Even Pao admits it's likely because her name rhymes well.

Reddit has ALWAYS loved irreverent and even incredibly offensive puns.

Redditors would be calling her Chairman Pao even if she was well loved just for humor value.

https://www.reddit.com/r/yishansucks

that's a stretch. if the intent is to create a sarcastic nick-name that compares the ceo to a dictator, "chairman pao" is going to be a front-runner not because pao and mao are both chinese but because pao and mao are only 1 letter different from each other.

You can't really reason with people once they labeled something as "racist". Convincing them that they are wrong would imply that they can't differentiate between what's racist and what's not and that's something that would affect their core beliefs.

Regardless of the intention, they ARE both chinese. So is it really a stretch to see a racist element to this nick name? It is racist by default. I'm not saying that it is a greatly offensive nickname or even unfunny, but for someone to call it racist is not at all a stretch.

Is it racist to acknowledge that Ellen Pao is of Chinese ancestry? I don't get how but I don't get a lot of the modern sensitivities.

Certainly if you want to denigrate someone and you bring up their gender or ethnicity, it can be sexist or racist.

but they aren't denigrating her because she is Chinese. They are denigrating her because they perceive her to be a terrible CEO, and Chairman Pao is a easy way to belittle what they see as her 'authoritarian' ways

Give it a rest

how is it racist?

yes only those of Chinese decent are compared to Mao.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0SO8xk4b...

calling obama a monkey is different from calling george w. bush a monkey regardless of intention.

Don't know why people are downvoting this. It's racist. Period. End of discussion.

Also funny which trumps both even if true.

It's not racist, calm down Tumblr.

Calling someone you disagree with racist is itself racist. People call her Charmin Pao because she moved to limit free speech, increase dictatorial control, fire those who disagree with her and generally seems like dictator in here own special little way.