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How To Be An Anti-Casteist

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Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#291

Post by whimsicalism »

drieddust wrote: post #289
whimsicalism wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's odd - often when I talk with international people, they seem to be under the impression that affirmative action doesn't exist outside of their own country. I was recently talking with someone in China who claimed that the Uighurs could not be oppressed because they are given advantages in hiring/education, and that America would never do the same for black people. Suffice to say, the US does engage in extensive…

Comparing treament of Uighers to caste situation in India is unfair. Yes there is discrimination but India is fighting it on policy and social level. Reserving 50% in education and jobs is one such big step. India's constitution was written by a a Dalit. Many people from the held high offices. Current prime minister and president are from the same community. > Suffice to say, the US does engage in extensive aff actio…

> Comparing treament of Uighers to caste situation in India is unfair.

Absolutely, not my intention by my comment - more just recounting a similar phenomenon in a different discussion.

> India is fighting it on policy and social level

I'm not contesting that either! But of course there is still more work to be done.

> Is it measured? If not than how you know?

Affirmative action is quite well known in the United States. You can see the documents from the SFFA v. Harvard lawsuit, for instance, to see how the SAT score cutoff differs by race & ethnicity.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#292

Post by hairband »

paloaltokid wrote: post #290
hairband wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats what I am having trouble understanding. how does he know? Unless you take into account the context of them being Indian and his experience in India, they won't be able to tell whether its to figure out his caste, or just to have fun.

Have you ever been discriminated against? And on a consistent and ongoing basis? When people are after you all the time, you start to learn the warning signals.

I understand the mental stress of having people after you all the time, but that doesn't mean that all the people are after you all the time. In this case they may have extended a genuine invitation. And given the historic context, it may have led to him feel like it was a casteist action, that doesn't make his colleagues casteist.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#293

Post by ma2rten »

kelnos wrote: post #129
lowercasteguy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to the caste system in India is actually very simple. Religious conversion. Ambedkar was a visionary who himself converted out of Hindu religion and gave up his 'caste'. Caste is essentially the same as feudalism, but unlike other regions of the world where feudalism was a societal concept, it became a religious one in India. Buddhism for example is an Indian religion but Buddha was explicitly against th…

> Though I really don't understand why lower caste dalits in the US continue to stay Hindu, when they could just change their religion and avoid the whole caste discussion altogether. Perhaps it's just they have strong religious belief in Hinduism? I don't have more than a surface understanding of the religion or how devoted people tend to be, but if I think about the various sects of Christianity, many people of cer…

In Eastern religions don't really work the same way as Christianity. If you believe in multiple gods, there is much more room for adopting different believes and practices.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#294

Post by john4532452 »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #238

As long as there is no illegal discrimination, what is wrong with asking and knowing if people you work with are people you relate to better in terms of religion? If I am a Brahmin, why wouldn’t I want to know if my co worker is also a Brahmin? Ivy League, for example..is the caste system of the US. Are we going to abolish them? This is an absurd article. It is absolutely cringe worthy. Shame on NPR. An egalitarian s…

You are looking the caste equivalent to the tribe. It is not. A European college being happy to see a fellow European on a international team is not the same as a two people associating with caste.

Caste is a system designed based on the "division of laborers", not labor(very important distinguishing) to promote privilege by birth and monopoly of education to some and denial to the rest. By "division of laborers" i mean if a person is born in a non priestly caste they will be denied education and its impossible to change caste. This was the case until the Britishers arrived to india and you see majority of the indians are first graduates in the family now because of denial of education to their forefathers.

This is the reason caste system must not be encouraged at all.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#295

Post by john4532452 »

mandliya wrote: post #83

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.

Because this is done very subtly, you would not even realize. It took me a very long time to find about this. Once my manager asked me if i was a vegetarian. My brahmin friend educated on this. The test is to ask if a person is a vegetarian. If no then ask if their family were a vegetarian. If no then don't proceed further. You now know he is a non-brahmin, else you now know he is a brahmin and you freely discuss about caste.

Whenever you are very surprised during promotions the reason is always the manager is a brahmin. No matter how friendly, i never want my manager to be brahmin, but it not possible always.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#296

Post by _b4ut »

henru wrote: post #284
_b4ut wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

B/c it is being ignored while in plain sight.

Discrimination based on caste is different than discrimination based on race, though. There is probably race based discrimination in India too, and it might intersect with caste, but conflating both probably doesnt really make sense. Also, I dont think people really ignore people of color being racist within their countries. Most of the time when people bring up arguments stating that the people being racist are whit…

race based and caste based discrimination are both technically the same and fall into the "racism" category.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#297

Post by fellellor »

ashayh wrote: post #268
fellellor wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one, and I’ll report it to the cops.

https://lmgtfy.app/?q=dalit+beaten+for+entering+temple

Clearly, this is illegal ntm horrific. Parent seems to say these temple policies have legal sanction, when they do not.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#298

Post by fellellor »

Bang2Bay wrote: post #271
fellellor wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WTF is even that page? You might as well have quoted 4chan. It’s so hilarious, I’m not even offended. To be honest.. I can see it working as a scam of some sort. As long as the “white man” has money you might as well be of the highest caste right? Here we’re trying to eliminate caste, but some geniuses want to give a caste to all sorts. You might as well give gold a caste...

looks like it is a page similar to this. a talk page. I guess we are trying to eliminate caste hierarchy/oppression (though there are legal provisions that already do that in india) .

Yeah, I wouldn’t quote this page as evidence for anything either.

And I don’t know who are the “we” trying to eliminate caste oppression. Some claiming to do so are clearly demagogues using it to divide people and seize control. Like communists claiming to speak for the working class when in fact they just want all the power for themselves.

The existing laws don’t eliminate caste, instead they make some of them more desirable.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#299

Post by fellellor »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #249
fellellor wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t limited to some Christians and Muslims of India. They have wholesale adopted the caste system. To see evidence of this, just pick up any English paper (for Christians) or any Urdu paper (for Muslim) and see the marriage, real estate listings. Sometimes the caste criteria may be kept down low, but is exposed by activists from those communities. The reason this system persists, may be that it’s acceptance fa…

You seem to be conflating "secularism" with "religious diversity". They aren't the same. For example, France and a lot of north/west Europe is largely secular. USA has religious diversity but is not secular.

This doesn’t seem relevant to what I said. Indian “secularism“, as defined by our intellectual class, is very different from the western idea. That’s not a core part of what I’m saying though.

Re: How To Be An Anti-Casteist

#300

Post by paloaltokid »

hairband wrote: post #292
paloaltokid wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever been discriminated against? And on a consistent and ongoing basis? When people are after you all the time, you start to learn the warning signals.

I understand the mental stress of having people after you all the time, but that doesn't mean that all the people are after you all the time. In this case they may have extended a genuine invitation. And given the historic context, it may have led to him feel like it was a casteist action, that doesn't make his colleagues casteist.

It’s true that they may have extended him a genuine invitation. It’s also true that he may have overthought it. But that is kind of the point of the story, no?

After you endure enough discrimination and persecution, your trust in others are eroded. You start to irrationally question the motives of others. Eventually you lash out preemptively because you’re afraid.

This is why discrimination and oppression is bad. It tears at the fabric of society.

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