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Steve Bannon Suggests Having Too Many Asian Tech CEOs Undermines 'Civic Society' (theverge.com)

In an interview last year with Donald Trump -- that The Washington Post resurfaced yesterday -- Breitbart News Network's executive chairman, Steve Bannon, suggested that there are too many asian CEOs in Silicon Valley. "He alluded to the idea that foreign students should return to their respective countries after attending school in the U.S., instead of sticking around and working at or starting tech companies," writes Ashley Carman via The Verge: Trump voiced concern over these students attending Ivy League schools and then going home: "We have to be careful of that, Steve. You know, we have to keep our talented people in this country," Trump said. When asked if he agreed, Bannon responded: "When two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think [...]" he didn't finish his sentence. "A country is more than an economy. We're a civic society." While Bannon didn't explicitly say anything against immigrants, he seemed to hint at the idea of a white nationalist identity with the phrase "civic society." The Huffington Post makes note of a May 2015 study in its report, which "found that 27 percent of professionals working in Silicon Valley companies were Asian or Asian-American. They represented less than 19 percent of managers and under 14 percent of executives, according to the report."

6 of 805 comments (clear)

  1. Live here != Work here by s.petry · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So yes, and I gather from context that the "Live" here is the concern. Work here is important too, but if the talent stays for a couple years and moves home to India, or China, or South Korea (etc..) with their fortune has our society received as much benefit from the arrangement? Cherry picking context for some for of "ism" or "obia" has become so old that I am simply ignoring MSM. Boycott is your only leverage to change this shit from the media oligarchs who are pissed that their crony lost.

    6% trust rating my ass, Huffpo has gone into negative range along with those other stations which I won't even mention.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  2. Re: "Civic Society" not a very impressive euphemis by ogdenk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yet SJW's whine about "cultural appropriation" all the time. How can it be a melting pot is "cultural appropriation" is evil?

  3. Re:Steve Bannon, not a racist? by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    the slashdot crowd defend this racist scumbag.

    Can someone please explain the difference in these sets of statements:

    • There are too many asian tech CEOs.
    • There are too many white tech CEOs.
    • There are too many male tech CEOs.
    • All Mexicans are Rapists.
    • All Trump supporters are Rapists.
    • All Muslims are Terrorists
  4. Re:I"m a liberal socialist by Dahamma · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While yes, the remarks were clearly racist - especially given Bannon's background for context - his comments are also completely factually inaccurate, so defending them means you are at *best* extremely ignorant of the facts.

    "two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia"

    Wha?? The percentage of any executive level is 14%, and of CEOs, well under that. Certainly below the population percentages of the area.

    And your comment, "70-80% of tech workers here on H1-B visas" is even more inaccurate. I did see a quote (unverified) that 70% of Silicon Valley tech workers are foreign born, but that doesn't mean they are on a Visa nor Asian. I work with dozens of foreign born co-workers from all over - China, Russia, Germany, UK, India, Brazil, France, Thailand, etc - and probably only 1 in 10 are on a Visa, the rest are citizens or permanent residents.

    We have a half dozen openings at any one time that we can't fill, and we rarely even SEE US-born applicants. If you are having trouble finding a job in the Silicon Valley right now, you are either not looking or just plain unqualified.

    Oh, and back to racism... I don't think people are racist just for voting for Trump - they simply decided other (mostly empty) promises of his were more important to them than rejecting his racism flat out. But once you start actively ignoring or worse defending the racist aspects, then yes, you, too, are a racist, that's kind of the definition.

  5. Re:Steve Bannon, not a racist? by AK+Marc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That he's a wife-beater doesn't make him racist. That he profits from a racist newspaper doesn't make him racist. The only "quotes" I've seen attributed to him were all penned by someone else, then attributed to him.http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/steve-bannon-stephen-steven-quotes-trump-racist-alt-right-allegations-jew-jewish-anti-semitism-israel-breitbart-divorce-white-nationalism/ and many others accuse him of being evil, but none give quotes in his own words that are directly racist. Sure, a few have a tinge or dog whistle, but none are overtly racist. You'd think if it was so obvious, someone would be able to provide a quote.

  6. My mother said it in the 80ies ... by Qbertino · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My US Grandpa worked at Grumman Aircraft and helped building the Lunar Lander.
    My US Great Grand Aunt was a Secretary of President Roosevelt.
    My dad worked with NASA.
    As a kid and teenager I was a very very proud american citizen, even though I lived abroad most of my life (I'm German now, for reasons unrelated to this post)

    When my mom and my dad were in the US in Texas in the early '70ies , my mom worked the night-shift at a diner near Houston. During the day she would work part-time protocolling the radio transmitions of the Apollo missions, a job she had gotten through the contact of my dad, who was working at NASA at the time. We had a house in Clear-Lake-City, the engineers city Houston had build for the NASA employees.

    There were two incidents she told me about a few times:
    Once she was working the late shift at the Diner again and a bunch of men came in, and started asked my mom if she knew of some German lady working somewhere in a Diner not wearing a bra. It was a shock to my mom that some unknow group of men had gone out for a ride to come look for her because someone had spread the work *that she wasn't wearing a bra*. My mom speaks accent free english and said she'd never heard of anything like that. Please note: Not wearing a bra was perfectly normal in most parts of the western world in the 60ies and 70ies, but in totally backwards rural Texas it was considered a sensation/scandal.

    Another time she was tending to african-american guests and talking and joking with them when an older cowboy got up in the middle of his meal, slammed money on the table and left without a word. My mom was bedazzled about what had gone wrong and the black people told her that white people don't talk to black people in these parts and that her behaviour was very unusual by rural Texas standards. Medieval standards, no less.

    Fastforward into the early 80ies, smack in the middle of the cold war and nuclear exchange always looming we lived near Bonn in western Germany and my mom used to say that the Russians weren't the problem. But a USA turning fascist - that should be the thing to be afraid of. Very afraid.

    My mom is a smart woman.

    And I have to say, heaven help us all if it's the USAs turn to try out fascism.

    And I know perfectly 'normal' nice people can turn into something far beyond anything one might call 'savage'. If you come to Germany today, you wouldn't think for a moment that our ancestors are responsible for the most extreme atrocities ever commited by and to humanity.

    I'm actually staying paranoid and have been for the past 2.5 decades, ready to move out of Europe and to Patagonia or something, should fascism and xenophobia start to spread out in Europe and other parts of the western world again. And my buddies are starting to understand.

    My 2 cents.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca