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I know very little about China, but the report mentions in passing that racism is pervasive in Russia where I was born, whereas Western societies have done a re

by yosefk 10y ago

I know very little about China, but the report mentions in passing that racism is pervasive in Russia where I was born, whereas Western societies have done a remarkable job addressing racism. It is not obvious to me that the American approach of racial quotas in high education (which incidentally penalizes Asians very heavily today, perhaps more than any other group) is particularly different from the Soviet approach of racial quotas in high education (which to some degree penalized ethnic Russians by reserving spots for people from the other "republics", and heavily penalized students from "overrepresented" minorities, quite similarly to penalizing whites somewhat and Asians more heavily in today's US.) It doesn't seem different from Israel's affirmative action where Arabs get preferential treatment at the expense of Jews, either. Perhaps it seems reasonable to some to blame Chinese for not having racial quotas which supposedly "address" racism, but especially since Asian Americans get heavily penalized in the scheme, it's hard to respond to an argument from a Chinese person that the scheme doesn't address racism but institutionalizes it. Nor is it obvious to me whether the average Westerner of any particular group is more or less racist than a citizen of Russia, including both ethnic Russians and those who are not. It's fairly obvious that the Westerner might be more reserved in expressing racist views, fearing repercussions, although at other times the Westerner will actually be very loudly racist if it is currently in vogue to be racist against this particular race (right now anti-white sentiment is celebrated, which, whatever its reasons, will surely produce terrible results; the broader point is that it's not obvious that being racist against one race at one time is fundamentally different than being racist against another at another time, and even if we agree that it's done for very different reasons, it does not follow that it will produce very different results.) I'm not saying that Russian attitudes toward race are the same as Western attitudes, just that the report's claims about the Russian society and the Western societies which I kinda sorta know things about (though it's hard to summarize millions of people very precisely or to inform oneself about them fully in the first place) make me suspicious with respect to its main topics, Chinese attitudes to race. It would be interesting (though not necessarily representative of the entire Chinese population) to hear Chinese people weigh in on this.

idra 10y ago
The "mention" is one sentence: "Racism is common at every level of Russian society and is at times explicitly voiced in Russia." This is true. How can this possibly make you suspicious about the article's main topics? You wrote a lot about nothing.
- _yosefk 10y ago
  In itself, this single sentence is true about every country on Earth; what gives it meaning is the context where it's followed by heaps of praise of Western racial policies, the positive example against Russia's and others' negative examples. I think it is relevant that this contrast does not quite make sense. If you allow yourself to smear a society of 140 million people in a single sentence, perhaps your hundreds of pages summarizing a society 10x as large is also a bit of a smear. BTW, from a brief glance at your comment history, most appear to have a strong anti-Chinese sentiment. I think that if you want to argue that the report is largely correct, it will be more interesting if you elaborate on that instead of talking about whatever I said in the grandparent comment.
  - idra 10y ago
    Those hundreds of pages have examples, references and sources. The section with this sentence doesn't single out Russia, the previous sentence is about South Asia, and the next one talks about Latin America. These are the things which are contrasted, and not Russia and "the West". I can see how, as a Russian, this sentence might have hurt your feelings and prevented you from understanding the article objectively, but it looks like you're seeing an issue where there's none.
- dang 10y ago
  You've repeatedly been rude in the comments you've posted to HN. We ban accounts that do this, so please stop doing it. _yosefk's thoughtful, reflective comment based on personal experience is the kind we welcome here.
dilemma 10y ago
The accusation of racism in another nation or culture is often a symptom of racism and ignorance in the accuser. I.e. A western person claiming Russia or China to be racist and sexist (based on nothing else than that "everyone knows that") shows that this western is themself a racist because they hold prejudice views against hundreds of millions, or billions, of people of a certain ethnic background.

by yosefk 10y ago

idra 10y ago

The "mention" is one sentence: "Racism is common at every level of Russian society and is at times explicitly voiced in Russia." This is true. How can this possibly make you suspicious about the article's main topics? You wrote a lot about nothing.

_yosefk 10y ago
In itself, this single sentence is true about every country on Earth; what gives it meaning is the context where it's followed by heaps of praise of Western racial policies, the positive example against Russia's and others' negative examples. I think it is relevant that this contrast does not quite make sense. If you allow yourself to smear a society of 140 million people in a single sentence, perhaps your hundreds of pages summarizing a society 10x as large is also a bit of a smear. BTW, from a brief glance at your comment history, most appear to have a strong anti-Chinese sentiment. I think that if you want to argue that the report is largely correct, it will be more interesting if you elaborate on that instead of talking about whatever I said in the grandparent comment.
- idra 10y ago
  Those hundreds of pages have examples, references and sources. The section with this sentence doesn't single out Russia, the previous sentence is about South Asia, and the next one talks about Latin America. These are the things which are contrasted, and not Russia and "the West". I can see how, as a Russian, this sentence might have hurt your feelings and prevented you from understanding the article objectively, but it looks like you're seeing an issue where there's none.
dang 10y ago
You've repeatedly been rude in the comments you've posted to HN. We ban accounts that do this, so please stop doing it. _yosefk's thoughtful, reflective comment based on personal experience is the kind we welcome here.

dilemma 10y ago

The accusation of racism in another nation or culture is often a symptom of racism and ignorance in the accuser. I.e. A western person claiming Russia or China to be racist and sexist (based on nothing else than that "everyone knows that") shows that this western is themself a racist because they hold prejudice views against hundreds of millions, or billions, of people of a certain ethnic background.