As you may not know, starting this year the ICPC Africa regional qualifications was merged with the Arab contest (aka ACPC) to form the new Arab and Africa Collegiate Programming Contest. I’m a part of an African team that participated in this year’s contest, I'm going anonymous since people mentioned stories that who complains, gets threatened to be disqualified. This was our first participation and we were really excited and prepared really hard for this opportunity. Sadly we were shocked by how much racism we faced in an “African” country, not only from ignorant people on the street, but even from the contest director himself, “Mohamed Fouad”.
Before the contest started, Fouad was moving between teams and checking up on some of them, telling jokes and so on. When he stopped nearby us and said “We have added a very trivial problem specially for you, I hope that you will be able to understand it hahaha” and then he left. This was so offensive and depressing for us, and I was so shocked that I couldn’t even say a word. What a shameful action by such a person who should be an idol.
Also during the closing ceremony, there was an african group performing some entertainment show (dancing mainly), and suddenly the assistant of Fouad came to us and said, “Hey guys, why don’t you join them” and started laughing.
We didn’t do well in the contest, but that’s because it’s our first participation and the problem solving community in my country is not that great. But seeing how racist the directors were, and (as people are sharing) how corrupt and money driven these people are, I really hope that the ICPC administration will take an action if they really care about the community like they say.
That's how we make fun with each other here in Egypt .. I think it is not Racism ,it is just cultural difference that leads to miss understanding
Bro I think what u r talking about is friends teasing each other, however the situation described in the post is much different. Racism is really a serious issue and really unexpected at the biggest platforms like ICPC
I agree but I am sure that he was just making fun with them
Bro, I really wasn't there to comment on whether is was fun or racism, just saying it's terrible if it was later!!
But we are not friends, and making bad jokes that are based on race (implying that we are not smart, or that we should dance with a group for their entertainment just because we are of the same color) is not teasing. It's hurtful and serious.
Yeah agreed that's a serious situation n needs to be addressed
he didn't mean that for sure ,by the way I really had interested in dancing with the African group
Just stop
That is such a shitty thing to do anyways, it's not even funny
my contribution rank became 29790 from 29820 :DD
you havta change your handle , naruto isn't racist !!!!
I hope that the higher officials will deal with this glaring problem and discrimination in any form will leave the ICPC.
What is the misunderstanding in this ? Anyone would get hurt if a stranger made such statements.
Sorry for bad english. (=
I mean "problem".
No problem , I misunderstood you.
I think it would be better if you have some proof for your claim (such as anonymously encourage teams to bring secret voice recorders to record evidence in the next ACPC). If Foaud knew that teams might record his voice, he would at least avoid this unacceptable behavior.
You should also consider some alternatives. If I had to pay 500 USD just to participate in an ICPC Regional, I would put my efforts into other contests such as Google Code Jam, Facebook Hackercup, or the ACM Student Research Competition. Even when these options are not available for you, I think there should be many other cheaper ways to demonstrate your skills to your employers than participating in ACPC.
One more thing.
According to the homepage of ICPC, M.D. Foaud's team qualified for the ICPC World Finals. Since the World Finals is in Thailand, and Thailand hosted the World Finals only once in 2016, this World Final must be the 2016 ACM-ICPC World Finals.
According to the Practice part of this story, M. D. Foaud was from the Arab Academy for Science and Technology. However, he was not a contestant of any team, so this story was probably not true. I can't believe the ICPC puts a verifiable but false story right on the home page.
Another problem is that there are two Mohamed Foauds in the same Arab Academy for Science and Technology. One is Mohamed M. Foaud, the director of ACPC, and the other is M. D. Foaud, the imaginary contestant. Is it true that there are two Mohamed Foauds?
First possibly racist comments and now foaudulent statements, oof...
Actually the first was accusation was thievery https://mirror.codeforces.com/blog/entry/71942
You're forgetting that calling someone racist only works in blue cities in the West. This dude doesn't seem like he'd ever give a shit about what names you call him.
Are we bringing American politics into this?
I don't think the point of this blog is "intimidate Foaud by calling him racist" but "highlight a race issue". Yeah maybe this guy doesn't give a fuck about what you call him but I don't think that's the point.
I thought the point of all these ACPC blogs was to change the situation? You can highlight all you want but when ACPC organisers still keep scamming people without any trouble, it's all meaningless. (OTOH, when I get downvoted for pointing out that making a CF blog isn't enough, it paints a different picture...)
I'm bringing something related to the topic of the blog and I don't mean particularly American, I mean the whole culture where this matters. If you think "blue cities in the West" = "the whole USA", you have American knowledge of geography.
As someone who lives in a red state (Georgia, US), I assure you that such allegations would be taken very seriously here, leading to internal investigations, committees, and possibly disciplinary actions.
That being said, there is indeed a very blurry line of what constitutes such an offense. The IOI code of conduct takes the (rather draconian) stance of 'do not make offensive jokes, remarks, gestures related to ethnicity'.
From my own experience, I feel the most useful thing to do in such circumstances is to clearly communicate to the person who made the joke that this is offensive to you. That way if there is a repeat, at least it's clear that it is intentional.
That's very shameful for the whole community.
Something like that shouldn't pass in vain. Thank you a lot for sharing it, makes all of us more aware of these acts, even though I'm not close to your region and can't be of much help for you, my eyes are now open for similar acts happening here.
Well guys... I wish you joy of problems solving transformed to the next year's result causing that Fouad's to dance for you.
Sorry but I didn't see the reason why this is racism, since the words from the director didn't contain anything related to race.
Apart from that, the words themselves are truly rude and offensive.
According to what you said about "African group performing some entertainment show" and when of the assistant of Fouad came to you and said "Hey guys, why don't you join them", I think this video in ACPC official page Prove the opposite of what you said, All people were dancing with the African group, As the video shows all people dance with each other and there isn't any kind of racism.
video From ACPC official page
On dear friend :D I really would love to release some of the tention you are feeling regarding the situations you mentioned so please let me clarify some points for you as i can understand what missleaded you.
First of all we should agree that never and will never happen that a contestant gets disqualified from participation because of something he/she said, your post being anonymous is respected as you can express your incomfort in the way you find it suitable for you, however, having a direct contact with you may've let me send you directly explaining your missleading in private rqther than in public.
Any way dear brother, From the bottom of my heart, i really don't want you fall in the trap of you being racist twards yourself as well your mates who shared these situations with you since acpc is more like a family that has its members from the different countries along the arab and most happily the recent joining of africa to be from the members of the acpc family.
The members of acpc, believe me, have no intentions to be racist twards anybody neither have any reqson to do so that incluses Mohamed fouad, his close work team and all the list of the volunteers and organizers.
Please dear friend be aware that these jokes by Mohamed fouad were told in general to all the teams as well to mention that the problems will be tough and his only intentions were to say "be aware the problemset will be challenging". Regarding the dancing,all of us were invited to dance by the acpc team as a kind of joining the event and you personally dear was invoted as to tell you you are welcomed to join us in the dance for the closing ceremony.
Dear i think the racism is not doing that, the racism would be not inviting you to the dance or teasering you to be aware of the problems in a different manner that the others, believe me dear what happened is the strictly opposite of racism and please don't fall again in this trap because of overthinking the situations in a racist way and by the way, next year i my self will invite you again to tge dance and celebrate together another acpc ceremony :).
Please accept my words as the are written by heart and hope to meet you soon.
I have seen a several posts where people have written negatively about Mohamed Fouad, claiming he is "racist" and a "thief" too n also people who complained against him were directly disqualified, If there are soo many allegations against him, I think ICPC committee should look in to matter as this looks a really serious issue to me!
So this is probably the first guy writing something positive about Fouad. You may ask yourself why? I will answer.
This guy is a "head coach" in the profiting organizations built by the board members of the ACPC. (This is another story that nobody mentioned because what people care about is the competition).
Creating such a bubble around the ACPC was followed by other businesses emerging around it, problem solving trainers started organizing training camps for beginners, promising their attendees to preform well in contests to reach ACPC and do better in interviews. Such camps and programs have almost never proved to be producing any good candidates, they only charge insane amount of money to what appears to be low quality training. Those guys would then sponsor the ACPC and help promote its reputation to keep the business running. They would also promote themselves as well, which lead to school students abandoning their free long-term school training for an short-expensive-yet-fancy training.Reference
BTW this guy was awarded "Best Coach Award" in ACPC closing ceremony and I am 99% confident that no team of his got a remarkable result, but what they do is just polishing the members of their organization to be able to scam a lot of people.
Dear "kossommak_ya_m3arra9" Please accept my words as they are, as well, from the heart since i noticed that you fell in the same trap as the dear post writer :).
Dear KYM, There were no word in my comment intended to be as a defence on behalf of anybody, my comment was just intended to make the one who had this experience be happy again with the contest and i replied regarding my interests in developing the contest in Africa as they know there.
KYM, perhaps your missleading was because of you know me and obviously have a shallow knowledge of my participations so you maybe have been driven behind your predictions before you clearly understand my comment just becase you know my name and then you strangely forgot that there was somebody felt mistakenly that he was a victim of racism in your own country and strangely attacked the person who just gathered what people discussing here in one comment to calrify the situation for him while i just wanted him to feel better.
Hope you "please" accept my words with love and just consider them as a clarification not defencing me since you have all the right to consider and understand what i said in the manner you find suitable for you.
All love <3 and i hope you didn't bother calling you KYM instead of the long name <3.
No actually, I know you very well and in person. I know all your "achievements". Of course, I avoided saying anything about your skills or achievements or anything since I would be doing the same as Fouad when he was judging the guy who wrote the blog.
But since you are claiming that I have a shallow knowledge of your participations then feel free to show them off and prove your worth, and how inaccurate are my assumptions.
BTW, this "all love","dear brother","Dear XYZ", "<3" are so cringy really, you are not showing yourself as kind and gentle, but fake.
"we should agree that never and will never happen that a contestant gets disqualified from participation because of something he/she said"
I have a clear screenshot of Fouad threatening in a Whatsapp group by disqualification for anyone who complains on any platform, place..etc except through his official channels lol.
All ACPC crew have become so fishy so I could write a whole day about them. I don't want to go through every point of your comments because this subthread is almost irrelevant.
This unwarranted familiarity of yours comes off as extremely condescending. If you want to defend ACPC, do it properly and respectfully.
In your blog post you give two evidence. For the first evidence, I think that is discrimination, but it has nothing to do about race, only about your competitive programming skills. If bruce merry is to be at that place, will Fauad say the same thing to the African LGM? I think not.
For the other evidence about dancing, This video clearly shows that everyone was dancing.
So, from what I've read and seen, there isn't any real evidence of racism, or do you really have any?
But how did he know the team's skills in the first place? OP said it was their first participation, so the contest director didn't know anything about them, let alone identify the team at first glance. Also, when he said "We have added a very trivial problem specially for you", did he really mean that specific team by "you"? I think it's clear that he refers to all the participants from the African region, which implies that he thinks low of their skills just because they are african. And even if it's true on average (because of poor education and many other things), he still has no right to narrow down his general conclusions to one specific team, let alone blatantly insult them.
God why am I even writing this? I thought all of that should be intuitively clear T_T
Well, then you mean that Fouad will say the same thing to an African LGM. It is Out of my expectations then.
Of course I don't mean that. I said Fouad didn't know anything about the OP's team's level, so, because of his stereotypes (even if they are true), he assumed that its level is low. Of course, if he stands before an african LGM and knows that it's a LGM, he won't say anything of that sort to him, nobody in his place would.
I have to admit that you have your point. Assuming the contestant's ability is low base on race is indeed racism. I agree with you there. I posted the above things because I saw the video posted online and found that things in the post isn't like what he said, at least some of them are, so I came up with the idea that the contestant might be too sensitive. Overall I agree with you now, since you are logically correct.
it need not be a stereotypes base on African, it is possible that the director knows the past performance of OP's university and therefore made that assumption. I agree this is a form of discrimination, but I personally see no evidence of racism here.
Your thread is offtopic, and also quite funny. If it's not racism, then the director is not rude and offensive anymore?
I posted the above things because I saw the video posted online and found that things in the post isn't like what he said, at least some of them are, so I came up with the idea that the contestant might be too sensitive.
Besides, I said that it is discrimination in my comment. If it’s not racism, then it’s the poster of the post that’s off topic.
I agree this blog should be fact-checked, so your points are made. But claiming “It’s not racism, but discrimination, so author is wrong and offtopic” is weird.
Anyway, you get my point, and I get yours.
"If bruce merry is to be at that place" As an african, who received the same amount of discrimination and racial bullying in this ACPC, I say that it's much different between being from south africa and another african country Also, Fouad wasn't the only one who was cracking jokes based on the colour of our skin but there were some contestants from X country who were laughing and saying harsh words about us in their discussions I hope that this kind of discrimination will stop someday and ICPC will be a great way to meet each other from around the world like Bob Marley said "Until the colour of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes…"
If a Candidate Master said to me that I am a weak contestant, I wouldn't mind. Because it is true. Is saying the truth considered racism? I don't think so. As an Asian, I have experienced a lot of racism. People around me are among the most racist people on the planet. But we don't mean to attack each other. We Asians, mostly say racist things as a joke. Maybe it is also a norm for Egyptians.
Imagine paying $1500 and traveling across the continent just to hear normal things like "you suck" and "why did you even come?".
I am really sorry to hear that.
I seriously doubt that people in the streets, even ignorant, or other contestants for example, treat you bad or was racist to you.
you saying
" We were shocked by how much racism we faced in an African country ... "
is very dishonest. because honestly the second situation you mentioned is definitely normal and not racist. EVERYONE were dancing with african group. I can never think of a context where inviting you to participate is racist. If you think so, then you are being oversensitive So, It comes down to a single situation from a single annoying person or even racist person.
Again, I doubt that you can mention other similar situations. I know that It is not the main point of your post but trying to picture Egypt or Egyptians as racist people based on a single or even a few situations you faced is trivial, stupid and annoying.
Racism is a critical issue in Egypt, there are no effective laws that protects minorities from racism, and I myself witnessed many situations where black people were treated very badly and got offended just for the color of their skin with absolutely no reaction from all of those who wintessed the racist act, actually, many of them laugh and participate in it, this happens a lot in the streets of Egypt.
That does not mean that Egyptians are bad, this means that we as Egyptians have to act to prevent the small number of Egyptians who are bad from hurting minorities, instead of leaving them unpunished or even encourage them to keep going.
There are also many documentaries and articles that highlight this issue
Here you can find black children living in Egypt describing how miserable their live is in Egypt and how much bullying they face daily in school and outside school (in Arabic): https://youtu.be/lTLwIzfuYBk
Check also the Wikipedia article "Racism in Arab world" you'll find a lot of information regarding racism in Egypt with a lot of resources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_the_Arab_world
And check this article: https://m.news24.com/Africa/News/egypt-blackface-sketch-spotlights-racism-in-region-20190518
I am an Egyptian and I think that this problem must be addressed and regardless of what happened in the ACPC, I think trying to make our nation look appealing is not helping us at all, we must recognize our issues and try our best to solve it.
Well, I am not saying it never happens but It's not popular in society. I mean, There is no religion or popular ideology that encourage color racism in Egypt. and without that How can it be a popular issue ?!
The articles ,you provide, is honestly full of jokes. but anyway It only proves that such situations may happen. which is of course true! but is it a cultural issue ? No, It is not a critical issue, in my opinion. just compare it to other big cultural problems in Egypt and you will understand it is not critical.
Regarding last point you made, I strongly disagree. You simply have to do both, just a little bit of history, you will get that every single nation has done both things.
A society where racism and discrimination is not criminalized has a critical problem that must be addressed constantly until it's solved. It doesn't have to be happening million times a day to be considered an important problem.
You started by questioning the fact that they got harrassed in Egypt at all. I actually witnessed enough racism in Egypt that I would be surprised if they didn't face any harrasment during their stay. Just like by being surprised if a woman visited Egypt and didn't get harrassed or catcalled at all.
BTW, I am glad you enjoyed the jokes you found in the documentary and the articles which described a part of the suffering of some people.
Nvm the so called "Hong Kong" Regional was not even held in Hong Kong
It is not racism, you are in my genjutsu