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Why Aren’t There More Asian Americans in Leadership Positions?

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Re: Why Aren’t There More Asian Americans in Leadership Positions?

#51

Post by concinds »

novia wrote: post #12
terda12 wrote: post #4

I'm not a business leader by any means so keep that in mind. I'm an Asian, and I don't see this as a problem tbh. American leaders have, historically, tend to be white men (think the first 49 presidents). We're definitely starting to see diversity in leadership positions. Obama, Sundar Pichai of Google, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Yishan Wong/Ellen Pao of Reddit are some examples that come to my mind. Even Ellen Pao,…

> Even Ellen Pao, who received flak for some reddit drama, was never criticized for being an Asian female. Yes she was. They referred to her as "Chairman Pao" as well as other racist and sexist slurs which I do not care to repeat.

Are you pretending that she was criticized for her demographics, rather than for her actions? That is ridiculously out of touch.

Re: Why Aren’t There More Asian Americans in Leadership Positions?

#52

Post by sushid »

samspenc wrote: post #19
Spooky23 wrote: post #7

Senior leadership is a club. People like to work with their friends, and the qualification to be a high level person in many situations has low correlation to skill. Once you get in the club, you move up. I think South Asian asians do better here as many have excellent language skills. East Asians have a disadvantage there, and cultural friction makes it hard for "ABC" chinese. IMO it's less a glass ceiling for asian…

> cultural friction makes it hard for "ABC" chinese Can you clarify what you mean by "cultural friction"? I always thought that "ABCs" and "ABCDs" (Indians born in the US) were better at integrating with workplaces here than those coming from Asia?

Not the parent commenter but I believe the parent's saying that even ABCs (or ABCDs) have a lower chance of being in said tribe than say, a fellow white alum with a similar socioeconomic background.

Re: Why Aren’t There More Asian Americans in Leadership Positions?

#53

Post by s_dev »

novia wrote: post #12
terda12 wrote: post #4

I'm not a business leader by any means so keep that in mind. I'm an Asian, and I don't see this as a problem tbh. American leaders have, historically, tend to be white men (think the first 49 presidents). We're definitely starting to see diversity in leadership positions. Obama, Sundar Pichai of Google, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Yishan Wong/Ellen Pao of Reddit are some examples that come to my mind. Even Ellen Pao,…

> Even Ellen Pao, who received flak for some reddit drama, was never criticized for being an Asian female. Yes she was. They referred to her as "Chairman Pao" as well as other racist and sexist slurs which I do not care to repeat.

The "Pao" moniker was reference to her perceived "authoritarian" grip on reddit not a reference to her ethnicity. You're race baiting by trying to make this conversation about racial discrimination when it really wasn't about that.

Things only kicked off when she said she was going to ban lots of sub reddits.

Re: Why Aren’t There More Asian Americans in Leadership Positions?

#54

Post by stcredzero »

drewrv wrote: post #30
throwaw12ay wrote: post #16

America has this weird obsession with race and dividing everything by race. Since when "Asian" is a race? It's so weird that people in US need to choose their race on a form when applying for college or even for a job, or on a census. So you can't be just american, you need to be Asian american or something american, like being american is not enough to constitute a nationality or an identity.

The US has a long and nasty history of racism. We need to collect racial data in order to see if we're fixing it or not. To refuse on principal to collect race data in education or criminal justice would obscure real problems and be akin to burying our head in the sand.

The US has a long and nasty history of racism.

Culture in the Americas was particularly afflicted by class becoming associated with race. There was rampant indentured servitude in Korea hundreds of years ago, basically slavery with different formalities. (I've been told that my surname makes it likely my family is descended from such people.) No one really cares about it any more, because we are fairly racially homogeneous. There is something particularly nasty about making an inborn trait a kind of "brand" of class status.

Racism is weirdly and deeply rooted in US culture. A friend of mine started a gay Asian men's group in Seattle in the last century. He then had to start a 2nd one with a by-law limiting attendance to Asians, because the 1st one had become a pick-up scene for middle-aged white men to find a "Rice Queen." My 20's and 30's were punctuated with the occasional weird transgression from older white men. Much of my youth and childhood were punctuated with rare but memorable occasions of racial/ethnic harassment. I went on a date with a fellow musician who was born in Thailand, and in conversation I realized that an uncomfortably large portion of her flirting history consisted of white men doing things like putting their hand on her thigh in public while talking about prostitutes.

There's something about US culture that seems to be enabling for a fairly extreme level of transgression by some small part of the populace towards Asians, which also results in ethnic self-hatred in American born Asians. My current China born girlfriend has a Ph. D. and an MBA, and she thinks the notion that Asian guys are somehow sexually inferior/unattractive/noncompetitive to be bizarre. Yet, I've had multiple discussions on reddit and Hacker News, where commenters promulgated such weird ideas of inherent Asian inferiority!

The reason why I particularly dislike intellectually bankrupt SJW ideology, is precisely because I know that it has a point! There are weird racial attitudes in various subcultures in the US. It is something that is very hard to pin down and discuss, yet needs to be explored. Representing such a thing badly is precisely the best way to ensure it never gets discussed usefully.

Re: Why Aren’t There More Asian Americans in Leadership Positions?

#55

Post by EdHominem »

sushid wrote: post #46
mbrameld wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it racist to compare a white male leader to Hitler?

I don't think you can categorically say that (but are welcome to make that accusation). Are you saying that because we as a society make comparisons to Hitler, it's okay to call an Asian woman in a leadership position something like "Chairman Mao?" If a black person were compared to Mugabe, is that also racist? What if you compared an Italian person to Mussolini? is that racist? You can ask more asinine questions but…

> Are you saying that because we as a society make comparisons to Hitler, it's okay to call an Asian woman in a leadership position something like "Chairman Mao?"

Are you trying to guilt trip everyone by making it seem like mocking power is a racist thing just because people of many races are involved? Rather than this passive aggressive attempt to trap someone, why don't you come out and simply say that you think it is racist and inappropriate?

> What if you compared an Italian person to Mussolini? is that racist?

Just some random Italian person you see walking around Rome? It's likely just wrong.

But when comparing some bossy jerk to a tyrant, is it more racist to pick Mussolini for an Italian person? Probably not, because the dictators were a product of their cultures. Italians probably are more like Mussolini than Mao.

Your post insinuates that people are insulting black people, or asians, and just throwing out any insult that fits. Yes, it is racist to just insult someone just for their color - regardless of who you compare them to. But if you're going to insult someone for non-racist reasons it doesn't suddenly become racist just because you pick Mugabe to compare them to, for instance.

We don't do anyone any favors by over-reporting racism and in fact that's a common racist troll tactic; call everything racism to water it down or make victims look like complainers.

Re: Why Aren’t There More Asian Americans in Leadership Positions?

#56

Post by callinyouin »

ftrflyr wrote: post #41
callinyouin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, but then that "rule" would also apply to the number of white/black people in the countries listed, making it lower. Doesn't make the point of considering demographics any less valid.

It is my assumption that white males living in these countries are old enough to hold leadership positions. One can safely assume a 12 year old is not immigrating to China to live / work.

Are you honestly trying to argue that the percentage of Asian American adults is approximately equal to the percentage of white/black adults in places like China and India?

Re: Why Aren’t There More Asian Americans in Leadership Positions?

#57

Post by EdHominem »

nylonstrung wrote: post #40
terda12 wrote: post #4

I'm not a business leader by any means so keep that in mind. I'm an Asian, and I don't see this as a problem tbh. American leaders have, historically, tend to be white men (think the first 49 presidents). We're definitely starting to see diversity in leadership positions. Obama, Sundar Pichai of Google, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Yishan Wong/Ellen Pao of Reddit are some examples that come to my mind. Even Ellen Pao,…

2 of those examples are Indians, and the same corpus of research has shown that they face differing sets of stereotypes. There's no way of denying that there is a pronounced dearth of East Asian leadership in tech relative to the substantial number of East Asians working in the field.

Not really. I'd expect more workers from a company to be foreign than the management.

Most jobs are somewhat standardized. You can essentially follow instructions. Management, for all the donut eating they do, is less standardized and much more shmoozing based. Much harder to do with even a small language barrier. And old-boys-club or not, you'd expect locals to have more alumni and other attachments which could be useful.

Not all things that result in racial differences are racist.

Re: Why Aren’t There More Asian Americans in Leadership Positions?

#58

Post by pc86 »

ftrflyr wrote: post #49
concinds wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Why should America reflect world diversity? And how could it? Are there not enough whites in executive positions in Asia? The question doesn't make sense, because "enough" is a normative question and it's impossible to find a metric that's truly "fair". Equality-of-outcome politics is one of the most dogmatic and dangerous movements in recent years, and it's incredible that it gained acceptance in all elite cir…

Yes, yes, yes. I anticipate your comment will be down voted because HN is predominately liberal.

It won't be, because it adds to the discussion and is a coherent point. Yours (and mine!), on the other hand...

Re: Why Aren’t There More Asian Americans in Leadership Positions?

#60

Post by EdHominem »

Torgo wrote: post #3

>It is time to rethink the “good leader” prototype of being masculine, dictatorial, and charismatic. Good luck, there's a reason those attributes are dominant.

Sure, because in the past if you disagreed those people would have killed you and taken what they wanted. Now we just give it to them to avoid the strife.

But there's very little (none?) evidence that a traditional "strong" (bully) leader is more effective than a committee. Modern businesses tend to understand this because they appoint a strong CEOs but manage them with a board which retains ultimate power.

Sadly, this wisdom has yet to reach the electorate. When we elect a bully we give them free run. (Even in a country like Canada with the Prime Minster chosen by the party, the party rarely controls them.)

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