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Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

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Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#531

Post by licebmi__at__ »

tomp wrote: post #444
sjy wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relatively large number of tech billionaires – people with tens of thousands of times the median wealth – is a strange thing to use as an indicator of “meritocracy.”

Actually, one of the main criticism of meritocracy (as in, the social structure that we (the Western civilisation) strive to have, not the stupid "it's not actually a meritocracy" argument) is that, combined with assortative mating, it would eventually result in incredibly unequal society, with high-IQ genes becoming increasingly concentrated.

Care to elaborate why "it's not actually a meritocracy" is a stupid argument?

IMO every metric we define will be gamed by bad actors so "meritocracy" will only be used to provide legitimacy to said bad actors. It's quite telling that "aristocracy" (the government of the best) which was supposed to be just like "meritocracy", became to mean just the opposite, meaning nepotism and idiotic inbred leaders.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#532

Post by kushan2020 »

furyroad wrote: post #527
yumraj wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Reservation is the real problem (no it's not) Of course Reservation IS the problem if you're unfortunate to be an upper caste. The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias, it amplified it. More and more castes, outside the original designation, demanded it in exchange for votes, and more and more upper caste Indians felt cheated as they lost limited opportunities that should…

>> The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias. It is not the goal of the reservation system to eliminate caste-based bias. The goal is to eliminate unfair competition by ensuring candidates of equal backgrounds compete with each other. A low caste candidate who was historically denied education can not compete with a higher caste student from an educated family. Hence the candida…

> This is roughly comparable to the weight divisions in boxing. The divisions exist because it is unfair to let a lightweight boxer fight a heavyweight fighter.

In your example if the son of a lightweight boxer happens to be a heavy weight boxer he will not be made to fight with a lightweight boxer right?

The idea of reservation in its current form sounds great when talking about a generation or two, but it starts to show its deficiencies in the long term. You have created a system which never fully solved the root problem and you have cemented the caste based division even further in the minds of your population.

> It is not sound to say a person from a caste who was oppressed for thousands of years should not be given reservation because they become rich in the last generation.

You are talking as if that person witnessed the caste oppression for thousands of years. If a lower caste family has become wealthy and rich due to reservation, how is their usage of caste based reservation for their grandkids really solving the root problem? That seat which their privileged grandkid will take could be better taken by someone else in need.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#533

Post by higerordermap »

lowend wrote: post #214

ITT: (Possibly) "Upper caste" Indians claiming: 1. This is due to a few bad apples 2. Reservation is the real problem (no it's not) 3. I don't do it therefore it doesn't exist I can tell you by experience the amount of concious and unconcious bias regarding caste amongst Indians both in India and abroad is ridiculous! I'm light skinned so people assume I'm "upper caste" and speak with me as such. My last name doesn't…

Why is reservation not a problem? If a SC/ST person whose parents are rich (maybe due to a govt. job by reservation itself?) and gets 1/2 of marks of a middle class person just by being lower caste, then there is an issue with reservation.

The correct approach is, if the parents of a lower caste person have got advantage of reservation, the reservation should go to next person in queue. This way benefits can be evenly distributed instead of benefitting few wealthy people.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#534

Post by higerordermap »

muzaffarpur wrote: post #488
lowend wrote: post #214

ITT: (Possibly) "Upper caste" Indians claiming: 1. This is due to a few bad apples 2. Reservation is the real problem (no it's not) 3. I don't do it therefore it doesn't exist I can tell you by experience the amount of concious and unconcious bias regarding caste amongst Indians both in India and abroad is ridiculous! I'm light skinned so people assume I'm "upper caste" and speak with me as such. My last name doesn't…

https://admission.aglasem.com/jee-main-cut-offs/ Category JEE Main 2019 Cut Off Common Rank List 89.7548849 Gen EWS 78.2174869 OBC NCL 74.3166557 SC 54.0128155 ST 44.3345172 PWD 0.11371730 Common Rank List = Upper caste SC/ST = lower caste 90 vs 44/54.

The "Indian left" doesn't acknowledge this, and jumps in every discussion to defend the current caste based reservation system that doesn't consider economic status of the candidate.

If someone writes JEE, it is likely they have spent a lot for coaching / study materials, and it is likely they don't deserve reservation.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#535

Post by nirav72 »

I never really thought this was an issue here in the U.S. I was born here in the U.S. But based on my very common Gujarati lastnamre, my lower caste status is obvious. But I'v never faced any caste related issues in the U.S. Not even with indian co-workers that grew up India and could be more caste aware.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#536

Post by esalman »

sharadov wrote: post #281

Unfortunately, the caste system is more complex than the issue of race in the US. The reservation system in India was instituted to bring parity between the downtrodden castes and the upper castes. When I was in engineering school in the late 90s, if you were from a lower caste, you barely had to get passing marks in the engineering entrance exam to make it to a top engineering school. And you would still have unfill…

What is more unfair? One 25,000-ranked dalit student getting favored over a 5,000 -ranked brahmin, or the fact that 25% of IIT students do not represent dalits even though they represent 25% of the whole population?

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#537

Post by adjkant »

perl4ever wrote: post #485
adjkant wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am an Indian and clearly reservation system is a spectacular failure. The reservation system actively creates a divide among castes. I will not be surprised if some these upper caste people who are fed up of reservation in India discriminate when they go to USA. These upper caste people are not discriminating due to fact that they believe that one caste is superior to another, they are doing it because they are a…

>and this reads exactly like rich white conservatism in America You are interpreting the parent comment as a moral defense of caste discrimination. I guess it is, but I think it says something valid about the causal roots of the situation, which needs to be understood even assuming you think it's bad and needs to be changed. How can it be changed otherwise? If certain castes are subject to affirmative action in India…

You're right, affirmative action here seems to fail in this way since high caste Indian citizens can simply move to America, and I'm not going to pretend I have an answer there off the cuff. Admittedly this is not a problem I think about specifically often.

What is 100% not okay and fixable even without changing anything about the reservation system is the treatment of those abroad that are in lower castes, which is directly argued against by the OP here:

> These upper caste people are not discriminating due to fact that they believe that one caste is superior to another, they are doing it because they are able to sympathise with the plight of other unreserved Indians in India.

Describing the reservation system as a "plight" on upper castes while not sympathizing with the issues the lower castes deal with is literal classism at work within US tech companies that is clear by reading links to and direct comments containing many first hand accounts.

Affirmative is far from perfect when it comes to restorative justice approaches, but an imperfection does not mean all other ethical statements and stances need not apply. Let the upper castes run from India to avoid dealing with the reservation system, sure, that can't be avoided. However, we as a society should absolutely stop the caste system from continuing here.

I don't think this is the best idea, but theoretically US/world tech could also take an affirmative action type stance when it comes to castes and H1B visas in the US. That'd be an interesting theoretical patch solution, but then that just means more Indians would focus somewhere that didn't take this stance. And the end of the day, this needs to be a cultural change within Indians abroad and in India. But this issue being brought to a larger stage in the US is a great start.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#538

Post by higerordermap »

kyteland wrote: post #462
screye wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also see many Rich People whose ancestors were Dalits, who no longer need any financial grant/food/shelter from the Government claiming it from Government. It only harms very poor Dalits in need. This is something I have been thinking quite a lot about. The Govt. really struggles to cap affirmative action to only those who need it. I knew people who were from lower castes, used reservation to get in and had Macbo…

It's a common line of thinking that a system is broken if there's a single instance of failure when the right measure is if it does more good than harm. I've heard that excuse in the US with regards to giving to the poor, "they might waste it on booze and drugs." Well sure, but they might also use it to keep from starving. In this case, are there some people that "don't deserve it"? Certainly, but there's probably ma…

But it is broken if there are too many instances of failure.

It is not like there are no better ways to do it, like adding an economic constraint, or not giving reservation if parents have gotten reservation for job. That would benefit everyone except affluent lower caste families.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#539

Post by adjkant »

legolas2412 wrote: post #250
adjkant wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am an Indian and clearly reservation system is a spectacular failure. The reservation system actively creates a divide among castes. I will not be surprised if some these upper caste people who are fed up of reservation in India discriminate when they go to USA. These upper caste people are not discriminating due to fact that they believe that one caste is superior to another, they are doing it because they are a…

> Systemic oppression is not erased by hard and honest work of the descendants of oppressors, it must be actively fixed. But it looks like these measures do not solve where the systemic oppression exists. Systemic oppression exists mostly in wealth inequalities, and somewhat in society that restricts access to education for those who are oppressed. Given that is the problem, the solution should be to provide high qua…

I'm all for better restorative justice, but that's not required to, you know, not discriminate against people in the US, as the person I responded to argued for by sympathizing/rationalizing the discrimination. I'm frankly immediately suspicious of the good faith of any comment/post that focuses on rationalizing the oppressor versus fixing an obvious injustice as the post did.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#540

Post by higerordermap »

adjkant wrote: post #234
pringles_red wrote: post #104

I don't get why is everyone who is saying this a result of the reservation system is getting downvoted. I am an Indian and clearly reservation system is a spectacular failure. The reservation system actively creates a divide among castes. I will not be surprised if some these upper caste people who are fed up of reservation in India discriminate when they go to USA. These upper caste people are not discriminating due…

> I am an Indian and clearly reservation system is a spectacular failure. The reservation system actively creates a divide among castes. I will not be surprised if some these upper caste people who are fed up of reservation in India discriminate when they go to USA. These upper caste people are not discriminating due to fact that they believe that one caste is superior to another, they are doing it because they are a…

> and this reads exactly like rich white conservatism in America

In India, caste doesn't really map well to wealth.

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