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How To Be An Anti-Casteist

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Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#81

Post by returningfory2 »

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…

I strongly doubt that the interviewer did not have access to the candidate's resume.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#82

Post by gautamcgoel »

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.

...Hindustani? You can just say Indian or Indian-American, thanks.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#83

Post by mandliya »

I am quite surprised! I am not saying it doesn’t happen, but I am plain surprised. I have been in US for 8 years and reported to Indians most of the time (I am Indian too), and thought of happening something like this here never occurred to me. I believed like minded, educated Indians who mostly comes from Middle class would never do this.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#84

Post by klmadfejno »

baggy_trough wrote: post #43
astrea wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the language in this comment, I can't help but imagine you somehow let your internal biases affect your behavior and language during these interviews.

What would be a property of the language in the comment that would lead you to this conclusion?

If someone told me they failed 10 interviews, and suspected that the race of the interviewers was a driver of that, and then extrapolated that to others of that race, I would guess that correlates to a number of other beliefs that I would care to avoid hiring for.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#85

Post by john_max_1 »

thewarrior wrote: post #24

There has been a lot of outrage over the past week in India over the rape of a lower caste woman by upper castes. The police sided with the culprits and forced the family to cremate the victim to destroy evidence. This is a common tactic by upper castes to spread terror and keep the lower castes in line. Goes to show how entrenched the system is especially outside the big cities.

FWIW, There were thee more incidents and in all the cases lower caste girl was raped by Muslim guys. So, much for unnecessary giving caste/communal angle to a case of corruption and power.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#86

Post by sreevisakh »

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…

This is the regular fallacy that is peddled by privileged upper class - denying casteism and promoting falsehoods supported by anecdotal evidences. Brahmins and other upper castes are over represented in power positions. The names of people at the helms of government institutions is a dead give away. Check this article for the demography of some of the top bureaucrats: https://theprint.in/india/governance/of-89-secretaries-in-mo.... The same goes about universities: https://www.chronicle.com/article/in-india-caste-discriminat....

The point missed by the narrative of marks scored by upper caste student vs dalit's is that role of privilege. The fact that dalits are discrimintated severely and denied opportunities before ever being able to ever reach college is something that's carefully neglected. Not to mention the fact that even meritorious dalits are breated in the name of reservation and subjected to organised harrassment all too commonly in universities and government services: https://theprint.in/opinion/brahmins-on-india-campuses-study...

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#87

Post by logicslave12 »

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…

Yup basically, I’ll never work for an Indian boss. Chinese, Hispanic, white, etc all fine for me.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#88

Post by edoceo »

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…

So many ethnic stereotypes, personal samples only (I doubt this person kept diligent notes) then classified as truth. Sad to read when the topic is ethnic bias.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#89

Post by foogazi »

samatman wrote: post #53
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…

There's a couple ways to read this one, and no context for deciding between them. Indians have a deeply engrained culture of noticing caste. This is true whether they are ok with discriminating on that basis, or staunchly against it, caste permeates the culture. So either she was only interested in hiring Brahmins, and realized that she shouldn't have tipped her hand... or she was curious about it, and then realized…

I think when it gets to saying these things out loud it might be too late

The fact that it would be top of mind at all

Could be curiosity or it could be a status play. Are there castes she would/would not hire from, would it be a problem to getting work done?

Edit: I’ve worked with indians my whole career and only recently learned via HN that caste system “carried over” to the US

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#90

Post by edflsafoiewq »

tt433 wrote: post #50
kyuudou wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a controversial reality that often gets silenced. Even between different cultures and castes from the Indian subcontinent there appear to be clear and discriminate striations[1] that few people in my experience talk about. I think it's a serious issue with the millenial and younger generations of non-Indian American citizens. Once I worked with a group that was run by a brahmin hindi speaker and a gro…

I'll take this opportunity to state that the word "meritocracy" was originally a bit of a joke taking the piss out of the idea that an aristocracy would couch itself in the language of merit without actually changing much.

Aristocracy itself literally means "rule by the aristos, the best".
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