There was absolutely no need to name those countries. As somebody said before, the funny thing about racial privilege is how hard it is to see when one is the beneficiary of it.
Perhaps he's had a bad experience with outsourcing to these countries.
If I go to McDonalds and have a bad burger then I'm sure going to remember it. In fact if the topic comes up I'll probably tell people "Don't eat at McDonalds, they make bad burgers".
How is stating ones past experience in any way racist?
If I ran into a black guy on the street and he mugged me then I'm sure going to remember it. In fact if the topic comes up I'll probably tell people "Don't run into black guys, they'll mug you".
I actually wrote India, Pakistan, China, South East Asia... and then replaced it with /etc.
I don't think it's unfair to make characterisations based on geographic location. People are not equal, and some nations are definitely "worse" than others in some respect.
Remember that I'm not saying that an Indian in London, for example, would be likely to be more difficult to work with. I know several Indian people in London, and some of them are better coders than me. I'm talking about Indian outsourcing businesses in India, and making an aggregate judgement of what it's like to work with them (not about whether they'll mug you). I think that's fair.
For instance, "Be careful about going on holiday in Somalia" is an equally generalising statement - not all Somali's are pirates or warlords - but it's a fair statement because if you're gonna set foot there, there's a reasonable chance you might meet one of them, so you should be forewarned.
What if you got mugged by most black guys you met? Do you think outsourcing to faraway places has a success rate of over 50%? Would you bet money on this? And I'm speaking as someone from a faraway place who once lived off outsourcing. Price competition on your hourly rate sucks, but it was the only realistic way we could make money.
If you actually say "Don't run into this particular black guy, because he mugged me" then your statement is equivalent to mine, and wouldn't be racist, just a statement of fact.
Hmm... I think that if you had said "Don't eat at the McDonalds at 451 Lexington Ave, because they make bad hamburgers" then it would be equivalent to "Don't run into this particular black guy, because he mugged me".
I'm not sure he was doing anything other than giving an eg for the top offshoring locations that popped into his head, in the same way people refer to "Kleenex" when discussing tissues. I see the emphasis is placed on complicated which the italics certainly support. As you also stated, sending complicated projects to people far away is a challenge regardless of the particular country involved. Please stop looking for excuses to be offended.
Like I said, I understand your point, I was making another point about the use of the word "offensive".
I'm Eastern European. The logical place to extend that list of countries outside of South Asia would actually happen to be in Eastern Europe. While it would bother me a bit (even though it would be overall more politically correct), it would fall far short of offending me.
