History's Lessons Forgotten (Again)

I've rewritten this post a few times. I've settled on being as dispassionate as possible and letting the content from others speak for itself (for better or much worse). I want to avoid my own rhetoric from going off the deep end. The folks that will be quoted below handle that nicely themselves.

As is apparent here, we followed the Aneesh Chopra national CTO appointment closely. The coverage and the commentary was universally highly positive on the choice. However, there were a few minor exceptions. Some felt that a true "technologist" should have been appointed and others gave the standard issue libertarian spiel about the ironies of a government employee preaching efficiency and innovation. Fine. I totally disagree on both points and there is plenty of content out there that backs me up, but, sure, points taken.

Much more troubling was the blatant (and almost proud) racism in the reaction to the appointment by a vocal minority of story commenters.

Somehow, the fact that Chopra has an Indian heritage means that he somehow is not a "real" American, is only going hire Indians, and is part of an international conspiracy of Indians to take over the business world. All this from an all-American guy who is a massive Pittsburgh Steeler fan.

Let's state the seemingly obvious upfront: Indians are just the latest in the series of many immigrant groups to the United States made scapegoats for the natural disruptive churn that is our chosen capitalistic economy. At various times, the Irish, Italians, Polish, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Germans, Mexicans and so on have felt the wrath for attempting to fulfill the promise of the American Dream by entering our cherished melting pot. But, what makes America America is that all have persevered and become an essential part of the fabric of our nation.

It feels strange to recite such basic elements of our country's heritage and promise, but, apparently, this is a lesson that needs to be re-learned by every generation.

Consider the comments to the Chopra appointment. (And, before you get there, it should be noted that many of the commentators cross-commented on the different stories and/or seemingly posted under different user names. I don't want to give the perception that there are more of these folks than there actually are)...

From a ZDNet story:

"Let's get off the "politically correct" bandwagon already -- there are plenty of good 'ole American boys (& girls), who are law-abiding and could do this job equally well as these imports. AMERICA FIRST."

Digg had insightful comments like this:

"Why hire an H1-B? Aren't any Americans available?"

ReadWriteWeb had these keepers:

"Before yu know it, we will all be forced to praise Allah! LOL"

"Can he PLEASE change his name to Apu, thank-you and come again!"

Wall Street Journal commentary includes:

"Aneesh will bring his 40 cousins to fill postions under him, they will bring their families from India to fill positions under them, who will bring the 40 people living in their apartment to fill positions under them and so on and so on. They will hire only Indians. They will be very good at making change and filling slushie cups, but you don’t have to be good to work in a government job."

"The invasion of the upper-caste Indians continues, and all Americans will soon be drinking out of clay cups."

"Can’t Obama find a suitable non-desi American. This is like a slap in the face for unemployed Information Technology and Engineering Americans. First their jobs were taken by Guest Workers and then outsourced to India. Now even the newly elected President does not believe in American engineers and programmers."

And, Tim O'Reilly' great post is followed by comments that include:

Tim O'Reilly: I hope someday your job is outsourced to India. Now this CTO will send all the jobs to India so what is good about that? You collaborator.

Articles like this make me want to vomit. What, everybody in I.T. has to be Hindu or of Indian decent? Americans invented the software industry, but suddenly we're an inferior race that needs to be purged out of I.T.?

That last comment came courtesy of "Kevin Flanagan" with a helpful link back to "his" blog. Here is an except of recent content there:

While the insurgency only advocates rhetorical violence and psychological cyber-warfare, here is some good news, out of all bad comes good -- four more Americans may get jobs in the I.T. industry. And there are four slots open to get a MS in I.T. from EIU...

"Four Indian students killed as drunk US cop crashes car..."

Sometimes innocents get hurt. But the alternatives are worse. So, for those of you Desis and collaborators pissed off at my cold, reckless, and tasteless disregard for the death of four Indian college students, I have one thing to say.

Shit happens.

It is called "collateral damage" in combat.

Like, what can be more tasteless than making an American I.T. professional train his semi-literate replacement? Killing a Dalit, perhaps? It happens every day. Often. And Hindus think of Americans like Dalits. They want us drinking out of Clay Cups. And if we bring up caste, they say it is none of our business. Fuck them.

I can't add anything to that.

And, P.S., I will delete any un-constructive comments.

Comments

[Sarah]

so being White is being American? Well, these people have a nasty shock coming to them. "They're" going to be in the minority pretty soon. Aneesh Chopra is as "American" as Apple Pie.

[jeff auker]

nicely written, sean. i think i too often write off the stupid-ass comment threads dangling below the articles i read online. perhaps i shouldn't. perhaps i should help take up the cause, too. thanks, man.

[David Donahue]

I don't think you can take seriously the half thought out comments of trolls or the disgruntled.

A lot of folks are unemployed right now and are lashing out at anyone and anything that contributed to their misfortune. A lot of these folks are just ranting, wallowing in their anonymity.

It's been my experience these very same folks are probably a lot more tolerant in person.

That said, I'm not so ignorant to think that there isn't inherent racism in these comments. There are a lot of ignorant and hateful folks out there and it seems sometimes like they all bought Internet access just to torment us.

For myself, I think Mr. Chopra sounds like a great choice. He has the political and government bureaucracy manipulation skills to get the job done, that a more tech focused Larry Ellison, Bill Gates or Larry Lessig (my personal choice) might not have.