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I don't know if you're aware of this, but your comment seems laden with anti-Chinese sentiment ("Chinese-ridden") that doesn't seem justifiable by facts nor by

I don't know if you're aware of this, but your comment seems laden with anti-Chinese sentiment ("Chinese-ridden") that doesn't seem justifiable by facts nor by modern standards of treating other people. First, the demographics of California are not what you state. People of Asian descent comprise ~15% of the population of California, not 40%. Second, is there evidence that the rationale for the selection of the inexperienced company from China was influenced by anything except for nominal cost? Specifically, is there evidence that race was a factor in the company's selection? Perhaps I'm wrong but it seems highly unlikely prima facie. Third, if we accept as fact that third-world nations don't grasp the essentials for running sustainable society (which I don't in general, but will for this comment), then what is the relevance of that to Chinese Americans? I would argue that there is none. Fourth, Chinese taxpayers lost money just as much as non-Chinese taxpayers, proportional to their tax payments. Fifth, phrases like "Chinese-ridden" have no utility except as derogatory terms. Deriding an entire race of people makes absolutely no sense, as your race does not determine your person nor even your culture. Basically, it comes off as racist.

malandrew 12y ago
Nationality, not race. The People's Republic of China is a country of many races. The one race that most people in the US think of when they hear "Chinese" is more specifically known as Han Chinese ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese ). This piece is more nationalistic/jingoistic in spirit than racist. Furthermore, countries (and their people) do typically exhibit identifiable differences relative to other countries (and their people). A piece about American-made cars relative to Japanese-made cars probably describes perfectly valid generalizations as the cultures of the countries, companies and people involved are probably markedly different. Had this piece talked about work for hire done by a firm located in the US (or any country besides the PRC) where the owners and most or all of the employee were of ethnic Han Chinese, then you could fairly call it racist, since the focus would then be on their race and not all the attributes (culture, regulatory environment, business practices/norms, etc.) that go along with identifying them by their nationality. I would have found the piece far more balanced had their repeatedly identified the management as "American management", since all the failings of this project exhibit traits somewhat typical of American management styles. It would have been as fair (i.e. statistically valid generalizations based on facts) as repeatedly identifying the source of the goods as Chinese since historically there have been noticeable quality issues with products produced in the PRC relative to countries like the US, Germany, Japan, etc.
- austinz 12y ago
  Parent was replying to a comment by a now-banned account, not to the article.
  - malandrew 12y ago
    Cool. Missed that comment. Nonetheless, my comment is valid for the original Sacbee article.
  - dang 12y ago
    The misunderstanding was because of a rare collision: we banned that commenter a few seconds before carbocation posted his reply. We almost never kill comments when they have replies. (And strictly speaking we didn't do that here either.) But that comment was so egregious that I'm not inclined to unkill it. Anyone who wants to can read it by turning 'showdead' on in their profile. On a positive note, the recent changes that we and, more importantly, the community have made to HN threads have had the interesting side effect of making banning less common. It's mostly restricted now to throwaway trolls, spammers, and users with a clearly negative track record on the site.
beachstartup 12y ago
of course he knew he is being racist. racism against asians and whites is almost completely ignored, even tacitly encouraged in most places. fairly sure the author deleted his post only because he was down voted and called out, not because of any kind of change of heart.

malandrew 12y ago

Nationality, not race. The People's Republic of China is a country of many races. The one race that most people in the US think of when they hear "Chinese" is more specifically known as Han Chinese ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese ). This piece is more nationalistic/jingoistic in spirit than racist. Furthermore, countries (and their people) do typically exhibit identifiable differences relative to other countries (and their people). A piece about American-made cars relative to Japanese-made cars probably describes perfectly valid generalizations as the cultures of the countries, companies and people involved are probably markedly different. Had this piece talked about work for hire done by a firm located in the US (or any country besides the PRC) where the owners and most or all of the employee were of ethnic Han Chinese, then you could fairly call it racist, since the focus would then be on their race and not all the attributes (culture, regulatory environment, business practices/norms, etc.) that go along with identifying them by their nationality. I would have found the piece far more balanced had their repeatedly identified the management as "American management", since all the failings of this project exhibit traits somewhat typical of American management styles. It would have been as fair (i.e. statistically valid generalizations based on facts) as repeatedly identifying the source of the goods as Chinese since historically there have been noticeable quality issues with products produced in the PRC relative to countries like the US, Germany, Japan, etc.

austinz 12y ago
Parent was replying to a comment by a now-banned account, not to the article.
- malandrew 12y ago
  Cool. Missed that comment. Nonetheless, my comment is valid for the original Sacbee article.
- dang 12y ago
  The misunderstanding was because of a rare collision: we banned that commenter a few seconds before carbocation posted his reply. We almost never kill comments when they have replies. (And strictly speaking we didn't do that here either.) But that comment was so egregious that I'm not inclined to unkill it. Anyone who wants to can read it by turning 'showdead' on in their profile. On a positive note, the recent changes that we and, more importantly, the community have made to HN threads have had the interesting side effect of making banning less common. It's mostly restricted now to throwaway trolls, spammers, and users with a clearly negative track record on the site.

beachstartup 12y ago

of course he knew he is being racist. racism against asians and whites is almost completely ignored, even tacitly encouraged in most places. fairly sure the author deleted his post only because he was down voted and called out, not because of any kind of change of heart.