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

reuters.com

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

#551

Post by jdtang13 »

Arun2009 wrote: post #177
randomguy2379 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remnants of Hinduism. These incidents do happen, but they are rare and almost non-existent compared to Hinduism. Churches openly hold discussions on how all humans are equal. Also Jesus was born in a poor family, which would have made him a lower caste hindu if he was born in India

> Also Jesus was born in a poor family, which would have made him a lower caste hindu if he was born in India This is not really true. If I recall correctly, Jesus was born in the Davidic line as per the bible, which was important for his claim as the messiah. His high "caste" did matter to his followers. Caste is determined by your pedigree, and not by how rich you are. It's true that caste-based discrimination is a…

That is a really good point. But I would argue that His caste is used here to signal the fulfillment of prophecy and inheritance. Crown of thorns, beatings, ridicule, etc pretty much amounted to huge social disrespect in the end, anyways.

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

#552

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

czzr wrote: post #532
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this attitude doesn't solve the racism problem. it just creates more of it. you don't solve anything with an eye-for-an-eye.

I was trying to show the absurdity of talking about a group of people like that, admittedly sarcasm is always dangerous in comments.

makes sense, sorry I missed it.

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

#553

Post by danans »

manquer wrote: post #63
yibg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I never knew the different caste had any distinguishing physical characteristics. What does a “brahmin look” entail?

In the south, it means looking fairer. There is inherent racism basis skin tone. It is not just how you look though, it is your name which can have case based surname or a first name variant common to a caste. Eating habits, how you speak the language - dialect and kind of words you use and so on.

Not just in South India, although the pattern is perhaps more distinctively visible there.

All over South Asia - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, from Punjab to Tamil Nadu, Gujarat to Bengal - you will find a rough correlation of class/caste along skin complexion lines with higher class/caste people generally being fairer complexioned, and a broad based folk understanding and rationalization of this. Almost every region has a complexion/caste based folk cultural model for interpreting the phenotypical variation among themselves, a variation which is often vast even over small distances - and it's independent of religion.

What you are seeing is the aftermath of thousands of years of collision of peoples who migrated from various parts of the old world with differing phenotypes. Though they all mixed, they did so in differing proportions that were correlated with the dominant power structures and associated mores of beauty, defined by the new rulers, who were frequently people of fair complexion, culminating in the situation you see today. This pre-existing situation was then keenly exploited by the last group of fair skinned rulers of foreign origin, the British.

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

#554

Post by wqTJ3jmY8br4RWa »

I happen to Sundar very well for past 20+ years. I very seriously doubt the allegations here and frankly surprised his name was mentioned publicly. That is against the law I would imagine. I hope Cisco covers his legal defense. This feels like a disgruntled employee trying to get back at his former bosses.

While I agree nobody should be discriminated against based upon their national origin, race, caste, gender etc., people need to come to terms with the fact that life is unfair. Some day you are the pigeon, some day you are the statue.

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

#555

Post by danans »

ashtonkem wrote: post #111
blueblisters wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry for your experience. Do you mind sharing what part of India you're from? It is really surprising to me that relatively better off Dalits would still find the need to convert to a different religion to avoid discrimination. Even more surprising that this is happening at a wider scale. I respect your personal choice, of course, but curious why people choose to convert to a different religion instead of just…

Not Indian, but I suspect that Christianity has a lot of bits and pieces that would be extremely attractive to Dalits. Early Christianity was the religion of slaves, soldiers, and other low status individuals in Roman society. Thus the scriptures are packed full of positive references towards the poor, the meek, and the downtrodden. But even more important, christian teachings emphasis a lot about moral equality in l…

> I do find it fascinating how a converted Dalit is basically freed from the social burdens of their class. I would not have expected that, as most religious groups heap scorn or actual punishments on those who convert to another religion.

I wouldn't take that statement at face value. They are definitely not freed from the social burdens of their station of birth.

They might achieve some sort of better treatment through their association with a larger group of Christians who together wield some political power and influence, but in matters of marriage and other aspects of domestic life, they will likely face the same discrimination that they did before conversion. Consider, for example, the caste system of Roman Catholic Indians in Goa:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Brahmin

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

#556

Post by danans »

garmaine wrote: post #364
devdas wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hinduism has no concept of apostasy. You are free to believe in as many gods as you wish (Atheism is a legitimate school in Hinduism), so changing which god your claim to believe in isn't a big deal. The perceived threat is from the claim that all other gods are false, which is one of the major factors in the anti Muslim/anti Christian sentiments playing out currently in India.

I would think that is true of atheism too.

It might, but atheism, or strains of it, are pretty deeply rooted in Indian culture from at least the time of the Buddha, and not seen as much as external threats like Christianity or Islam. I'm a Hindu atheist, but my extended family is far less concerned with that than they would be if I converted to Christianity or Islam.

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

#557

Post by dredmorbius »

shripadk wrote: post #468
dredmorbius wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are in fact preumption-of-validity (" prima facie " evidentiary) laws outside of India. In the case I'm considering these don't directly apply to civil or criminal law, though they operate closely adjacent to these.

We have "prima facie evidentiary" laws in India too. The law the parent is talking about has nothing to do with it. FIR is registered irrespective of whether there is a case made out prima facie or not. That is the biggest problem with this law. It turns the notion of "innocent until proven guilty" over its head.

"Civil forfeiture".

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

#558

Post by watwut »

michaelt wrote: post #414
watwut wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

I left startup because it was like the worst experience I think I had regarding gender (I am woman). Not that they would be toxic out right as tech bro stereotype, they were not. Generally they were good people.

But the lack of process and inexperience basically amplified the bias. There too much guess work going into decisions, so they were primary based on pattern matching like things. People were making decisions on very little information and in ambiguity, which made all the assumptions matter more. Where while bigger company I am in now, while there are people who openly express sexist opinions, in general I think I am getting more equal results.

Mostly because once they are making the decision, it is more likely to be based on my actual track record rather then feelings. Not that it is perfect, but when it is unfair, it unfair in all kind of various ways toward everyone and it seems more random. More likely based on personality conflict or something of that sort.

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

#559

Post by shripadk »

anandrm wrote: post #521
shripadk wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AFAIK atleast 2 generations ahead with the reading and writing compared to other communites Can you explain then why Dr. Ambedkar asked for only 10 years of caste-based reservations and to be done with it after that? Did he not know of this statistic when he asked for the reservation to be scrapped after 10 years: https://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/columnists/290917/ti... ? We continued to have caste-based res…

This is 2020 ,we are still talking about upper caste management suppressing lower caste in USA. If there has been 70+ years of equality driving measures taken , then this news shouldnt be there.I hope you understand how authority works in India, the Upper caste is already in decision making positions when this movement started 70 years back, i can very well imagine what would have happened. I m not supporting reserva…

Here let me use your own argument and just replace upper and lower caste with caste based reservations instead of upper caste management in private organizations. This is what I get:

"This is 2020, we are still talking about caste based reservations suppressing upper castes in India. If there has been 70+ years of equality driving measures taken, then this news shouldn't be there. I hope you understand how authority works in India, the lower caste is already in decision making positions now that the caste based reservation has been around for 70 years, i very well know how it happened. I am not supporting upper caste dominance in private sector, but there is always a benefit of doubt thats for the suppressed ones."

You see how easily I can make the same point for upper castes? How can you justify 50% reservation for lower castes for 70+ years? You can't. You can't even say that there is underrepresentation in our Parliament because there is adequate representation. We have reserved constituencies in which only lower castes can participate. They can participate in the unreserved constituencies too. Heck even the remaining 50% unreserved seats can be contested by lower castes by just choosing to not use their caste certificates. There are so many Adivasi parties and political organizations. There isn't even one for Brahmins. I am not saying this is bad. I am saying that this is the progress we have already achieved in 70+ years. We have a stringent SC/ST act which will jail people without prima facie evidence. Are you not bothered about the Fundamental Rights to Equality as promised under the Constitution of India? If everyone is equal then why this special treatment for 70+ years? I can understand one needs uplifting and for that a reasonable amount of time is required. But 70+ years? That is not justifiable by any means.

Just to put it in perspective: Our Honorable Prime Minister of India is from OBC (Other Backward Class). Our Honorable President of India is a Dalit. So no, our Country has progressed a lot and lower castes are actually holding positions of power more so than ever before. Exceptions cannot become the norm. But has the system become obsolete now? I believe it has! You can't keep the system going on and on for a few exceptional cases. Then it can have negative consequences down the road! The system has to evolve and meet challenges that we are all facing currently and not keep harking back to the past. Ultimately Caste System needs to be rooted out of our country. We can't do that if we keep the reservation system in the present state! We need to change it to income based reservation so that once you have obtained it and gotten a leg up you don't utilize that system anymore and let others who really need it take its benefits.

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

#560

Post by shripadk »

dredmorbius wrote: post #557
shripadk wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have "prima facie evidentiary" laws in India too. The law the parent is talking about has nothing to do with it. FIR is registered irrespective of whether there is a case made out prima facie or not. That is the biggest problem with this law. It turns the notion of "innocent until proven guilty" over its head.

"Civil forfeiture".

But that is for property. Does not extend to a human being. That is the same everywhere. You are confusing the two things. Even in India authorities have legal rights to confiscate property they feel is being used in criminal activity. That is allowed and doesn't require a warrant. But do you, in the United States, have any law where you can be arrested without there being a charge-sheet or an arrest warrant or prima-facie evidence? Even the arrests that cops make in the US are based on prima-facie evidence: not providing information as asked for by law, hiding drugs or on the basis of suspicion. No where does anyone get arrested because someone else just complained about the said person.
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