Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The defiance of an 'untouchable' New York subway worker

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 88 posts

Re: The defiance of an 'untouchable' New York subway worker

#21

Post by dharmach »

INvidiA wrote: post #5

These sort of class distinctions are much less pronounced in America, which is why so many oppressed or impoverished people from elsewhere yearn to travel here and make a new life. It's nice to hear about someone who was able to realize the American Dream and escape the class prejudice of their home country.

When societies/individuals achieve high status and realize self-worth, they usually develop a generous and liberal disposition (not a bad thing). Unfortunately, when the position is threatened, they may go back to the survival mode and become intolerant.

Re: The defiance of an 'untouchable' New York subway worker

#23

Post by quantummkv »

Blackthorn wrote: post #20
quantummkv wrote: post #17

A better way to allegorize the Indian caste system would be the racism in USA. No one in urban centers or in the new generations is racist against black people. Go to the folks from the older generations and in the hinterlands and you will find that racism still exists somewhat. A similar trend is present in India. The new kids in urban centers don't care about caste. The old people in the villages and hinterlands? T…

> No one in urban centers or in the new generations is racist against black people. I'm sorry but this is just wrong, and you can prove it to yourself by reading the news any day.

Well it looks like mistyped that. I meant the majority of the people. You always have some people with other views.

Re: The defiance of an 'untouchable' New York subway worker

#24

Post by INvidiA »

dharmach wrote: post #21
INvidiA wrote: post #5

These sort of class distinctions are much less pronounced in America, which is why so many oppressed or impoverished people from elsewhere yearn to travel here and make a new life. It's nice to hear about someone who was able to realize the American Dream and escape the class prejudice of their home country.

When societies/individuals achieve high status and realize self-worth, they usually develop a generous and liberal disposition (not a bad thing). Unfortunately, when the position is threatened, they may go back to the survival mode and become intolerant.

That is very true. Also when societies/individuals don't have a long history they haven't had a chance to accumulate modes of thinking from the past that are no longer deemed appropriate but are difficult to shake off once acquired.

Re: The defiance of an 'untouchable' New York subway worker

#25

Post by quantumofmalice »

Unlike most of her lot, her family was "middle class", thanks to the help of Canadian missionaries in her region who aided in education and offered them religion. Her family was thus Christian and benefited with education. Her parents held jobs as college teachers.

Gidla says that proselytization didn't help her lot. "Christians, untouchables - it came to the same thing. All Christians in India were untouchable. I knew no Christian who did not turn servile in the presence of a Hindu."

Proselytization did help her a lot: it was the reason the christians were there in the first place.

Re: The defiance of an 'untouchable' New York subway worker

#26

Post by oflannabhra »

Tyler Cowen interviews Sujatha Gidla on his podcast, Conversations with Tyler [0]. Not having heard of her, and not having any exposure to caste societies, I was struck by the sharpness of her insight and the strength of her conviction. I highly recommend listening.

[0] - https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/sujatha-gidla-an...

Re: The defiance of an 'untouchable' New York subway worker

#27

Post by retSava »

INvidiA wrote: post #5

These sort of class distinctions are much less pronounced in America, which is why so many oppressed or impoverished people from elsewhere yearn to travel here and make a new life. It's nice to hear about someone who was able to realize the American Dream and escape the class prejudice of their home country.

That might be the case, but the constant reminder of race is very weird to me. As in, it's very common to denote someone to be "black" or "white" or "hispanic" and so on. I can understand this to some extent when it comes to describing how someone looks (eg police warrant) but in most other contexts... it's just feels very strange with the obsession of what color/origin someone has/is.

Re: The defiance of an 'untouchable' New York subway worker

#28

Post by Lambdanaut »

dharmach wrote: post #21
INvidiA wrote: post #5

These sort of class distinctions are much less pronounced in America, which is why so many oppressed or impoverished people from elsewhere yearn to travel here and make a new life. It's nice to hear about someone who was able to realize the American Dream and escape the class prejudice of their home country.

When societies/individuals achieve high status and realize self-worth, they usually develop a generous and liberal disposition (not a bad thing). Unfortunately, when the position is threatened, they may go back to the survival mode and become intolerant.

In Freudian terms: when under threat, people develop a highly anal response. When at peace, they develop an oral response.

Re: The defiance of an 'untouchable' New York subway worker

#29

Post by ubermonkey »

fred_is_fred wrote: post #22

I must admit that simply from the headline I assumed that this was about a person who should have been fired multiple times for gross incompetence but the city could not due to some grievance process gone wrong.

RIGHT?

And upon reading it, what a delightful surprise instead!

Post reply on HN