Aaaand stuff like this is exactly why I say Asians face racism in tech and need to push back against the idea that they are "overrepresented" [1]. I really hope that if I'm in a management position, my reports don't feel like I have "cultural commitment that they should be grateful for their suffering" or some such tripe.
Oh, and never mind that apparently this is the same company that one of the parent comments is saying was "too nice" because it didn't let an employee go even after they stopped showing up. You really have to work hard to explain that one with an Asian cultural commitment to suffering, eh?
I would sincerely suggest to 'killjoywashere that they try saying out the same thing loudly about another minority (say Black people) based on some characteristic they were born with and see how it goes over. Better still, think a little bit about whether you have racist biases if this is your view on things, and maybe try to correct it.
> My usual joke with her is asking if she slept well on her bed of nails.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say your boss probably doesn't actually appreciate being asked stuff like that all the time. She likely just doesn't want to invite trouble by complaining about it.
Oh, and a cursory Wikipedia search reveals that Jerry Yang came to American when he was 10 years old, around 4th grade [2].
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https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3415130
how about forums?
https://www.reddit.com/r/taiwan/comments/6aa3x9/what_is_wron...
News reports?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16834258
> Jerry Yang came to American when he was 10 years old, around 4th grade
So ... his parents dropped their culture at the shoreline?
You know, there really are differences between cultures. That's thing. Italians, on average, really do tend to make better marinara. Find me a black person in America who doesn't know what fatback is (delicious component of certain Southern dishes, by the way). Convince me that the average white person does know what fatback is. Convince me that the average American knows what the Euro is (A night club? A style?).
If I said "I imagine Martin Luther may have liked beer and Weisswurst" is that racist?
> one of the parent comments is saying was "too nice"
Good point, yes, that's completely in line with the "work is next to Godliness" attitude I've observed. In that social norm, being nice is essentially the same as being grateful for the opportunity to take on more work. Nice = more opportunity to work. Now, there's also a bit of "forgive but remember" that goes with that. Those who need niceness all the time, maybe you don't hang out with them as much because you can only handle being so nice, you just can't take on more niceness, you're exhausted! May this dear friend share their opportunities to be nice to them a bit more with their other friends.
If your boss is from Texas and they're overworking you, is your first reaction to pull out survey data about how 50% of Texans believe in suffering as a form of atonement? Or is it just to say “What a jerk”? When people talk about Peter Thiel, how many times do they link his behaviors to elements of German culture and history?
By all means, if Jerry Yang was overworking his employees, call it out on the basis of him overworking his employees! But I don't want to be stereotyped and targeted because of something people in the place I originally came from do. It could very well be that Jerry Yang's parents came to America to escape the overworking culture, and therefore he has a keener sense of not overworking his employees than the average American has. Maybe that's why he didn't fire people that stop showing up to work! You have no way of knowing, and you're idly speculating.
Also – I am Asian, was not born in America, and know perfectly well what fatback and the Euro are. Another data point perhaps for throwing out some notions about what people may or may not know.
The point that culture is useful in thinking through possibilities stands. Half the world's population lives in the Valeriepieris circle (1), and half of that is is water. Without saying Asian, what if I argued that population density seems to incentivize hard work, and one would tend to suspect that folks who originate from high density populations are, on average, more likely to develop a culture that rewards hard work? I could then pile on with the cultural-difference-within-a-culture that cities exhibit. Would that be acceptable?
Applying "racism" as a label to the point I was trying to make is using a label to suppress an idea (2). Can you accept that I didn't have the idea fully formed and needed to argue it out a bit to get this better idea statement worked out?
My point is that this often works negatively against Asians, especially in management in a way that it doesn't for other racial groups.
Like you're way more likely to see people being okay with casually saying “Jerry Yang is Asian, therefore he overworks his employees” than say “Marvin Ellison is Black, therefore <some other negative characteristic>” in a conversation. That comment was up for more than five hours before I said something about it.
I think this is a problem. It's nowhere on the same scale as some of the problems that other minorities face across America. But in my opinion, it's important enough to call out occasionally.
How many african-americans join the KKK?
Since I can't edit it, the following might explain my position better: Asians get summarily excluded from a lot of minority-focused programs in tech on the basis of being over-represented. This should stop, and Asians should be included in minority-focused programs in tech. This is because (as you said, and as shown by this comment) they can be, and often are a target of casual racism and stereotyping.
It is exactly nationality-based stereotyping, based on a single example.
I did not say Jerry Yang thinks the same way. I said I imagine he could. It's a thought experiment. Can you imagine what kind of life it must be to think that suffering is the mark of success? Open your mind and think about that. What it must be like. How it must affect your kids. How you must have been affected as a kid. Why, what geopolitical factors created that cultural norm? Think. Think. The point of the comment was to think.
And, I would be hard pressed to completely generalize between say China, Taiwan and Japan. While you will find a lot of overtime and overwork in those countries, the way they happen is different and the cultural/social pressure behind that are different. And having worked with Asian Americans (both ABCs and people who came a bit later), I would vehemently disagree that you can easily generalize their behavior solely based on the culture of their country of origin, especially since they have lived in the US, spent time there, gone to school there and will have changed their values and culture over time just from this.
So, I don't think that saying Jerry Yang is taiwanese therefor will overwork his employees is a useful heuristic or likely to be true...
(Aren’t you?)
Afterwards I tried to estimate the cost to Yahoo of the time of the dozen or so people, including one of the founders, and I don't remember my estimate, but I do remember it was many times the cost of the server.
[1] yes, Yahoo had multiple billing teams - that's a story in itself; my team existed almost entirely to protect the European businesses against the perceived inability of the US billing team to accept and respect the requirements of the European business. Of course we couldn't admit that to the US team, so my job was basically to repeatedly refuse to surrender an inch in terms of customer requirements whenever the US team tried to convince us to move something over to the US platform.