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Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

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Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#171

Post by lolinder »

Manuel_D wrote: post #168
lolinder wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s the kind of method religions/cults/political parties use to indoctrinate This kind of language ("cult" and "indoctrinate") is a conversation-stopper and does nothing to help anyone. If it's so easy to prove the idea is false, could you do that instead of using baseless invectives?

It's trivial to prove that it's false. Have you never heard a white person talk about white privilege? Ironically, some of the responses saying it's true that privilege invisible to those who have it are demonstrating otherwise. For instance, this [1] response who wrote that they weren't aware of their privilege "until I saw and lived it for myself". If privilege were invisible to those that have it, they wouldn't ha…

I'm not debating the point; I actually agree with you completely. I was simply calling out unhelpful rhetoric that detracted from the discussion.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#172

Post by screye »

user- wrote: post #129

My parents are from India, im from Canada. Luckily ive never really seen any caste discrimination, but we are from a religion that specifically outlawed this hundreds of years ago (sikhism), even though it didn't exactly dissappear. I know its something that exists though, its mind boggling that people still adhere to it. Hopefully it goes away though. Here is an interesting interview type video on it. https://www.yo…

Caste among Sikh[1] and Muslim[2] communities is as deeply rooted as caste in Hindus.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BSN-3nmMyM

[2] https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-muslim-community-under-a-...

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#173

Post by ToxicMegacolon »

pinephoneguy wrote: post #56
txcan wrote: post #2

Only to be bogged down by a level higher "country-of-birth" based discrimination system for GreenCards in the US.

Countries have borders, we invest a lot of money in our children and people and would like a return on that investment. In order for that to be possible we have to reject the people who would abuse the system.

How are the doctors, engineers who work for American companies on employment based visas abusing the system?

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#174

Post by qwertyuiop_ »

I am from an upper caste in India but always despised my extended relatives treating people from lower castes like crap. Fortunately my parents moved to a cosmopolitan town where they converted to Christianity. Life changed for us from that point onwards. Relatives shunning us and blaming us for adopting the religion of lower castes and untouchables. Living on gov enterprise housing protected us from the discrimination of town folk I thought I would never have to face discrimination for simply being an upper caste Christian. Little did I know moving to USA made it worse. Almost all of transplants from India are upper castes and are of Hindu background. Most of them (not all) immediately categorized me as a "3rd tier Indian". I worked at the Indian Consulting Companies and when the colleagues realized I was a practicing Christian they "outed" me to their managers and I could see discrimination immediately. Not being invited to important meetings, passed for promotions and bad scores on employee reviews on and on. I even switched companies and would "accidentally" fall under Indian managers and they immediately probe where am I from etc etc. Followed by bad relationships and eventual souring.

Most Indians who claim racism here in US usually come from upper/mid caste and lived decent lives in India and have seen their families and neighbors treat lower caste people like dirt.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#175

Post by s17n »

pansinghkoder wrote: post #156
safog wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a huge language / culture divide in India and yes managers of a certain culture can hire reports of their culture to be their yes-men but it's not exactly based on caste. It's effectively a French guy hiring another french guy or a German guy stacking their team with other Germans. It's a bit more complicated than that because if you look at things like power distance index (PDI), India measures way higher in…

Or almost like a white man hiring another white man?

White men don't do this anymore.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#176

Post by loeg »

ramraj07 wrote: post #84
jewayne wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you see the danger or irony of stigmatizing the discussion of bias.

You threw a racism uno card by asserting that the Japanese guy was racist with zero proof. You’re stereotyping people as much as you accuse others of.

It was a different commenter -- franklampard.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#177

Post by rdedev »

Bhilai wrote: post #9
belval wrote: post #7

To Indian commenters on HN, how much of that is true? Do you feel threatened when a coworker asks about where you are from? It's something I do ask from time to time (not during interviews obviously, but during lunch for example) out of pure curiosity. Should I stop? I guess that I should explicitly add that I am not from India. Cross-cultural communications can be a bit difficult at times and I'd rather not make blu…

A lot of stuff mentioned in the article is true. I would even go ahead (at peril being downvoted by Indian patriots) that India is a deeply racist country. My parents, educated upper middle class working folks use to 'educate' me to not get married outside our caste and such. Caste system is deeply rooted in India and you can pretty much read about it from lots of sources online. India has a lot of right provisions (…

There was a new story of a matrimonial ad that was asking for a groom for a gay man. It had a preferred caste for suitors. So yeah, it runs pretty deep in some corners of India

https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/matrimonial-ad-s...

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#178

Post by sumedh »

fhrow4484 wrote: post #49
dhanvantharim1 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its possible some of it is true, I know well educated brahmin acquaintances who have outright said they are superior. I look like a brahmin person and they tend to let their guard down around me, But no one has ever asked me about my caste (Maybe because they assume my caste based on how I look). At the same time there are lots frivolous lawsuits from the groups mentioned in this article so its hard to say.

> I look like a brahmin person > they assume my caste based on how I look I'm curious in this comment, are you dressing up a certain way that is typical of brahmin, or are there some other characteristics that makes you look brahmin?

> or are there some other characteristics that makes you look brahmin?

Some brahmins have lighter skin and brown eyes compared to average Indian who has brown/dark brown skin and black eyes. So some brahmins think they are different(better) to other Indians and prefer to marry amongst their own kind.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#179

Post by anon0192837465 »

Recent articles about casteism in US prompt me to think if there is some coordinated effort behind these articles? Have been living in US for 20+ years and never even once had any Indian mention caste. In fact, only time I was asked about my caste is by a white American lady, who thought I was of a specific caste due to my vocabulary! This happened only recently (in 20 years), which made me ponder if there is ongoing effort to malign India/Hinduism in US.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#180

Post by Mezzie »

baybal2 wrote: post #126
zxienin wrote: post #67

I am from “upper caste”. My experience might not be commonly heard perspective. In 10th grade of schooling, my parents changed my lastname to avoid that folks figure out the caste. Due to affirmative action (aka reservation) on steroids, upper caste were losing opportunities. My parents wanted to avoid that I lose out on selection, promotions.., where subjective discretion was involved. I do not recall ever seeing ca…

I am a non-white citizen of Russia through a rather bizarre family history. My parents changed my, and their names, and surname to Slavic sounding for reasons you can understand. Out of many, lower risk of being drafted (being non-white, and living in far-east increases likelihood of draft 10x,) ease of getting into a good school, or university for me, and simply lower chances of getting into random troubles with off…

I'm a white American, but I'm a homosexual female with a disability and I feel the same way as you.

Sometimes, it could be an advantage, but using it that way just feels wrong given I know what it's like to lose out on things due to my sex/sexuality/disability. Why would I ever want anyone to lose to me because they're male/straight/not-disabled?

I do wonder if I'm hampering myself, because those aspects of myself have presented some difficulties, but who's to say a straight white man didn't have difficulties of a similar level that were ignored because they didn't tick the diversity box? (Good luck to impoverished straight white men or straight white men who are autistic or have mental health problems).

And I don't know about your experience, but mine is that a lot of the diversity checkbox people are in this for their personal brand/career and they're just as slimy and backstabby as any white men have ever been. At least the straight white dudes just call me a bitch to my face. I can respect that.

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