# Is it objectively and unquestionably racist if a company does this... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 4, 2019, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940 "2019-02-04T12:56:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/21 "2019-02-04T17:59:50Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > Just like if you’re black in Alabama and you’re the bottom of the list, it’s racist. Your white friends might invent some impressive casuistry to explain why it’s not, but don’t be stupid. It is. Even if you’re black and your name is Zack Zyzzyx? ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/22 "2019-02-04T18:08:24Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Even if you’re black and your name is Zack Zyzzyx? If you’re in certain parts of Alabama, there’s a good chance they hired our black ‘Zach Zyzzyx’ friend just so his name WOULD be at the bottom of the list. ---
**Author:** ![friendlessboob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@friendlessboob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friendlessboob)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/23 "2019-02-04T19:49:36Z")
On paper, like “in a vacuum”, no. In reality, at the _least_ it will probably end up being used for something not good, or was intended to be from the start. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/24 "2019-02-04T19:59:44Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > > > That your name is in English may be the issue. Perhaps they separated your name because it doesn’t render easily or correctly in their alphabet (hiragana?)? > > If it were a list ordered by name, that would make sense. But if it’s a list ordered by some metric of “importance” - with the CEO at the top, etc. - then it doesn’t. It sounds like the Japanese names were grouped together, possibly sorted by rank, with the OP listed separately. Perhaps they’re telling him/her that he/she is in a class by themselves? ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/25 "2019-02-04T21:55:09Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > Has an internal list of employees (like a list of contacts for emailing) and the employees are grouped by race? > [@Isamu](#): > > They have a hierarchy list of contact people, top is the boss, bottom is the lowest. These two statements do not seem to describe the same list. I’m confused about exactly what is being discussed here. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/26 "2019-02-04T22:19:58Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > These two statements do not seem to describe the same list. I’m confused about exactly what is being discussed here. The second description is what the list is supposed to be. The first description is what the list actually is. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/27 "2019-02-05T00:42:23Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > These two statements do not seem to describe the same list. I’m confused about exactly what is being discussed here. It’s just a list of staff that is organised by seniority but has me, the only gaijin, at the bottom. And yes, everyone else’s name is in Japanese characters, and my name is in Romaji. I didn’t ask for it to be this way, my name could have been in Japanese katakana also. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/28 "2019-02-05T00:57:27Z")
The software that we use (Quickbooks) has an “ethnicity” spot for employees. The drop down box gives you the options: American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian, Black/African American, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, White, Two or more races. I’ve never used it, but it’s there so doubtless many people pick one of them because the employee section would feel ‘incomplete’ if they didn’t. Once that’s filled in, you’ll be able to sort employee lists by race, make a list of employees of a certain race or races and in general do pretty much whatever you want with that info. It can even be easily exported to an excel file and manipulated just like you’d do with any other spreadsheet. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/29 "2019-02-05T01:12:38Z")
Barring some compelling reason, it’s pretty suspect to classify employees this way. Our company does something similar, though we are much larger. We track all people of color and gender. We say that promotions and managers should picked based on the best qualified. Separately, we have a goal imposed by HR that we must be diverse and encourage a target number of people of color and women. I told HR I think their practice is if not illegal, gross. Didn’t get very far. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/30 "2019-02-05T14:54:08Z")
I create a lot of ad hoc reports of employees at work. Sorted by dept, name, and job title is the most common. I’ve NEVER been instructed to create any internal reports by race. That would be a very unusual request from any administrator at work. I’d check with my boss before replying to a report request like that. The only time I normally pull race from the database is for Fed EEO reports. We also send Fed reports for Applicant tracking. That includes race,sex,age and other biographical data. I’m required to provide whatever data the state & Fed request on their reports. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/31 "2019-02-05T15:26:19Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > It’s just a list of staff that is organised by seniority but has me, the only gaijin, at the bottom. And yes, everyone else’s name is in Japanese characters, and my name is in Romaji. I didn’t ask for it to be this way, my name could have been in Japanese katakana also. See above, have worked in Japanese firm in US, and US firm in Japan. I get the general idea you’re communicating. Still, the ‘only gaijin’ part makes it somewhat less than 100% clear it’s fair to say this list is by ‘race’. In the large firm I worked at there might have been cases where the ‘Japanese staff’ were listed here and the ‘local staff’ were listed there. But ‘Japanese staff’ was really not strictly a ‘racial’ categorization. Some ‘local staff’ were also people from Japan. They just hadn’t been hired onto the ‘career’ (or ‘lifetime employment’) track back in Japan like the ‘Japanese staff’. Rather they were for example young Japanese experiencing living in NY and happened to get a job at this company to pay the bills. They weren’t officially categorically treated better than non-Japanese ‘local staff’, and not necessarily even in practice. IOW there was a kind of caste system, not strictly hierarchical (since some local staff including myself were paid more than any of the Japanese staff), but I don’t think it would have been really accurate to call that distinction ‘racist’ (even as a catch all term for any form of discrimination by ethnicity, religion etc). It grows in part I think out of a stronger sense that a major Japanese company is part of Japan. To be fair this idea isn’t 100% alien to US society. People _outside_ big US companies often criticize them for not being ‘patriotic’ (when they maximize profit by conducting certain activities outside the US the public would rather they do inside the US). That criticism logically implies that employees from the US in those companies should get priority. Part of the difference is just that this attitude is more common among _managers_ of big Japanese companies. However managers in all big international companies realize there are downsides to this parochial attitude if the company wants to be truly global competitive. The J company I worked for used to struggle with this issue. Some big Japanese companies especially in recent years have moved more genuinely to the kind of model of US companies which are more truly internationalized. Again this is often not popular with the home crowd, and there’s some potential for hypocrisy if Americans criticize a foreign company for favoring employees from the home country as ‘racism’ (what would it be when German co’s in the US do this? they also do, to some degree AFAIK), then criticize US companies for not prioritizing the welfare of their employees originally hired in the US. I am getting into a bigger issue though, and I’m not at your company so of course I don’t know the exact situation there. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/32 "2019-02-05T18:37:57Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > It’s just a list of staff that is organised by seniority but has me, the only gaijin, at the bottom. And yes, everyone else’s name is in Japanese characters, and my name is in Romaji. I didn’t ask for it to be this way, my name could have been in Japanese katakana also. With everyone else’s names in kanji, having to put your name in katakana would still make it stand out like a flare, typographically othering you. It’s inexorably built into the writing system. The only way you could avoid being othered in a list is to adopt a fully Japanese name that is written in kanji. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/33 "2019-02-05T18:52:02Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > With everyone else’s names in kanji, having to put your name in katakana would still make it stand out like a flare, typographically othering you. It’s inexorably built into the writing system. The only way you could avoid being othered in a list is to adopt a fully Japanese name that is written in kanji. Huh. Or use some form of manyougana/ateji, as long as it is not too long and nobody looks too closely. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/34 "2019-02-05T19:03:31Z")
The other possibility is an obsolete one: _[man’yōgana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27y%C5%8Dgana)_. From before _kana_ scripts were invented. It writes foreign names using kanji based on sound similarity. Edit: Ah, **DPRK** , you ninjaed me, so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/35 "2019-02-05T19:07:17Z")
Yes, America is “Rice Country” (米国 _Bei-koku_), thanks to _ateji_. That isn’t used for personal names, though, is it? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/36 "2019-02-05T20:53:21Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Yes, America is “Rice Country” (米国 _Bei-koku_), thanks to _ateji_. 米 as in 亞米利加 (“America”). > [@](#): > > That isn’t used for personal names, though, is it? I honestly don’t know. But is this a situation where formal rules strictly apply? Who decided to spell **Isamu** ’s name using Romaji instead of katakana, like one might expect? ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/37 "2019-02-05T21:21:52Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Yes, America is “Rice Country” (米国 _Bei-koku_), thanks to _ateji_. That isn’t used for personal names, though, is it? It used to be sometimes, like when Admiral Perry came to Japan in 1853 his name was written as 伯理\* rather than ペリー like it is now. Also I’ve heard that foreigners adopting Japanese citizenship now sometimes use ateji versions of their original name as their official Japanese name though more commonly use katakana. \*So I’ve read though haven’t heard pronounced. Now the closest pronunciation of 伯 listed in my character dictionary is ‘he’ (heh), among other pronunciations that fit even less well. 理 is often ‘ri’ so that fits. But 伯 can be ‘pae’ in Korean and ‘bai’ in Mandarin so maybe back then it could also sound closer in Japanese. This is, obviously, among the reasons ateji words have tended to fade from use. It’s possible for people from Japan to not guess the correct pronunciation of one another’s names written in kanji on the first try, so why further extend this ambiguity to words people are less likely to have heard before? ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/38 "2019-02-06T04:26:20Z")
Oh God. That’s one thing is don’t miss about Japan. Yes, it’s racist and yes, you absolutely need to do something about it. I worked in corporate Japan for 25 years. This is important. It’s not necessarily malicious racism, but there is a belief that foreigners are going to never be the same. We’re this not a list based on hierarchy, then perhaps you could let it slide, but Japanese culture is all based on hierarchy and they need to understand that foreigners can fit within their system. The piss poor excuse that your name is in alphabet is stupid. Have it written in katakana. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/39 "2019-02-06T05:58:51Z")
“As the list is in order of the company hierarchy, this makes it appear that I am the lowest employee of the company. Am I?” “No, you are not” “Then why am I listed outside of the established hierarchy? How could anyone look at this, see themselves listed last and believe that others will know their true place in the company order? People will review the list and believe that I am the lowest employee.” Maybe a few words about ‘losing face’ if necessary to make the point. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940/40 "2019-02-06T06:25:20Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Oh God. That’s one thing is don’t miss about Japan. > > Yes, it’s racist and yes, you absolutely need to do something about it. > > I worked in corporate Japan for 25 years. This is important. > > It’s not necessarily malicious racism, but there is a belief that foreigners are going to never be the same. > > We’re this not a list based on hierarchy, then perhaps you could let it slide, but Japanese culture is all based on hierarchy and they need to understand that foreigners can fit within their system. > > The piss poor excuse that your name is in alphabet is stupid. Have it written in katakana. Yeah, thanks for that. Sometimes if you’re here too long you start to doubt yourself and your perceptions. So I needed to ask here. I know you have experience. I’m just going to quit instead and set up my own firm and take their biggest client. I have a 1-year plan. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-objectively-and-unquestionably-racist-if-a-company-does-this/828940.md?page=3)