
How the Asians Became White - kevbin
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/05/29/how-the-asians-became-white/
======
andrewfong
I think his point is that "white" is becoming synonymous with "privileged",
and that people are responding by grouping Asians with "whites" because they
are increasingly enjoying the same systematic privilege that whites do.

The whole privilege debate has always bothered me a bit. I don't doubt that
having a particular ethnic background helps in certain situations, but
"privilege" suggests a certain binary-ness that doesn't accurately capture all
the nuances of race and ethnicity in America.

For instance, there's a large amount of variation among different Asian
groups. There is a world of difference between the socioeconomic status of the
Hmong community in Michigan and the Taiwanese community in the Bay Area. Or
even between the Chinese immigrants who came in the 1800s and the latter wave
of immigration in the last few decades. And while it may be fair say that, all
else equal, being to a particular ethnic group grants certain advantages
relative to belonging to other groups, that advantage isn't uniform. For
example, being Chinese or Indian is probably a net plus if you want to be a
software engineer in the valley; it's probably a net minus if you want to be
an actor in Hollywood.

That said, I don't think the answer is to be color-blind. Race and ethnicity
clearly matter in America -- it's just not as simple as privileged / not-
privileged or majority / minority.

~~~
adventured
It's the escalation of an agenda of class warfare that some sides of the
political spectrum push non-stop as their particular flavor of system abuse,
power seeking, and greed.

It's going to get a lot worse. We're in the early stages of a huge revival in
populism, and a lot of it is targeting the rich.

------
beloch
Enforcing racial hiring quotas is probably the worst way to address
inequalities amongst minority groups. It enforces the stereotype that
minorities are inferior and don't deserve the jobs their appearance has given
them.

If you look at, for example, blacks in the U.S., two things stand out rather
starkly: Poverty and incarceration rates. On average, kids in wealthy, stable,
two-parent families do better than kids in poor single-parent households.
Poverty and incarceration rates for blacks in the U.S. are significantly
higher than for whites or asians. To compound matters, schools/teachers in
poor areas are often of poorer quality than schools in rich areas.

The U.S. has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. The for-
profit prison system and complicit judges/politicians have created this sad
state of affairs. This needs to change. One way to accomplish this might be
for state and federal governments to take control of the prison system. More
public funding needs to be directed towards schools and youth programs in poor
areas. More money needs to be focused on easing poverty. Give these kids back
their parents, reduce the desperation of extreme poverty their families
experience, and give them quality education. Do all this, and we won't still
be talking about race-based hiring practices a generation from now.

In general, children are an investment in the future and the U.S. has not been
investing in all children equally.

Edit: Note that I am Canadian. Disproportionate incarceration, poverty, and
inferior schooling are all problems faced by (many) first nations communities
up here, only with the added difficulty that acting to change any of these is
guaranteed to turn into a political fecal-storm. The feds recently tried to
improve the education system, but it basically blew up in their faces and
undermined the AFN (assembly of first nations) in the process.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Bringing up things like poverty or parental education is a red herring. An
Asian student from a family earning $0-10k has a higher average SAT math score
than a black student from a family earning $70k+.

(Data was leaked from the college board in 1995. I'm not aware of more current
data - anyone else? Specifically, I'm looking for a data set which slices some
sort of outcome score by (race, income) pairs.)

[http://theunsilencedscience.blogspot.in/2013/10/black-
suits-...](http://theunsilencedscience.blogspot.in/2013/10/black-suits-gowns-
skin-sat-scores-by.html)

I'm not sure what you mean by "easing poverty" or "desperation...their
families experience". Could you explicitly list what good/services poor
children lack which cause them to underperform?

~~~
trustfundbaby
> An Asian student from a family earning $0-10k has a higher average SAT math
> score than a black student from a family earning $70k+.

This is true but heres something to consider, my feeling is that Asian
Americans are what I consider _newer_ immigrants to America. My understanding
is that they actually started to come here in large numbers after 1965 when
the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments eliminated racial/nationality-
based discrimination in immigration quotas.

Why is this important?

I think that you'll find that if you compare the SAT scores of Asian Americans
to recent black immigrants to the United States (Nigerians, Ghanaians and
jamaicans for example), you might find that their scores are much closer than
your initial comparison.

The reason for that is what I call the immigrant effect ... explained by this
quote from a David Brooks NY Times article

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/what-
drives...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/what-drives-
success.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=2&referrer=&assetType=nyt_now)

"Group success in America often tends to dissipate after two generations. Thus
while Asian-American kids overall had SAT scores 143 points above average in
2012 — including a 63-point edge over whites — a 2005 study of over 20,000
adolescents found that third-generation Asian-American students performed no
better academically than white students"

~~~
yummyfajitas
My only point is that parental income is not driving force behind racial
achievement gaps.

Perhaps immigrant status is the driving force behind the Asian/Black and
Asian/White gaps. But then what causes the Asian/Mexican gap? Also, if you
have data showing Nigerian/Ghanaian/Jamaican immigrants do as well as Asians,
or the original source for Amy Chua's data, I'd love to see it.

~~~
trustfundbaby
> My only point is that parental income is not driving force behind racial
> achievement gaps

I wish I had more data for you, but how could it not be? Better incomes means
better homes, in better neighorhoods, betters schools and access to the kind
of environments suitable for realizing full educational potential of a child.
With the notable exception of blacks who as noted in the American Life episode
'house rules'

"The average African-American household making $75,000 a year or more, that
family lives in a poorer neighborhood than the average white family making
less than $40,000 a year. That is, a black family making twice as much money
as a white family probably still lives in a poorer neighborhood. That's
according to a study from Brown University."

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/512/t...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/512/transcript)

which means that the access to better education of what I said above, probably
doesn't apply to the same degree for blacks as it does for others.

> Also, if you have data showing Nigerian/Ghanaian/Jamaican immigrants do as
> well as Asians, or the original source for Amy Chua's data, I'd love to see
> it.

I wish I did, but I don't. I took an African American Studies class years ago
with a source, but I didn't save it :\

> But then what causes the Asian/Mexican gap?

That I'm not sure of. Definitely plan to do a bit more reading around that

~~~
yummyfajitas
_...how could it not be?_

You suggest one possible way it could be true - black families with money
choose not to spend it on things that you believe improve outcomes, and asians
spend their money on these things even more. This seems unlikely since the
curve relating black outcomes to black income is upward sloping just like all
the other curves.

Another possibility: "better homes, better neighborhoods, better schools"
don't actually improve outcomes. Some hidden factor X might be causing both
higher income, better homes, better schools, and better outcomes.

~~~
trustfundbaby
> You suggest one possible way it could be true - black families with money
> choose not to spend it on things that you believe improve outcomes

Then you missed my point entirely. The point of the quote and the podcast (you
really should listen to it) is that black people with money were unable to
move into nicer neighborhoods, because of persistent racism.

Asians carry the "model minority" tag and as such have fewer problems moving
into nicer neighborhoods because people aren't intimidated by them or worry
that they'll be difficult to control.

> Some hidden factor X might be causing both higher income, better homes,
> better schools, and better outcomes.

Yeah. A lack of racism directed against said groups :)

------
scarmig
"White has stopped meaning Caucasian, imprecise as this term has always been,
and has started to mean “those racial groups that have made it.”"

I wonder how much it'd shock Eugene if someone pointed it out to him that, in
American racial discourse, Irish and Italian folk were once considered "not
white." Even _Germans_ were once considered not-white: as recently as WW1,
much of the anti-German propaganda up-played the idea that they were somehow
more Asiatic than good Anglo-Saxons and Frenchmen.

Before a strong sense of minority ethnicities was forged in the mid-20th
century, whiteness was the word applied to the demographic categories that had
made it; if they hadn't, they simply wouldn't be considered white. Now we feel
it's pretty ridiculous to say that Asians are white, and for good reason. But
it's silly for Volokh to pretend that whiteness-as-pale-skin is anything but a
pretty recent innovation; in a way, pulling Asians (at least, the successful
subgroups, the Chinese and Japanese, and to a lesser extent Koreans) into
whiteness is the conservative, traditional approach, and his idea that there's
a real "whiteness" that people either do or don't fall into is the kind of
ethnic studies navel gazing he'd usually vociferously denounce.

~~~
baddox
> I wonder how much it'd shock Eugene if someone pointed it out to him that,
> in American racial discourse, Irish and Italian folk were once considered
> "not white."

Why would that shock him? That's perfectly in line with his claim.

~~~
gavinpc
Indeed, this is referenced explicitly in the piece that he quotes:

 _As with the experience of the American Irish, Italians, Jews, and many other
groups, the Asian experience shows that racial divisions and hostilities can
subside over time._

But regarding that piece, I found the following passage problematic:

 _And it’s evidence of the essential fairness of the American capitalist
system, which has rewarded this hard work even though many people, including
many government officials, tried to penalize it._

I submit that the phenomenon in question describes the essential _unfairness_
of the American system, capitalist or otherwise. If people can be "rewarded"
for their "hard work" in _spite_ of their race only when that racial identity
is subsumed by whiteness, it only reinforces the existing power structure. Or,
the author might argue, it was this success and recognition that led to the
change in racial perception. Either way, it's not what I call fair.

------
alextgordon
> Of course, it would be appalling for Google to fire Asians...

> I think it would be equally appalling for it to fire, stop hiring, or hire
> fewer whites as well.

You _think_ it would be? How have we got to the point where racism has to be
rhetorically hedged in?

In the UK, not only is it illegal to hire on the basis of race, but it's also
deeply taboo. I like to think that a UK company would not have the racial data
on their employees to compile such statistics.

I hear a lot about "white males" from supposed leftists, and frankly it
disgusts me. There is a large amount of casual racism that oozes from the
American left under the guise of "equality".

~~~
anigbrowl
Crypto-racism from the left is a problem, but in fairness the legacy of
slavery and civil rights abridgement is _much_ more recent here in the US than
it is in European countries. Slavery hasn't been institutionalized to the same
degree in mainland Europe as it was in the US since Roman times - of course it
wasn't absent because of colonialism, but nor was it ever so prevalent as to
dominate local economies the way it did in the US. Class, gender, and property
ownership were greater legal barriers to suffrage in most European countries
than ethnic origin, and over a much longer timeframe - the Third Reich being
the major exception to this trend.

By contrast, in the US you had people systematically excluded from exercising
the vote within the last 50 years, which is comparatively recent. I think the
politicization of race has resulted in a great many misconceptions all across
the political spectrum, but that doesn't mean you can just pay it some lip
service and call the problem solved.

I can find you equally obnoxious casual racism from the right, or you could
just read the comments on American newspaper articles. I read a story this
morning about some tourists visiting Chicago's Willis Tower who were
frightened by superficial-but-not-obviously-so cracks in the building's
observation deck, which is famous for having a glass floor. More than half the
comments on the article consisted of suggestions that the tourists in question
being Latinos from California, the cracks must have been caused by weapons in
their pockets. WTF.

~~~
alexeisadeski3
>>Crypto-racism from the left is a problem

"Crypto"??

~~~
aydinhan
I think it means "latent" in this context.

------
chroem
Why should this even matter in the first place?

How can we be a supposedly post-racial society and yet have this level of
scrutiny on the racial makeup of a company that is clearly not actively
discriminating based on race? I don't mean to be hyperbolic, but this isn't
far off from having political overseers at production facilities in the former
Soviet Union.

~~~
anologwintermut
Because if there are large systemic racial inequalities (not that I think
employment at Google is worthy of the title, compared to things like education
and incarceration rates), then we manifestly aren't in a post racial society.

Given the history of legal and social discrimination in the US, the impetus is
on the people claiming we live in a post-racial society to back that fact up.

~~~
rdtsc
One then has to ask what does it mean that there are racial inequality? It is
not in general, it has to be constrained to a particular domain.

Say look at customers in a store and notice there is inequality, more people
of a certain race visit it. What does it mean? Should something be done about
it? Then, there is like you said, prisons. There is something disturbing going
on, and something has to be done there, more urgently, than say figure out why
there is racial misrepresentation at that one mall or store.

Ok two extremes. What about Google? There is racial inequality at Google. What
does it mean? Should something be done about it? Should Google hire based on
racial profiles. Minority X gets Y slots based on some weighted criteria. Will
that solve anything? Will it make things worse. Should anything be done at all
at Google? Is that a big priority. Should we be looking at prisons instead...

~~~
enneff
Google is looking to address inequality in the tech sector, because that's
where its expertise and experience lies. Its is not doing this by hiring based
on racial profiles. It is doing this by trying to encourage people from
diverse backgrounds to a) enter the field in the first place and b) actually
apply for jobs at Google.

~~~
rdtsc
> It is doing this by trying to encourage people from diverse backgrounds to
> a) enter the field in the first place and b) actually apply for jobs at
> Google.

Is there anything in the data (I haven't looked too much in dept) about the
application pool. Because it seems to me, b) kind of sidesteps deeper issues
and kind of says (figuratively) "Minorities just don't know to apply to
Google. If that is the sentiment I am not sure I agree with it.

(Unless of course Google and just then turn around and implement racial quota
hiring decision and then in effect we back to that. As "just apply, we'll make
sure you get in").

I have seen companies do that. One company I worked for hired a minority into
upper management. Her skill set, experience and competence was not up to par.
Compared to the rest of the managers. The belief was that she was there as a
token "minority" person. Not necessarily disagreeing with that. Maybe those
kind of steps are needed. But just saying companies do that.

Now on a) I know Google does some good work. They have good programs for Women
in tech. But not familiar too much with their program geared for racial
minorities. Can you point me to some?

~~~
enneff
My understanding is that we have analysed our hiring process and found that
the diversity of candidates is ~equivalent to the diversity of hires. In other
words, there isn't bias in our hiring processes. The problem is we don't have
enough candidates from diverse backgrounds applying.

------
hiroaki
As a South Asian Indian, I am puzzled by ethnicity questionnaires which never
have an option that seems appropriate. "White" seems wrong as does
"Caucasian", even if we are supposedly anthropologically related. "Asian"
seems to refer to Asians except for persons of the Indian sub-continent. And
"Indian" refers to American Indians.

Sigh...

~~~
enneff
Woah woah! "Indian" should not be used refer to Native Americans in a
questionnaire!

~~~
majika
Nor should "Indian" be used to refer to South Asians. Pakistanis, Bangladeshis
and Nepalis are not Indians.

~~~
shiven
True! I prefer the more geo-neutral term: _desi_ !!!

~~~
shanev
Desi is bit of a strange term for some. As a person of Sri Lankan origin, I
don't know any other Sri Lankans who refer to themselves as desi. I didn't
hear the term myself until college. I don't know why we need a new term when
"South Asian" is perfectly adequate.

------
bmmayer1
Anyone interested in this topic should read "The History of White People" by
Nell Irvin Painter, who shows how in America the very definition of "white"
has changed to include a widening circle of people. For example, in the 18th
century, German Americans weren't considered white. In the 19th century, Irish
Americans weren't considered white.

~~~
trustfundbaby
Thanks for the recommendation and the information. I didn't know any of that,
looking forward to getting through the book!

------
rayiner
Asians account for 1.8% of Fortune 500 CEO's, despite being 6% of the overall
population and 20-25% of the enrollment at places like Harvard or Stanford
business schools. Not quite white yet by my estimation.

~~~
hellgas00
Since the 1970s the Asian population as a percentage has grown more than 5x
(greater multiple than all other demographics) You would expect that if the
median age of a CEO is in the 50s the enrollment numbers of Asians back then
(1970-80) weren't expressed nearly as significantly. So still sounds 'white'
any estimation.

------
vezzy-fnord
Asians are in an interesting position from a sociological perspective. They're
"white" in the sense that they're largely implicit and they mostly blend in,
but they have the (misfortune?) of being largely ignored, even by those
concerned with social justice, in favor of other minorities. This is also
evident in discussions about diversity in tech.

On the other hand, white people are white people. They're always at the center
of controversy and just about everything else, as is usual for a majority.

~~~
bmmayer1
Is it possible that Asians are so successful in America precisely _because_
they have been largely ignored in the pursuance of social justice?

~~~
thkim
Not in a passive sense. Majority of Asians chose to pursue personal
development over fighting for social justice.

~~~
andrewfong
> Majority of Asians chose to pursue personal development over fighting for
> social justice.

That might be technically true, but I'm pretty sure a majority of all ethnic
groups spend most of their time engaged in things other than civil rights
activism.

Nor would I suggest that Asian civil rights activism is somehow less active
than that of other ethnic groups. There's a pretty rich history of Asian-
American civil rights activism dating back to the 1860s (e.g. Yick Wo v.
Hopkins was a landmark civil rights case decided in the 1886) and dealing with
issues ranging from internment in the 1940s (look up Fred Korematsu), hate
crimes (look up Vincent Chin), and general xenophobia (the whole debacle
around Wen Ho Lee). If Asian Americans seem less prevalent than, e.g., African
Americans, I'd suggest it has more to do with making up a smaller portion of
the population than any cultural distinction.

------
tokenadult
Volokh here is decrying the same kinds of policies that I decry, for many of
the same reasons. Forcing people into Procrustean categories more narrow than
"citizen" for the people of one country builds division in the country and
keeps people from treating their neighbors humanely as their fellow human
beings. That kind of categorization was wrong and a moral outrage in the days
of Jim Crow legally enforced segregation and it is still a bad idea today,
even to correct the previous wrong.

I care about this issue deeply. I'm a baby boomer, which is another way of
saying that I'm a good bit older than most people who post on Hacker News. I
distinctly remember the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated--
the most memorable day of early childhood for many people in my generation--
and I remember the "long hot summer" and other events of the 1960s civil
rights movement.

One early memory I have is of a second grade classmate (I still remember his
name, which alas is just common enough that it is hard to Google him up) who
moved back to Minnesota with his northern "white" parents after spending his
early years in Alabama. He told me frightening stories about Ku Klux Klan
violence to black people (the polite term in those days was "Negroes"),
including killing babies, and I was very upset to hear about that kind of
terrorism happening in the United States. He made me aware of a society in
which people didn't all treat one another with decency and human compassion,
unlike the only kind of society I was initially aware of from growing up where
I did. So I followed subsequent news about the civil rights movement,
including the activities of Martin Luther King, Jr. up to his assassination,
with great interest.

It happens that I had a fifth-grade teacher, a typically pale, tall, and
blonde Norwegian-American, who was a civil rights activist and who spent her
summers in the south as a freedom rider. She used to tell our class about how
she had to modify her car (by removing the dome light and adding a locking gas
cap) so that Klan snipers couldn't shoot her as she opened her car door at
night or put foreign substances into her gas tank. She has been a civil rights
activist all her life, and when I Googled her a few years ago and regained
acquaintance with her, I was not at all surprised to find that she is a member
of the civil rights commission of the town where I grew up.

One day in fifth grade we had a guest speaker in our class, a young man who
was then studying at St. Olaf College through the A Better Chance (ABC)
affirmative action program. (To me, the term "affirmative action" still means
active recruitment of underrepresented minority students, as it did in those
days, and I have always thought that such programs are a very good idea, as
some people have family connections to selective colleges, but many other
people don't.) During that school year (1968-1969), there was a current
controversy in the United States about whether the term "Negro" or "Afro-
American" or "black" was most polite. So a girl in my class asked our visitor,
"What do you want to be called, 'black' or 'Afro-American'?" His answer was,
"I'd rather be called Henry." Henry's answer to my classmate's innocent
question really got me thinking. Why not treat all of my neighbors as
individuals, one at a time?

And anyway I've seen this issue go wrong for people in other countries. Also
in my childhood, in the other state I lived in growing up, I had a classmate
in the early 1970s who would get on the school bus each day wearing a button
that said "Serb Power." I thought that was very strange, because I knew my
history well enough to know that Serbia hadn't been an independent country
since Yugoslavia was formed after World War I. And, anyway, he was living in
the United States and had been born here, so why was he so concerned about
Serb power? We all found out during the early 1990s how crazy many people in
Yugoslavia were about former historical grievances, which made that country
disintegrate and killed many innocent people born long after the grievances
should have been forgotten.

Most reporting to the federal government about "race" and "ethnicity" is based
on the U.S. Census bureau definitions for ethnicity and race categories, which
in turn are based on regulations from the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB), which were announced on 30 October 1997

[http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_1997standards](http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_1997standards)

to take effect no later than 1 January 2003 for data collection by all federal
agencies. You can look up the detailed category definitions on the website of
the United States Bureau of the Census. As the Census Bureau itself notes,

"U.S. federal government agencies must adhere to standards issued by the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in October 1997, which specify that race
and Hispanic origin (also known as ethnicity) are two separate and distinct
concepts. These standards generally reflect a social definition of race and
ethnicity recognized in this country and they do not conform to any
biological, anthropological, or genetic criteria. The standards include five
minimum categories for data on race: "American Indian or Alaska Native,"
"Asian," "Black or African American," "Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific
Islander," and "White." There are two minimum categories for data on
ethnicity: "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino." The concept of
race reflects self-identification by people according to the race or races
with which they most closely identify. Persons who report themselves as
Hispanic can be of any race and are identified as such in our data tables."

[https://ask.census.gov/faq.php?id=5000&faqId=191](https://ask.census.gov/faq.php?id=5000&faqId=191)

It's politics all the way down. I'd be happy to see the United States move in
the direction of treating individuals like individuals, equal before the law
and all deserving full legal protection of civil rights, period.

------
fatjokes
I doubt Asians have integrated into "white" society the way American Jews,
Irish and Italians have. E.g., their example of interracial marriage is
heavily imbalanced by gender.

~~~
dba7dba
> their example of interracial marriage is heavily imbalanced by gender.

I read somewhere Asian women is most desired by men of other races while Asian
men is least desired by women of other races. Read that somewhere...

No, Asian is not white.

------
contingencies
Asia is goddamn massive, encompassing thousands of significant and distinct
cultures. "Asian" is, to my mind, therefore a pretty pointless adjective when
applied to migrants from this huge region who have moved in to western
societies, and merely reflects the ignorance of the west toward the earth-
shatteringly different cultures of Asia. Shame on the west.

------
brighteyes
For me, the interesting thing is how this was overlooked by almost everyone
that read the statistics. People just saw large amounts of white people and of
men in the data, and jumped to the "obvious" usual conclusion about
overrepresentation. The data vaguely fits the narrative, so people quickly
moved past the data and fell into the usual talking points.

Instead, the interesting thing in the data is the large amount of
overrepresentation of Asian people. There's nothing wrong with that, but
perhaps the sense that overrepresentation is a sign of wrongness that is the
cause of people being afraid to mention it or focus on it.

Overall, the group most overrepresented in tech (judging from google's numbers
and others) are Asian men. Yet, because the overall political narrative is
focused elsewhere, that will remain un-remarked upon.

~~~
chetanahuja
As someone pointed out above, the hiring pool for google is global. Especially
focused on the population of graduate students in CS and related courses in US
colleges. If you look at the data from that perspective, you'd find that
Asians are in fact under-represented in Google's (US) work-force :-)

------
Bahamut
As a Korean, I don't think I've ever been called white - the article does
mention some good points, but I don't think its mention about asians being
mistaken for whites is well-articulated.

~~~
thkim
Surely nobody's going to call an Asian a white -- I think he just meant to say
that it's becoming less meaningful to group Asians among minorities in
demographic analysis, perhaps because Asians are showing similar pattern as
"whites".

------
firstOrder
From the Google NY Times article (
[http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/google-releases-
emp...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/google-releases-employee-
data-illustrating-techs-diversity-challenge) ) > Thirty percent of Googles
46,170 employees worldwide are women, the company said, and 17 percent of its
technical employees are women....Of its United States employees... 2 percent
are black ... Of Googles technical staff, 60 percent are white, 1 percent are
black...Though Google did not specifically say how it planned to change the
numbers, it said that it hoped releasing them would start a dialogue. The
company had made changes in the past to recruit and retain women...

Then it goes on and on about women. If 30% overall and 17% technical are
women, compared to 2% and 1% for black, it sounds like women have it
relatively good.

Many of my CS classes had more black guys than women of any color. Yet there
is almost no discussion of this. It's Jesse Jackson who prompted that this
data be released.

While this is about Google, they've been the most open and forthright about it
in releasing the data. The situation is widespread through the Valley.

I hear happy horseshit about Watsi and other nonsense in the Valley. Begin at
the source - with the LPs of VC's exploiting mostly young talent in the
various startups - startups where 1% of the hired technical workers are black,
if that.

------
chroma
As horrible as it sounds, I think racism is a social problem in need of a
technological solution.

If people could change their physical appearance as easily and as cheaply as
their clothes, this problem would disappear overnight. If everyone could
choose their gender, race, height, etc, there would be no point in
discriminating based on those traits. To quote Dr. Seuss, people could change
their appearance...

> until neither the Plain nor the Star-Bellies knew

> whether this one was that one... or that one was this one

> or which one was what one... or what one was who.

(Minus being scammed by Mr. McBean.)

Sadly, that sort of technology won't be around for centuries, if ever. But I
think we can get most of the way there with present-day tech. More and more
jobs allow remote work, and on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. With
the right blinding in the hiring process, we could make discrimination
impossible. Even if the job isn't remote, the hiring evaluation could be done
without meeting in person. Once a person is shown to be intelligent, mindful,
productive, kind, etc... it's very hard to maintain a prejudice against any
trait they may have been born with.

This wouldn't solve the problem of a bias in applicants, but it would
eliminate any implicit or unconscious discrimination.

~~~
cottonseed
> With the right blinding in the hiring process, we could make discrimination
> impossible. Even if the job isn't remote, the hiring evaluation could be
> done without meeting in person.

I've been suggesting for a while someone build a blind hiring website. I'm
imagining you'd have a service to help cleanse gender, race, age, etc.
information from the application materials. Even if you have phone or in-
person late-stage interviews, this could radically change the makeup of the
candidate pool at the final step.

I agree that meeting might never be necessary. I know an academic department
that doesn't meet faculty candidates because they find the application
materials are a better predictor of the kind of academic success they're
looking for. I'm inclined to think this is true more often, but I have no
data.

------
cloudwizard
I live in SV and my son competes in math and robotics competitions. I have
never seen an African American at a competition. Robotics has more caucasians.
Still below 50% but Bay Area skews Asian so hard to tell.

Elementary School Math competitions are almost completely SE Asian and South
Asian. Maybe 2% Caucasian. Girls/boys are about 50/50 across Asians. Fewer
Caucasian girls than boys but small sample size.

Just random observations.

------
yen223
You gotta think global. Han Chinese make up almost 20% of the world's
population. Calling us the 'minorities' seems pretty laughable.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Well, disadvantaged minorities also exist in China; e.g. Uighurs in Guangzhou.

~~~
yen223
I more surprised at the fact that people are touting the high number of Asians
at Google as some sort of success story about us Asians and our culture.
Google hires people from around the world, not just the US.

I'm more inclined to believe that there are high number of Asians simply
because there are more Asians in the world, period.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Well, I know plenty of poor Chinese...but then again I live in China. From
that perspective, this discussion is all very American biased anyways.

------
fishywang
I guess most people are not aware of California SCA5 [1]

That's basically an idea to brutally "reflect the demographics of the
country". And that's actually racist.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Constitutional_Amendmen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Constitutional_Amendment_No.5)

------
rtpg
This article seems to think that White will turn into the "winner's category",
but historically this _is_ what that meant.

"White" as a racial definition only exists to allow opposition to the
"colored" races (for things like slavery, colonialization,etc).

------
neves
This has a creepy precedence. During South Africa Apartheid, Japan was one of
their main commercial partners. South Africa primary goods were essential for
the japanese miracle. A law suddenly declared all Japanese white, giving them
the same rights.

------
huherto
Should there be a distinction between white Asians and colored Asians?

The more we mix the harder is to make this classifications.

Also, immigrants who come from far a way are usually better off. So may be
they should not be considered a minority in the traditional sense.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
> Also, immigrants who come from far a way are usually better off.

What!? There were plenty of Chinese and Vietnamese (+ Hmong and so on) who
came over during the Vietnam and Chinese-Vietnam wars as refuges who, like
most displaced peoples, had (and still have) many social and economic
problems; e.g. gang violence that you normally wouldn't associate with upper
class Asians.

~~~
analyst74
Recent Chinese and Indian immigrants (probably true for other Asian countries
too) tend to be either wealthy or highly educated, due to stability of the
region and changes in immigration policy.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
We are still taking in Asian refugees from where there are still many
conflicts and instability. According to [1], we took in 19,000 refugees from
East Asia (I'm betting mostly southeast), 35,000 refugees from the Near
East/South Asia, 2,000 from Europe and Central Asia (why they clump those
together...weird).

[1]
[http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/o...](http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_rfa_fr_2011.pdf)

------
erikb
Maybe this also comes to Europe one day. But from the current perspectives I
don't know any German who considers the Asians here as white. Therefore it
seems to be quite the US thing from my perspective.

------
Mangalor
> My point is simply that, if one thinks that the problem is lack of
> “reflecti[on of] the demographics of the country,” “white[s]” aren’t the
> problem.

I don't think anyone is saying that white men are a "problem". There's so much
defensiveness in these counter-articles coming out as though this is some
specific attack on white males. I don't think Google was trying to shame
itself over its own white male percentages, it was just exposing its own
racial breakdown data instead of previously keeping it a secret.

~~~
xienze
People get defensive because the image presented is precisely that there's a
problem with demographics being "too white" and "too male". For instance,
today CNN presented this:

[http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/29/technology/google-white-
male...](http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/29/technology/google-white-
males/index.html?iid=EL) ("Google: Overwhelmingly white and male")

> I don't think Google was trying to shame itself over its own white male
> percentages

I'm not sure what other conclusion you can draw when Google says "we're not
where we want to be" and the giant pie chart slices are 70% male, 61% white.
They were apologizing and acting contrite about _something_, don't you think?
The implicit message is "we did a bad thing hiring too many white males."

It absolutely is an attack -- not by Google directly, but by our culture which
strives to make whites feel ashamed about who they are. I don't blame Google,
they're looking out for their best interests. They don't want to get slammed
for having too many white dudes in their ranks.

~~~
Mangalor
> The implicit message is "we did a bad thing hiring too many white males."

By interpreting this purely as an attack on white males ONLY you're ignoring
the "attack" perceived by minorities who see things like 1% black tech
employment rates and see mainly systemic bias. It has the appearance of
avoiding the issue experienced by minorities.

~~~
a-t-shirt
> By interpreting this purely as an attack on white males ONLY

Come on, man! He's not doing that! He was responding to this claim you made
just two posts above:

> I don't think anyone is saying that white men are a "problem". There's so
> much defensiveness in these counter-articles coming out as though this is
> some specific attack on white males.

Despite Asian people being overrepresented and White people being
underrepresented—in fact, despite Asian men being the most overrepresented of
the demographics listed by Google (honestly: congrats!)—CNN and other media go
for the fashionable target: White men.

It's interesting: When Asian people succeed, White people admire their hard
work and determination. When White people succeed, White people feel shame and
guilt.

~~~
Mangalor
> When White people succeed, White people feel shame and guilt.

I think that's an exaggeration. When's the last time whites felt shame about
Buffett's or Gate's success?

The problem for minorities or women is that it seems like every time race or
gender is brought up in tech, the majority comes out _in droves_ to steer the
conversation into a discussion of white male hardship _while also_ completely
avoiding or the dismissing the original issues brought up about minorities and
women in the workforce.

------
uouv
When is race going to be replaced by meaningful (more quantitative) properties
for grouping people?

------
alexeisadeski3
Google is pre-empting the coming Silicon Valley shakedown by civil rights
groups.

------
jasg
For those who insist on ignoring race, here's some racial food for thought
that I hope you will take a moment to consider.

Why is it that we can categorize people by age, sex, disability, income, etc.,
but when it comes to race, race is all of a sudden some sort of taboo,
something "we need to finally move on from" in a supposed post-racial society?
Sure all these categorizations of people are "human," regardless of race or
income or any sort of background -- but their experiences and situations
growing up are not all the same, and that's the key point.

That statistical correlations exist with race across the spectrum in so many
vital facets of American life means that it's a meaningful idea. To deny the
existence of race as it affects people's everyday experience and situations
denies that race is a factor that actually matters. And that's a problem,
because it does matter. And it's more than just data, as meaningful as data
is. You can simply ask a minority about their personal experiences growing up
in America to learn about some of the things a minority may go through.

Also consider that there is an inherent bias here in HN since it's reasonable
to say that _most_ of us come from privileged backgrounds, regardless of race.
Always consider the background of any minority who dismisses race as an issue.
They only speak to their personal experience and it may not be indicative of
the mounds of minorities who organize and find common ground in their
situations and experiences.

And I'm not here to argue necessarily over what "race" means, its definition
or its construction and meaning over time, because that's not the issue I'm
trying to bring up. It's clear to anyone with common sense that this
construction of "race" that we perceive still matters, and it has always
mattered for centuries in countless civilizations and societies, though how it
plays out may not be universal.

I understand that it's not easy. If we could ignore race completely somehow,
_in theory_ , perhaps we really _could_ whisk away many of the problems that
it brings. In some sense, race is unique from other categorizations of people
because of how fluid its definition is, how subjective race really is. Yet, it
amazes me how with something as complex an issue as poverty or economic
growth, we can take great measures to study it and analyze its history and
come up with all sorts of policies to tackle its many dimensions... but when
it comes to race or racism, we think we can solve the issue by dismissing it.
"Let's just forget about race, it will go away!" Does that simple diagnosis
really make sense for one of our oldest social ills?

Many of us don't want big brother meddling with affairs they need not stick
their noses in, but even if you hate the government, I think we could all
agree that if the government were to disappear tomorrow, the world would
collapse. I say this again to point to the complexity of race issues, that you
simply just can't throw the idea away and expect the issues to fix themselves.
At the very least, it's something that deserves to be treated with
seriousness, whose intricacies need to be appreciated to be understood. The
ability to simply ignore an issue or approach it shallowly because it may not
affect you is what _real privilege_ is, not the petty term that it is
unfortunately so often thrown towards white males or whichever privileged
group is in question.

One last word, which truly applies to issues beyond race: If you feel
uncomfortable talking about race in this post-racial world you envision, then
I'm sorry but it's not about your personal feelings towards race, when there
are people out there facing real problems that deal with race. And it's great
if you "personally don't see race," but unfortunately that's not the
experience of many others, or the people born into a situation that is a
product of systematic racism.

I encourage you to step away from those personal feelings and your worldview
and to instead consider the lives of others, at least for a moment.

