Why It’s Racist to Call China the Silicon Valley of the Sharing Economy

To embrace diversity in technology, we have to fully acknowledge the unique contributions and accomplishments of others. As a real technologist in this industry, I worked with people from all over the world remotely and traveled all over the world on assignments and know firsthand the unique experiences people from different backgrounds can bring to the table.
Unfortunately, in Silicon Valley we have white male privileged tech writers who probably never implemented a lick of STEM nor worked in a diverse group writing a white-orientated narrative of the global technology landscape from a desk somewhere text-typing on a keyboard. It’s a racist propaganda technique in American tech media I’m calling out and promise to fight because I’m frankly tired of these kinds of writers.
I came across an article written by Jim Daly on Medium titled “China — The Silicon Valley of the Sharing Economy” which is a racist and condescending perspective of Asians who contribute greatly to the technology scene. Jim Daly appear to have a “resume” of writing for publications (Wired, Forbes, Business 2.0, etc.) known to exclude non-whites in their media coverage and heavily promotes white privilege narratives.
Jim Daly is probably so comfortable writing for publications promoting only white faces working at places where non-whites are excluded from working there, it probably does not even make Jimmy blink to author and title an article with “China — the Silicon Valley of the Sharing Economy” without realizing what he wrote.
When it comes to coverage of non-whites contributing to the technology scene, white writers like Jim Daly have a racist habit of comparing non-whites to “white icons” as a point of reference. A black technology entrepreneur is referred to as “the black Bill Gates” or an Indian mathematician as “the Hindu Einstein” to have their audience instantly frame the non-white person as aspiring to be a successful white icon, not acknowledging individual talents and contributions to society.
In addition, the region known as Silicon Valley is marketed in media as the “young white male playground” where white guys use their garage to innovate things in quirky ways and obtain all the riches and the women as workplace trophies — this is how Silicon Valley is actually celebrated and narrated, not as a diverse place of innovation.
When China as a rapidly growing economy with talented STEM entrepreneurs is referred to as “the Silicon Valley” of something, this language is used to make us feel Chinese entrepreneurs are trying to be like some white guys in the Bay Area instead of create true innovation coming out of China.
If you read the article by Jim Daly, you will see that he referenced a quote from Adam Minter who writes for Bloomberg in China. Adam Minter article is titled “China Is the Future of the Sharing Economy” giving China their full credit for pushing forward success models and innovation in sharing economy patterns and practices. Jim Daly, a career text-typing writer who happily works in non-diverse environments engaged in excluding non-whites instead chose to frame a racist context China is the “Silicon Valley” of the sharing economy in his title.
Jim Daly article is the kind of subtle racism/exclusion that goes on everyday where non-whites, women and more are never acknowledged in tech media and if so, has to be compared to white male standards or validated by white icons endorsement of that non-white or woman. This is sad and truly unfair to the non-white or woman in technology talent who wish nothing more than contribute his/her gifts and talents to the technology scene.
Tech magazines and media like Forbes, Fast Company, Wired actively engaged in this type of racist narrative and do not blink an eye at the divisive and condescending nature of their activities. Every day we see over and over these white male so-called tech writers reinforce some narrative of white privilege masked up as an article covering the global technology landscape.
You cannot teach an old dog like Jim Daly new tricks like treat everybody with equality, dignity and respect in the technology sector; in Jim Daly mind, every region has to be a comparison to Silicon Valley or some celebrated white icon in American tech media. It is important we bring in new writers with real technology background who can bring true insight as content and coverage of our scene, not old white tech writer guys like Jim Daly who want to keep pushing out a white male/Silicon Valley narrative of a global diverse scene.
China is a nation of billions of people with some of the best contributors to the technology scene and brings a unique mixture of methodology and tight modeling patterns that we all can learn from. China is not some little scratchy area south of San Francisco airport called Silicon Valley and deserve to be acknowledged as a nation and people for their contributions in the sharing economy with full recognition.
