it wasn't "offer him less because he's brown", but rather "offer him less because he lives in a lower-cost-of-living and lower-average-income country". i.e. this might be akin to saying "that's good money for someone from Alabama". It's not about race, it's about location.

I'm not saying there's a ton of evidence in favor of what I'm saying, I'm just saying it's a possible explanation.

The story says he wanted to move the Indian salesperson from India to California.

Oh I see - yes I agree that is different

I understand your point: different countries have different costs of living and different average income values.

Even though it's entirely hypocritical of me (I'm somewhat okay with Chinese companies paying lower wages as long as they're above the average Chinese income), I still can't let go of how "it's okay, he lives in India so he doesn't need that much money" sounds like "it's okay, she's black, she doesn't need that much money and wouldn't know what to do with it anyway" or "it's okay, he's Asian, I bet he's frugal enough not to need the same wage as our white employees".

Well gyc points out that I was mistaken about the nature of the situation, but I don't follow what you're saying. You're saying it's not okay for someone to pay differently based on race (and I agree), and it's not okay for someone to pay differently based on where the job is (and I disagree), but that it's okay for Chinese companies to pay lower wages? I'm not sure if you mean Chinese employees or employees IN China, or how that's different from the other things you said. I think employers should strike a balance between what you're worth and what you need, and what you need does depend on where you live.

Your examples are ridiculous. Your two "sounds like" examples are straight up racist (not that you think these things so please don't think that I'm calling you a racist). The other is just a geographical one that happens to span national borders. Even in the US, among the same race, people get paid less if they live in places that cost less. It has nothing to do with black or Asian. My company is based in California but has an office in North Dakota. The devs in ND make about 60% of what the devs in CA make. Nothing wrong about that.

But this guy was being relocated to the US. What wage is appropriate in India has no relevance to what is appropriate where he was being relocated.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com