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Subject:Re: SLAVE labor? Just a darn minute... From:dmbrown -at- brown-inc -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 26 Jun 2002 09:05:24 -0700
Sean Brierley wrote:
>
> ...On a job-for-job basis, employees in India earn less money than their
> counterparts in the USA... Even if those stated beliefs are wrong, none
> of that is racist. If you think it is, your head's in the wrong place.
Sean,
First, and most important: There's nothing "racist" about your statement.
Second: Two separate issues are getting mixed in this discussion.
I haven't heard anyone say it's *wrong* for companies to use the least expensive resources that provide acceptable results. As painful as that may be for people in areas with higher pay scales, it's no worse than--indeed no different from--my own family's habit of shopping at the discount grocery store across town rather than the upscale markets closer to home.
In the first message of the thread with this subject line, I simply reacted to your statement about US companies that "use slave labor from overseas." I explained why they're not slaves, and I asked that we try to avoid terms that raise the emotional level of the discussion.
In a couple of later messages, Jill Johnson wrote, "9/11 is not the problem why you are out of work. The real reason is this country called India" and "Don't refer to it as slave labor. People from India get paid what they are worth."
Those statements have a specific target, and they're clearly inflammatory--just look at the responses, both supporting and refuting them. If, by some slim chance, her statements weren't intended in the way most people on the list interpreted them, then it's a reminder of the importance of thinking about the effect of our words before we toss them out for thousands of people to read. And that's the point I was trying to make in my own message. (By the way, I don't believe she's been misunderstood, or we would have heard from her by now.)
Let me reiterate: I was not calling *your* statement racist, and I hope my message wasn't misinterpreted.
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