Comment by parennoob | Hacker News Reader

Comment by parennoob | Hacker News Reader

As an Asian person who undergoes a ton of implicit and occasionally explicit racial discrimination (I have often been called out repeatedly for belonging to a specific nationality, and been the butt of numerous jokes regarding it), it is somewhat disheartening to see people who are higher than you on the social totem pole (e.g. highly-educated white females) often being the beneficiaries of programs such as these on the basis of their gender. It is absolutely true that they too probably have been discriminated against in the technology field, but in the overall social arena, they are in a much better position than, say, Asian men.

As a result, in an average tech workplace (which is a combination of technical and social factors), I think Asian people are at just as much, if not more at a disadvantage than women.

I don't want to feel animosity, or even ambivalence towards such programs, but given the reason above, it is a bit difficult for me not to. Any thoughts/solutions that the HN crowd might have about this? By nature, I'm not particularly inclined towards $SOCIETAL_GROUP-specific programs, but if that is the solution people think is useful, I'd be willing to advocate for it in the future, and focus towards soliciting donations, etc. for that instead.

[edit: Downvoters, I'm asking for opinions or solutions. Why not offer one in addition to your downvote?]

I'm also an Asian male and you're right about the implicit (and sometimes explicit) discrimination we deal with. I was at a party last summer and someone called me a "Jap" but was "just kidding." White people don't deal with this.

However, I also benefit from being an Asian male software developer. Whenever I meet new people in business, I am automatically assumed to be smart which has proven highly profitable. Finding work is never an issue and I make quite a comfortable living because people with money assume I am good at what I do - I have less to prove than a programmer who is say, Latino or perhaps female.

My solution? If you can't beat em, join em. Why don't you volunteer to teach at a girls code school? Might meet some cute female instructors who also like programming - pretty rare. Use your strengths in whatever way you can.

As a post-script to the "Jap" guy, a few weeks later he got fired from his job and has been out of work since. He is a high school educated white male in his late 20s. We all have our challenges and if being white also included being stupid, ignorant and money-less like this guy, I'll take Asian.

> White people don't deal with this.

I am white. I get called 'brit' or 'pom' or 'white guy' and so on all the time by colleagues of various ethnic or cultural backgrounds. I take it as friendly jibing unless I can see there is clear intention to upset.

Monkeynotes, don't take this the wrong way but you will never understand what it's like to be called a derogatory term as minority in a society that constantly denigrates your background. It's just not the same. It just isn't.

I think you're very sadly mistaken - white people can be victims of racism, too, you dig? I grew up and went through a school system where white people were by far the minority, and yes, I had to deal with racism.

edit: Downvotes? Yikes. Like most people, I'd prefer some constructive replies instead of silent detractors, but it is what it is.

I'm never going to change your mind on this and you will never change my mind so let's leave it at that.

No worries. Sorry we don't have the opportunity to have a more in-depth conversation about it.

What if I moved to a country where I was the minority? Could I then understand?

I guess. If you were born in that country and every day you dealt with negative portrayals of people who like you (William Hung, Long Duck Dong, etc), you would probably understand.

More importantly, I'm not asking you to understand. It's not your responsibility and I don't blame you for any of this. It's just something that Asian males have to learn to deal with. We just have to man up and deal with it.

I agree that people can be racist against whites too. However if you're the majority in the country you'll experience it far less than if you're say 6%.

Strange, I feel like I have to prove myself more because I'm an Asian man. Western society doesn't look fondly on Asian men's looks and so literally the only thing I have going for me are my accomplishments and skills.

Yes, some people might think I'm more intelligent based on my race. On the other hand, some people may think I'm not qualified for leadership or public facing positions because of male Asian stereotypes.

True. I acknowledge that. The deal comes with both the good and the bad. That's all I'm saying - don't forget the good. For me, at least, it's quite good. It's almost shameful how much I get paid by the hour to write code while watching the Mets play (supposedly) professional baseball on TV.

Why do you feel the need to say that Asian people are more at a disadvantaged that women? Can't we agree that both are at a disadvantage and we should help them? Your statement is highly subjective and really difficult to prove. You are also implying that we should help women less and Asian people more. Don't be like that. There's absolutely no need to try to empower one group while lowering another one.

Not the OP, but in this context, I think Asian men are meant to feel privileged by virtue of being a) male and b) heavily represented in the tech scene. And yet at the end of the day, Asian men suffer from racial disadvantages that may never be addressed in our lifetime. Hence, there is sort of a cognitive dissonance that develops.

Both groups may be at a disadvantage and may have certain privileges, but people rarely acknowledge the (1) the disadvantage of Asians, especially Asian men, and (2) the privileges of white women. Secondly, the population of Asian men is 3% in the US, the population of white women is 32%, and the feminist movement is far stronger than the Asian (or Asian male) movement, thus Asian men are also placed in the "privileged" and "oppressor" class.

So while one powerful group is pushing for representation of women in engineering, another is fighting for broader social equity for Asians - the latter is often seen as less legitimate when applied to Asian men specifically (low social status, lower marriage/dating prospects), or which are huger racial things that may never be fixed anytime soon in a US society while Asians remain a tiny minority, because those are the kinds of inequalities that people tolerate, while under representation of women in engineering is widely recognized and addressed as a bad thing.

> Why do you feel the need to say that Asian people are more at a disadvantaged that women? Can't we agree that both are at a disadvantage and we should help them?

I was trying to say that Asian people are also at a disadvantage, and that we should try to help them as well. I have seen several "X for Women in Tech" initiatives, and absolutely none for, say, "Asian Men in Tech".

> You are also implying that we should help women less and Asian people more

That implication may seem true if you think of "resources for helping" as a finite amount. I was just saying that we should help Asian people more. This could actually be a good thing. Maybe there are rich Asian men who don't donate to "Rails Girls Summer of Code", but who might consider donating to a similar program for Asian people? I don't know.

> There's absolutely no need to try to empower one group while lowering another one.

Definitely. But as a disadvantaged person myself, it would benefit me and others like me more to promote the empowerment of an often-overlooked group of people.

Unfortunately as an Asian man, you'll get very little sympathy except from other Asian men, and we have very little social or political power to create these sorts of things - people don't really care, or will say you are privileged anyway.

Especially social inequalities: there isn't going to be an affirmative action program for dating, and no one's going to create a "make asian guys popular" program.

I've found that expecting the modern political system to take care of us is still a fantasy, so the best solution is to not complain too much, focus on your blessings, and work on improving yourself.

I like your comments on this topic.

A side effect of the political system trying to prop up a given group is that those groups end up doing worse on a number of metrics. So, to your point about blessings: one of our blessings is that we aren't the targets of these kinds of initiatives.

Why don't you seek out or create a group for Asians and/or work towards raising awareness about the racial discrimination you've experienced?

I'm not highly-education and lived well below the poverty line for the majority of my life. If not for programs like this I would still be there.

Study after study has shown that different groups learn and interact in different ways. Programs like this can teach to those differences without treating them like a defect. For instance, women don't respond to competitive environments the same way men do. Women tend to shutdown while men push forward. I've taught unisex (although it was mostly male) and women only coding classes. Women tend to pair more and help each other. Men tend to work alone.

I'm an Asian woman and I've definitely experienced more sexism than racism.

That said, if it bothers you that there aren't more "Asians in Tech" programs, why don't you start one? No one is stopping you, except maybe the people who would complain about it being unfair to THEIR underserved minority groups.

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