Comment by gp90

Please don't comment in this cross-examination style on HN. The guidelines ask us not to do this. Please observe the guidelines if you want to participate here, especially these ones:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

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Eschew flamebait.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

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That's a made up deffinition only recently invented. Racism is hating another group of people based on physical or cultural background.

The US is the most powerful country does that mean if I go to india I can't experience racism because technically India is "weaker" ?

Isn't this example literally a group of stronger indians being racist to weaker individuals (job applicants)?

This also implies they are not hiring black, asian, or hispanic people either but because they're a minority that's ok?

Such a bad take.

I never understood this redefinition of the word... Racism means prejudice based on race. Period. Thats all it means. Redefining the word like you suggested is moving the political goalposts

So are you saying that if you were to put white people into a country that is systemically ruled by non-whites, they can’t be racist there?

At certain companies and it’s org structures yeah

What about these cases happening outside of the US?

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Eschew flamebait.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Ignoring whether the claim is accurate or not, if Indian hiring managers are preferentially hiring other Indians, yes of course this is racism, because it means they are also discriminating against all other PoC candidates, not just white people.

Please think a little bit harder before claiming something isn't racism because it might somewhat counteract the structural privilege enjoyed by white people. Yes, white privilege is a thing, and if the claim was that Indian hiring managers were giving preference to non-white people, your comment would at least be worth discussing in the context of a society which overall still privileges white people. But that wasn't even the claim.

That’s simply an outlandish claim. Most people are not in control of any level of the government.

You can't compress the complexities of all social dynamics to a single axis. What's the distinction you're trying to make between "act of discrimination" and "racism"? Usually the distinction people try to draw is something like "systematic" vs "one-off" (the difference between one person yelling at you on the street, and lots of people yelling at you in particular throughout the month), but the behaviour alleged here is systematic. I suspect you don't have any particular meaning in mind, instead having taken a habit of language that works well in certain situations, and falsely generalised it outside of its domain of validity.

If you genuinely believe that the "single axis" approach is valid, please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality.

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If you're a seasoned manager, you have learned to work across cultural differences. Being a lazy manager who doesn't want to understand how to work with others is shortsighted on its own and is not an excuse for being a racist.

Because, in general, there is more variance within groups than across groups, so you are generalizing that an individual person within a group is more talented / capable / whatever than an individual person from outside that group. Ergo, you are treating that second person "unfairly" due to his / her group membership or lack thereof.

> you found that your fellow countrymen are much more likely to follow your leadership style than any other group of different cultural background

Two points.

First: a good, seasoned manager adapts their leadership style to their employees. So the premise is a bit backwards.

But second, let's suppose we use something more valid like "ability to follow instructions". And suppose there are real differences in groups. You still don't stereotype on groups, because lower-performing groups still have high-performing members. So you have your interview examine the actual skill you need on an individual basis. You don't make assumptions based on group membership.

Now, for practical reasons candidates need to be reduced to a reasonable number to interview. That should be done according to personal accomplishments and experience, not groups.

The college you went to is tricky. Only hiring from a select group is not very defensible mainly because it's a bad signal. It reflects mostly your high school test scores and grades, which was years ago. On the other hand, some colleges teach in certain departments better or worse, your grades might matter and depend on the college, etc. So you need to calibrate for a bunch of achievement-based signals where the college name can matter, rather than whitelist only certain colleges.