8 ms·

I'm Asian, wasn't born in America and didn't grew up in America as well. I don't have a horse in this race. I don't feel annoyed to change that term. I'm only a

I'm Asian, wasn't born in America and didn't grew up in America as well. I don't have a horse in this race. I don't feel annoyed to change that term. I'm only annoyed if someone guilt trip me if I don't change the name out of ignorance (i.e, I don't follow politics, no time for social media). I don't think I have any bias against women or minority in tech. Changing main or master or slave doesn't ring a bell or evoke an emotion in me. If my boss wants it master or main or slave or white or black, I'll do it. I'm very very surprised about this whole identity politics thing. First time I came to the US and I conversed with this Asian women friend, who told me that she wanted to go to business school, and I asked her "why business school?" and suddenly another Asian women (friend of her) cut me and said "Oh why not, because she is a woman?" and I was like "wow, where did that come from? what does that even mean?" and since that day I know that US racial issue is fucked up big time.

threatofrain 6y ago
> "Oh why not, because she is a woman?" and I was like "wow, where did that come from? what does that even mean?" and since that day I know that US racial issue is fucked up big time. But what does your example have to do with race?
- christiansakai 6y ago
  Not race in particular. Just identity politics. In this case, it seems one of the woman friend in my circle thought I was being sexist to her friend. We were Asians, but I didn't grow up in the US, but these 2 women do. The immediate reaction to that question must had evoked something deep within her, that I attribute to her upbringing here in the US.
  - cema 6y ago
    You are right, but I would add another item. She forcefully inserted herself in the conversation you had with your friend, and did it in a way that changed the conversation to the worse, with the tone becoming adversarial, and the direction of the thought rather different from what the original participants of the conversation intended. When it happens to a friendly group of people (as was the case here) it is okay, the confusion can be resolved peacefully and the conversation can move whichever way the three of you choose, being friends and all. But sometimes it happens in a larger scale, and then the conversation can be destroyed. I really wish people had been more conducive to maintaining a dialogue, we need to maintain a decent level of discourse in the society (and, more particularly, in our industry).
    - christiansakai 6y ago
      Indeed, after that night everyone just forgot about that conversation, since we mostly know each other. I imagine social media is the worst environment to have this kind of dialogue.
dottlt 6y ago
I just keep my mouth shut talking to anyone in a minority status, born in the west, that I don't know well. I've seen it go wrong several times so I'm just 100% business. I'll get hate for admitting this, but what am I supposed to do? No one wants to think critically or challenge their beliefs on the matter, so if I'm not willing to 100% toe the line if I do make a mistake then either I have to debase myself in an Orwellian "there are two fingers" moment, or I get in trouble. I'm not willing to do either.
- christiansakai 6y ago
  In my mostly 99% Asian circle of friends, we have a few white people, and I can't help but be super uncomfortable every time the topic of racism being brought up, because I was thinking "dang, how would these white friends in our circle feel, they must've felt uncomfortable in these kinds of conversations". Yeah, heads you lose tails I win kinda situation. In my circle of Asians, we have our own trouble as well. My wife is Japanese, and I grew up influenced heavily by Japanese culture (I'm Indonesian Chinese), but majority of my circle is 99% Koreans and Chinese. So yeah every time WWII or Japan/Korea/China thing gets brought up I also just stay silent and will just ask my wife to go home early or pretend we have some business to do. Definitely something will go wrong. We are in our 20s - 30s, and WWII are our grandparents generations battle. We are aware of Japan's WWII problem, but we aren't gonna pretend we know what to do.
  - pnutjam 6y ago
    Now imagine how uncomfortable the non-whites are in almost any other conversation or setting.
    - wcarron 6y ago
      > I'm Asian The person you are replying to
      - ngokevin 6y ago
        It fits the bill. Asians are treated as white in tech. There's never any conversation around Asian-Americans. It's awkward because we're not quite Asian, but not quite treated as fully American either. Many programs have checkboxes to identify as minority groups (black, LBGTQ+, women, LatinX, which is great), but not Asians, who are statistically one of the biggest minorities at ~5%. Despite my family being refugees, much of which died getting here. Despite eastern culture being almost the polar opposite of western culture. I wish that counted for something more. Not asking for any special treatment because I feel Asian-Americans just put their head down and do the work. But it's stark how silent the conversation around Asian-Americans is, except for when we talk about Crazy Rich Asians.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nvarsj 6y ago
It's not an American thing, this happens everywhere. I moved to London from the US a few years ago, and when I first moved here, interacting with unfamiliar cultures, I made these kind of mistakes all the time.
- nvarsj 6y ago
  I thought some people might find it amusing the kind of mistakes I made. Here are a couple. I asked my Pakistani heritage boss when he immigrated, innocently. Note I'm an immigrant to the US myself and now the UK, so I thought it was not a bad question to ask. He's British born though, and considered himself a British citizen foremost. And given the rampant racism in the UK against those of Pakistani origin (many white Brits don't consider anyone Pakistani to be "proper British"), well you could see how he might be offended at my question. Fortunately he just laughed at my rudeness. Another time, I made a bad joke to a French colleague of mine who I'd been working with for a couple weeks. I think he said I didn't seem like a normal American, and I responded saying I didn't think he looked French, not wearing a striped shirt and a beret. Oh man, that really dug my grave right there. Saying he didn't look French was probably the greatest insult I could ever have said. He is of Turkish heritage, and Turkish people have been persecuted and treated poorly for a long time in France, including lots of racism based on "they don't look French". He was angry with me for a very long time over that. I apologized to him profusely, saying I was just an idiot American, and I think he forgave me eventually.
kazinator 6y ago
Changing the default branch name in git is technically disruptive, therefore annoying to people who have to deal with it.
- christiansakai 6y ago
  I imagine so for monorepos with plenty of developers working on it. But wouldn't that be solved easily with "git rebase -i <the_branch_that_change_the_name>" and maybe some other CI/CD pipeline.
  - kazinator 6y ago
    In contrast, not perpetrating an idiotic rename requires no action at all.
  - mathw 6y ago
    It would be a pain, but they're not changing any existing repos so it's up to the team to coordinate if they want to adopt such a change themselves (and GitHub have enhanced some of their tooling around branch renames to make it easier to do as well).
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
lostcolony 6y ago
>> First time I came to the US and I conversed with this Asian women friend, who told me that she wanted to go to business school, and I asked her "why business school?" and suddenly another Asian women (friend of her) cut me and said "Oh why not, because she is a woman?" and I was like "wow, where did that come from? what does that even mean?" and since that day I know that US racial issue is fucked up big time. It is, but I'd encourage you to examine that a bit more from the perspective of the person weighing in. Yes, you meant nothing by the question, and you would have asked it regardless of the other person's gender, but what is interesting is -someone got defensive-. Why? She's hypersensitive; is it more likely she got that way apropos of nothing, that she has just bought into some victim culture that is determined to create claims of systems issues wholecloth to rail against, or because she -has- run into misogyny enough times that she assumes the worst? Again, it's not reflective of you, but take an empathetic view to where people like that are coming from, as it's not a vacuum.
- christiansakai 6y ago
  Oh yeah for sure, but this conversation already derailed, so no further dialog was necessary. I was coming from a point of view "small talk on a dinner table during hangout" and she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you" so, better to let the conversation die down and continue another time.
  - icebergonfire 6y ago
    > she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you" Is it fair to you? No, it isn't. However you need to realize that _that question_ has been used, probably verbatim, in bad ways against her or her peers... therefore she has pattern-matched this into a sexist question too. This is not an irreversible state. 99% of these communication breakdowns can be solved with a polite correction: "no, didn't cross my mind. I am sincerely curious about what drives that career decision, if I may ask". I won't get entangled into a straw-man battle-royale, so if the person cannot recognize they made a mistake and correct course: sure thing I'll retreat. That hasn't happened to me just yet, but I know it could. Fair? No, but it is what it is. I am aware we are dissecting a quickly summed-up situation here, so my argument might not apply to the actual encounter you experienced. But if it does, I think you and lots of others are skipping on conversations that you actually wanted to have due to a very small and temporary defect on the dialogue.
dekhn 6y ago
yes many people today are tuned to parse your sentences as making value judgements about specific classes, races, or genders. I've been working to help correct this misconception through careful writing.

threatofrain 6y ago

> "Oh why not, because she is a woman?" and I was like "wow, where did that come from? what does that even mean?" and since that day I know that US racial issue is fucked up big time. But what does your example have to do with race?

christiansakai 6y ago
Not race in particular. Just identity politics. In this case, it seems one of the woman friend in my circle thought I was being sexist to her friend. We were Asians, but I didn't grow up in the US, but these 2 women do. The immediate reaction to that question must had evoked something deep within her, that I attribute to her upbringing here in the US.
- cema 6y ago
  You are right, but I would add another item. She forcefully inserted herself in the conversation you had with your friend, and did it in a way that changed the conversation to the worse, with the tone becoming adversarial, and the direction of the thought rather different from what the original participants of the conversation intended. When it happens to a friendly group of people (as was the case here) it is okay, the confusion can be resolved peacefully and the conversation can move whichever way the three of you choose, being friends and all. But sometimes it happens in a larger scale, and then the conversation can be destroyed. I really wish people had been more conducive to maintaining a dialogue, we need to maintain a decent level of discourse in the society (and, more particularly, in our industry).
  - christiansakai 6y ago
    Indeed, after that night everyone just forgot about that conversation, since we mostly know each other. I imagine social media is the worst environment to have this kind of dialogue.

dottlt 6y ago

I just keep my mouth shut talking to anyone in a minority status, born in the west, that I don't know well. I've seen it go wrong several times so I'm just 100% business. I'll get hate for admitting this, but what am I supposed to do? No one wants to think critically or challenge their beliefs on the matter, so if I'm not willing to 100% toe the line if I do make a mistake then either I have to debase myself in an Orwellian "there are two fingers" moment, or I get in trouble. I'm not willing to do either.

christiansakai 6y ago
In my mostly 99% Asian circle of friends, we have a few white people, and I can't help but be super uncomfortable every time the topic of racism being brought up, because I was thinking "dang, how would these white friends in our circle feel, they must've felt uncomfortable in these kinds of conversations". Yeah, heads you lose tails I win kinda situation. In my circle of Asians, we have our own trouble as well. My wife is Japanese, and I grew up influenced heavily by Japanese culture (I'm Indonesian Chinese), but majority of my circle is 99% Koreans and Chinese. So yeah every time WWII or Japan/Korea/China thing gets brought up I also just stay silent and will just ask my wife to go home early or pretend we have some business to do. Definitely something will go wrong. We are in our 20s - 30s, and WWII are our grandparents generations battle. We are aware of Japan's WWII problem, but we aren't gonna pretend we know what to do.
- pnutjam 6y ago
  Now imagine how uncomfortable the non-whites are in almost any other conversation or setting.
  - wcarron 6y ago
    > I'm Asian The person you are replying to
    - ngokevin 6y ago
      It fits the bill. Asians are treated as white in tech. There's never any conversation around Asian-Americans. It's awkward because we're not quite Asian, but not quite treated as fully American either. Many programs have checkboxes to identify as minority groups (black, LBGTQ+, women, LatinX, which is great), but not Asians, who are statistically one of the biggest minorities at ~5%. Despite my family being refugees, much of which died getting here. Despite eastern culture being almost the polar opposite of western culture. I wish that counted for something more. Not asking for any special treatment because I feel Asian-Americans just put their head down and do the work. But it's stark how silent the conversation around Asian-Americans is, except for when we talk about Crazy Rich Asians.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

nvarsj 6y ago

It's not an American thing, this happens everywhere. I moved to London from the US a few years ago, and when I first moved here, interacting with unfamiliar cultures, I made these kind of mistakes all the time.

nvarsj 6y ago
I thought some people might find it amusing the kind of mistakes I made. Here are a couple. I asked my Pakistani heritage boss when he immigrated, innocently. Note I'm an immigrant to the US myself and now the UK, so I thought it was not a bad question to ask. He's British born though, and considered himself a British citizen foremost. And given the rampant racism in the UK against those of Pakistani origin (many white Brits don't consider anyone Pakistani to be "proper British"), well you could see how he might be offended at my question. Fortunately he just laughed at my rudeness. Another time, I made a bad joke to a French colleague of mine who I'd been working with for a couple weeks. I think he said I didn't seem like a normal American, and I responded saying I didn't think he looked French, not wearing a striped shirt and a beret. Oh man, that really dug my grave right there. Saying he didn't look French was probably the greatest insult I could ever have said. He is of Turkish heritage, and Turkish people have been persecuted and treated poorly for a long time in France, including lots of racism based on "they don't look French". He was angry with me for a very long time over that. I apologized to him profusely, saying I was just an idiot American, and I think he forgave me eventually.

kazinator 6y ago

Changing the default branch name in git is technically disruptive, therefore annoying to people who have to deal with it.

christiansakai 6y ago
I imagine so for monorepos with plenty of developers working on it. But wouldn't that be solved easily with "git rebase -i <the_branch_that_change_the_name>" and maybe some other CI/CD pipeline.
- kazinator 6y ago
  In contrast, not perpetrating an idiotic rename requires no action at all.
- mathw 6y ago
  It would be a pain, but they're not changing any existing repos so it's up to the team to coordinate if they want to adopt such a change themselves (and GitHub have enhanced some of their tooling around branch renames to make it easier to do as well).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

lostcolony 6y ago

>> First time I came to the US and I conversed with this Asian women friend, who told me that she wanted to go to business school, and I asked her "why business school?" and suddenly another Asian women (friend of her) cut me and said "Oh why not, because she is a woman?" and I was like "wow, where did that come from? what does that even mean?" and since that day I know that US racial issue is fucked up big time. It is, but I'd encourage you to examine that a bit more from the perspective of the person weighing in. Yes, you meant nothing by the question, and you would have asked it regardless of the other person's gender, but what is interesting is -someone got defensive-. Why? She's hypersensitive; is it more likely she got that way apropos of nothing, that she has just bought into some victim culture that is determined to create claims of systems issues wholecloth to rail against, or because she -has- run into misogyny enough times that she assumes the worst? Again, it's not reflective of you, but take an empathetic view to where people like that are coming from, as it's not a vacuum.

christiansakai 6y ago
Oh yeah for sure, but this conversation already derailed, so no further dialog was necessary. I was coming from a point of view "small talk on a dinner table during hangout" and she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you" so, better to let the conversation die down and continue another time.
- icebergonfire 6y ago
  > she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you" Is it fair to you? No, it isn't. However you need to realize that _that question_ has been used, probably verbatim, in bad ways against her or her peers... therefore she has pattern-matched this into a sexist question too. This is not an irreversible state. 99% of these communication breakdowns can be solved with a polite correction: "no, didn't cross my mind. I am sincerely curious about what drives that career decision, if I may ask". I won't get entangled into a straw-man battle-royale, so if the person cannot recognize they made a mistake and correct course: sure thing I'll retreat. That hasn't happened to me just yet, but I know it could. Fair? No, but it is what it is. I am aware we are dissecting a quickly summed-up situation here, so my argument might not apply to the actual encounter you experienced. But if it does, I think you and lots of others are skipping on conversations that you actually wanted to have due to a very small and temporary defect on the dialogue.

dekhn 6y ago

yes many people today are tuned to parse your sentences as making value judgements about specific classes, races, or genders. I've been working to help correct this misconception through careful writing.