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How To Be An Anti-Casteist

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Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#71

Post by blinkingled »

canistel wrote: post #48

See, you can have discourses on caste, you can deliberate as you will, but endogamy - marrying within your caste - is still the norm across India, even in the states where people are not that finicky about caste. Until this chain is broken, the shadow boxing on the sidelines will continue. Interestingly the Caribbean communities have somehow managed to shed caste, while retaining the Hindu identity.

I fail to understand how marriage is anything but a justifiably personal preference. Jobs are a different story - you can't prefer one race/ethnicity/caste over the other for obvious reasons. Marriage on the other hand is very personal - it would be ridiculous to expect people to marry into other races/castes/ethnicities as the norm - it never happens that way in any part of the world no matter how advanced - people generally prefer the partnership of people that they share most in common with.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#72

Post by mavelikara »

blinkingled wrote: post #55
la6471 wrote: post #40

This interview seems one sided though. I know that for last two decades Brahmins and other so called upper caste Indians have been protesting India’s quota system which is basically affirmative action whereby certain percentages of college seats and job vacancies are reserved only for people who do not belong to the upper castes. So there have been numerous occasions where meritorious but poor upper caste youths did…

Yeah. I can't say that I have experienced caste in same light as the article - in many jobs and across many hiring decisions it was never about caste but rather sometimes about language, geography and compatibility. It's also a matter of preferences as far as marriage goes - Brahmins for e.g. marrying within is not so much of a given today and whatever percentage of it is still happening is more about familiarity and…

> Brahmins really are the new Dalits in India

The fraction of wealth and power Brahmins hold is still disproportionately high when compared to population.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#73

Post by dragonwriter »

throwawayuuid wrote: post #16

I am just a regular unhyphenated American at a FANG, and I've never gotten a job offer when any of my interviewers were Hindustani. Coincidence, maybe? I think this particular nepotism is not exclusively internecine.

> I am just a regular unhyphenated American

No such thing, though Anglo-Americans are the most likely to arrogate themselves to this status.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#74

Post by klmadfejno »

vats wrote: post #60
clumsysmurf wrote: post #2

After an interview I attended at a fintech company, my Indian team lead straight out said she was trying to figure out the interviewee's cast. I was not familiar with the concept -- so my expression was mostly blank -- but she immediately followed up with "oh, I shouldn't have said that". I took no action, but wasn't sure what to do. After I learned more about it, I started to wonder where I was in this hierarchy. If…

Sometimes, people (at least in northern parts of India) tend to use the word as a synonym for "last name" in common parlance. It can be used without an intention to discriminate (though the consequences depend on the context, since you can figure out the community from a last name in most cases). Was the interviewee of Indian origin? Unless you are of Indian origin, it's not applicable to you. If the interviewee was…

As a non indian, that sounds like an incredibly weak form of plausible deniability covering one's ass.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#75

Post by blinkingled »

mavelikara wrote: post #72
blinkingled wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I can't say that I have experienced caste in same light as the article - in many jobs and across many hiring decisions it was never about caste but rather sometimes about language, geography and compatibility. It's also a matter of preferences as far as marriage goes - Brahmins for e.g. marrying within is not so much of a given today and whatever percentage of it is still happening is more about familiarity and…

> Brahmins really are the new Dalits in India The fraction of wealth and power Brahmins hold is still disproportionately high when compared to population.

Do you have any data to back this up? What power and what wealth exactly? Granted they have managed to stay out of abject poverty largely without any help but it's not exactly a story of wealth and power for a really long time now but I don't think the point you're making is that they should be even more worse off?

Also even if we assume for a moment that they are slightly better off than the rest of the population could it not be due to their own merit - it's not hard to see that caste puts more emphasis on education and competence even when it's lot harder for them to get into it without reservations.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#76

Post by andreilys »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #10
clumsysmurf wrote: post #2

After an interview I attended at a fintech company, my Indian team lead straight out said she was trying to figure out the interviewee's cast. I was not familiar with the concept -- so my expression was mostly blank -- but she immediately followed up with "oh, I shouldn't have said that". I took no action, but wasn't sure what to do. After I learned more about it, I started to wonder where I was in this hierarchy. If…

I had an interim manager who did this subtly. It wasn't hard for us to catch on after some time, we brought it up to HR and he was disciplined as far as I know, and soon left the company, not sure on what terms. It's absolutely not okay to discriminate candidates by something like caste, or social status. It's like if your lead said she was trying to determine if they were an inferior race.

It's absolutely not okay to discriminate candidates by something like caste, or social status

Caste no, social status? Absolutely, happens all the time. It’s very easy to proxy social status based on interests, hobbies, mannerisms, etc. Those that don’t pass the sniff test, are deemed “bad culture fits”.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#77

Post by throwawaywg »

The strict social hierarchical dynamics of Indian culture is damaging to a lot of workplaces. 2nd generation Indians are great. The Indians that are from lower casts or from oppressed groups like Christians or Muslims are really great. But the higher castes are extremely insular, and treat anyone of any race poorly.

This might be taboo, but every time I see a situation where there are multiple Indians in a reporting chain, I run. If you have an Indian above and below, you will be bypassed on work, undermined, and given absurd directions, almost designed to drive you out. Then there is the case where if an Indian gets into management, they will start filling everything with their friends. Other management positions, they will start fighting to bring in some contractors from some place like Infosys. Its the death knell of the IT division at the company.

Being on a team where you are the only non-Indian means you will be an outcast. You'll not be invited to meetings, they'll talk in their native tongue to exclude you. I've been the only white guy working with Chinese, and they don't do that. I've been in similar situations with Africans / and African Americans and they will welcome you right along.

This is the truth, no matter how politically incorrect it is, and every time you walk into an IT office and there are 80% Indians, that's the reason.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#78

Post by me551ah »

blinkingled wrote: post #71
canistel wrote: post #48

See, you can have discourses on caste, you can deliberate as you will, but endogamy - marrying within your caste - is still the norm across India, even in the states where people are not that finicky about caste. Until this chain is broken, the shadow boxing on the sidelines will continue. Interestingly the Caribbean communities have somehow managed to shed caste, while retaining the Hindu identity.

I fail to understand how marriage is anything but a justifiably personal preference. Jobs are a different story - you can't prefer one race/ethnicity/caste over the other for obvious reasons. Marriage on the other hand is very personal - it would be ridiculous to expect people to marry into other races/castes/ethnicities as the norm - it never happens that way in any part of the world no matter how advanced - people…

The problem with Indian castes being that caste ends up triumphing over personal preference. I personally know a couple of friends who were deeply in love but couldn't marry each other due to caste constraints enforced by their families. And it wasn't an economic issue either. The guy in question lives in SF and the girl was married off to some poor bloke from her caste.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#79

Post by flattone »

throwawaywg wrote: post #77

The strict social hierarchical dynamics of Indian culture is damaging to a lot of workplaces. 2nd generation Indians are great. The Indians that are from lower casts or from oppressed groups like Christians or Muslims are really great. But the higher castes are extremely insular, and treat anyone of any race poorly. This might be taboo, but every time I see a situation where there are multiple Indians in a reporting…

I ‘worked’ through the worst job of my life at msft exactly what you described. Literal hell. Ptsd
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