California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste • Hacker News Board

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#411

Post by vishnugupta » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

distances wrote: post #329

8ytecoder wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vegetarian is a huge identity marker. Quote from a professor from my college to my then girlfriend about me - “I wish he was at least a vegetarian”. I happen to be a vegan now and I have a lighter complexion and I clearly get assumed to be “upper caste” and somehow “smart” goes along with it. Answering to GP above - I don’t mind talking about it but some bar conversations have opened with it. That’s not pleasant. It’…

I'm a total outsider and don't know a thing about the caste system, so forgive me being ignorant: how do others know to which caste someone belongs? Would it be possible to claim another caste and just roll with it? What if one changed their surname to something usually associated with a certain caste?

> Would it be possible to claim another caste and just roll with it? What if one changed their surname to something usually associated with a certain caste?

It is entirely possible, however it does require you to learn nuances of that caste. Otherwise you will get caught out especially while discussing with elders. That said when it comes to marriage there’s no way to hide your caste. The priest knows your parents their relatives and what not. Their surnames being different will cause all kinds of red lights to go off.

Also, for governmental purposes you are expected to produce “caste certificate” which you can’t forge. So it’s not unusual for people in India to marry into lower caste to reap the benefits of governmental reservation.

So, the answer is nuanced. If you want to take advantage of surname in a private company like say Cisco then go for it. For any other purpose, changing surname alone isn’t sufficient. In fact it’s impossible to hide your caste.

While we are at it, it’s worth noting that “caste” refers to two distinct and intertwined hierarchical structures called “varna” and “jati”. Which means even among Brahmins (the upper most caste, intact Brahmin is a Varna and not Jati) there’s a hierarchy, priest being the top most. Jatis are sometimes referred as “sub-caste”.

This Jati is so pervasive in India that even the non-Hindu religions such as Sikhism and “Lingayat” which were explicitly formed to be away from the Hindu caste system couldn’t escape it. So we now have a few dozen Jati within Sikhism and Lingayats with an overly of Verna.

As an academic topic it’s a fascinating one. The roots of this codified structure is still not clear, it’s an active area of research. Recent advancements in human evolutionary genetics is revealing some interesting insights but long way to go.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#412

Post by Lio » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:26 PM UTC

randomguy2379 wrote: post #308

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #273

I’ve got a “hot button” about castes. I hate ‘em. Comes from growing up overseas (I live in the US), and having servants. These were the people that raised us, and were, for all intents and purpose, “family.” Except they weren’t, and when I found out how they lived, it broke my heart. I was also raised by a British mother, who was an awesome woman, but came from a middle-class Liverpool (“scouse”) family, and spent h…

As someone who was born a lower caste hindu, I don't really mind the british caste system at all. Because the british caste system is fluid. If you are born to servant parents and study hard to become a doctor, you end up at the top of the caste system. Not in Hinduism. Even if you become a doctor, but were born a dalit(lowest caste), you will remain a dalit and so will your future generations. There is no escape fro…

News Flash: doctor isn't the top of our class system.

Even if you become a doctor you still won't be a part of the aristocracy.

The best you can do is upper middle class. That might mean you're the head of a FTSE100 company, which is still pretty good but you won't be upper class until the Queen dishes out a knighthood for all great works of charity you'll do.

...and even then though you'll probably still wear the wrong kind of shoes and hold your knife a bit funny at supper.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#413

Post by brandmeyer » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:26 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #382

paloaltokid wrote: post #38

I'm a very white guy living in California and I often get the impression that caste is something that Indian folks living here are aware of amongst each other, but they don't really discuss it with white people. On some level it feels to me like it's something Indian folks don't share because they feel it would be misunderstood (which makes a lot of sense). Or maybe it's a kind of "not airing out the laundry in publi…

> Indian folks living here are aware of amongst each other, but they don't really discuss it with white people In my experience, it's informally reinforced. I haven't met an Indian American who actively contemplates caste. But family connections; shared customs, rituals and language; and economic disparities reinforce in-group over out-of-group relationships. These informal factors conspire to cause generations of yo…

> I haven't met an Indian American who actively contemplates caste.

At a startup, we had a couple of Indian engineers on the team (pretty common), but they would frequently converse with each other in Hindi. Eventually one of them left the company, and in his exit interview he revealed that the other guy was constantly harassing him about his caste.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#414

Post by michaelt » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #374

michaelt wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a company that is successful and growing, with new teams and projects and offices, there will be more promotion opportunities per candidate - and fewer situations where they have several strong candidates and an almost-arbitrary choice to make between them. If you're in a sector that isn't growing, or might even be shrinking, I imagine promotions are a lot more competitive... Admittedly, 'reassignment' might not b…

The issue is not lack of possible promotions. The issue is who the opportunities goes to. In a growing company, the friends, family and "one of us" will still be more likely to be get the good stuff.

I'm not saying it completely eliminates bias by any means, but I've worked at a company growing from 200 developers to 2,000 developers - and getting promoted for me has been a heck of a lot easier than my friends in fixed-size organisations.

When you need to find that many trusted, competent managers that quickly, you can't afford reject people on the basis of their surname :)

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#415

Post by castevictim » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

throwaway781341 wrote: post #393

sumedh wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> India has 1bn+ people, you can't generalize this. Have you seen the matrimonial ads in India? Why am I getting a feeling that you are a Brahmin and you are not happy that people from lower castes have their own quotas in govt jobs/education.

may be the reason why you are getting this feeling is that racist instinct. and no, I'm not unhappy for the said reason. If you read my comment properly, I was pointing out the fact that mentioning only one side of the story, because one fell victim to the caste system, on a forum like HN is wrong as it provides very different picture. Most of the people reading this have no clue what it's like. Be responsible.

>because one fell victim to the caste system

[0] Is just the caste violence, even for that data is not complete[1].

Should we talk about discrimination then?

[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste-related_violence_in_In...

[1]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318318717_Are_There...

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#416

Post by lki876 » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #214

lki876 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Caste is another term for race. Both terms are not terms that designate bioligical properties... Caste is based on profession.

Isn't it the other way where profession is based on the caste you are born into? You make it sound like a child born into a lower caste can choose a profession that lets them join a higher caste. It's not different than american back slaves being born into slavery, if you call slavery a profession or jim crow era legal segregation limiting jobs based on race.

> You make it sound like a child born into a lower caste can choose a profession that lets them join a higher caste.

That's not anywhere in what I wrote.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#417

Post by thinkingemote » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:30 PM UTC

I once had a western educated (self confessed Brahmin) guy say that India and Pakistan were culturally identical. Now there's some comments here about converting to Christianity as an attractive alternative, but what about Islam? Could the success of Islam in certain places in the Indian subcontinent have been driven by the caste system? Does conversion to Islam involve a change of name? Does the caste system operate in muslim majority Pakistan for example?

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#418

Post by usrusr » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:31 PM UTC

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #260

ReticentVole wrote: post #235

If Indians are so willing to discriminate against eachother on the basis of their own caste, we should be entirely unsurprised when Indians managers and companies discriminate against non-Indians (ie. Americans and other Europeans) in their own countries - of which there are multiple recorded instances. We need to be incredibly careful with the volume of migrants that we are taking in to the West. Issues like FGM, se…

> such numbers that they have little pressure to assimilate and adopt Western values. you mean like the uppety expat communities of Anglo-Saxon background who can't even bother learning German or French in Berlin or Nice even after 5 years in the country, the ones who go shopping every Saturday in their English groceries stores in Lyon and Munich and who will never invite the locals to their gatherings. Yes I've seen…

> the higher the contrast between rich/poor between the foreigner/host

British in Germany or France seems pretty horizontal to me though.

What's scary is how close-knit diaspora groups sometimes end up becoming more foreign to the host country than those in their ancestral country would be, holding up questionable traditions long after they are overcome by those who didn't leave. Permanently entrenched minorities are discrimination by definition, it can't stop without both sides stopping. Close-knit diaspora groups are a dangerous local maximum optimisation trap.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#419

Post by prawn » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

distances wrote: post #329

8ytecoder wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vegetarian is a huge identity marker. Quote from a professor from my college to my then girlfriend about me - “I wish he was at least a vegetarian”. I happen to be a vegan now and I have a lighter complexion and I clearly get assumed to be “upper caste” and somehow “smart” goes along with it. Answering to GP above - I don’t mind talking about it but some bar conversations have opened with it. That’s not pleasant. It’…

I'm a total outsider and don't know a thing about the caste system, so forgive me being ignorant: how do others know to which caste someone belongs? Would it be possible to claim another caste and just roll with it? What if one changed their surname to something usually associated with a certain caste?

This might be related. Supposedly these were "sketches used by the police in the USSR to identify suspects based on race" - https://i.redd.it/4qzg51sezz751.jpg

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#420

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #273

I’ve got a “hot button” about castes. I hate ‘em. Comes from growing up overseas (I live in the US), and having servants. These were the people that raised us, and were, for all intents and purpose, “family.” Except they weren’t, and when I found out how they lived, it broke my heart. I was also raised by a British mother, who was an awesome woman, but came from a middle-class Liverpool (“scouse”) family, and spent h…

I feel that I need to make a point here.

I did not mean to offend anyone. I was simply talking about my experience, in my life, and my outlook. I am very grateful for others sharing their experiences and outlooks, and it has helped me to understand things a bit better. I appreciate it. Really.

I understand that this is an emotional topic, and that some people have suffered greatly.

But let's not turn this into a flame war.

'K?

K.