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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

#291
This is very interesting. Here's a discrimination system that's completely invisible and in people's minds only. I'm sure that the highest caste has all the incentives to continue it. But I also feel that the lower caste continue it by their actions. They too feel that they are less because of the caste they were born into.

Hiding is not the answer. By hiding, people signal that there is something to hide. I would even say that hiding makes it worse. It tells everyone that there is something to hide even the people uninterested in the situation. But when viewed objectively we can all see that there is nothing to hide. That it's just a bad idea that persists.

How do you fix it? I suspect that by uniting and fighting against the very idea that it's a valid system is the way to fix it. In time, the whole system would eventually collapse. Bad ideas can disappear over time but people have to fight to make them go away. Specially the oppressed set. You don't fight the idea that it's an unfair system. You fight the idea that it should even exist. I know. It's easier said than done. But by fighting the very idea of its existence. It will eventually make the whole idea go away.

The best example, I can think of, that is winning against a bad idea is the use of Queer in the LGBTQ community. 20 yrs ago "queer" was a horrible thing to say to an individual. The community has fought hard to change the word's meaning and now it has become a word that people like to hear. A word of pride. The whole idea has been turned on its head. Sure there are still people that use it as an insult but it's going away. 20 years from now it will just be a bad memory. Queer is and will be a point of pride. It was a genius idea in its simplicity and its effectiveness.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#292
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but can you please elaborate a bit more on Greeks and Turks? I happen to be Greek and have worked with 2 Turkish colleagues without any issues. On top of that, during my many travels across Europe, Turks (along with other Balkan nationalities) are by far the most welcoming people I meet once they learn that I come from Greece and I befriended a few of them. Do you have any different experiences to share?

As with many other one-off cases in this & other threads, one instance does not a rule make. Just because your experience was fairly positive, that does not negate the general trend of such occurrences in hiring decisions among such pairs ( Greek-Turk, Indian-Pakistani, Japanese-Korean, Japanese-Chinese, Russian-Polish, Serb-Bosniak, Serb-Croat French-Algerian and countless other pairs in the Middle East & other part…

but by using this pairing logic you would have to rule out any British person from interviewing basically more than half of the planet. french people from interviewing almost anyone from an African country and many more, Americans-UK, etc ...

if you do the exhaustive listing probably no one can interview/manage anyone.

and this is before taking into account more finer grained ethnic/religious/cultural/social clashing differences.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#293
post #122

In a well known big tech company (FAANG), I have seen many many examples of a whole layer of management from the same caste. So like under one director, every senior manager will have been from the same part of India. Sometimes this will extend to another layer of managers below them. Behind the scenes, there is a strong communication network that is often not caught or shown in org charts. This will include high ran…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#294
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?

Misnomer. "White" isn't a culture.

https://www.tiktok.com/@tizzyent/video/6881703506558848262?l...

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we please stop conflating casteism as racism? While both equally horrible, one is not same as the other. One can possibly hide their caste. But a person cant change their racial phenotypes.

This is not so cut and dry. The US has a long history of people “passing”.

https://www.amazon.com/Chosen-Exile-History-Passing-American...

An excellent book on this subject.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#296

The reason for my current user name here at hn was this exact form of racism. It is the first post I made when I created this throwaway. I was assured that my experience was unique and not widespread. I am both sad and happy to see this, sad because it exists, happy because it is getting some attention here at HN. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that everyone of us needs to be vigilant about this t…

You're okay working with people so bigoted that you have to hide them away from certain parts of their job because they might fuck it up with their bigotry? Why are they still employed? How can you be okay with coworkers that can't be expected to treat everyone in the company with a certain level of respect? Do you believe that's just the way "they" are? Is that the way you are? Remind me never to apply for a job at…

I think the idea is that people’s biases are often not obvious or detectable. Not saying this idea is a good way to avoid making decisions on such biases, but I don’t think it’s as black and white as you put it.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#297
> For Siddhant, who now lives in the South Bay in a $2 million home, wearing his father’s Ambedkar watch reminds him of where he comes from—and where he still wants to go. Even now, whenever the stakes seem especially high, he’ll put on the watch and double-check that his shirt sleeves are long enough to conceal it.

comon this is a bit over the top. Is this for real??

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#298

The reason for my current user name here at hn was this exact form of racism. It is the first post I made when I created this throwaway. I was assured that my experience was unique and not widespread. I am both sad and happy to see this, sad because it exists, happy because it is getting some attention here at HN. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that everyone of us needs to be vigilant about this t…

> Indians and Pakistanis

What do you do with Bangladeshis. :D

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#299

The reason for my current user name here at hn was this exact form of racism. It is the first post I made when I created this throwaway. I was assured that my experience was unique and not widespread. I am both sad and happy to see this, sad because it exists, happy because it is getting some attention here at HN. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that everyone of us needs to be vigilant about this t…

No this is so important. I agree that the reality of international and domestic generational conflict there we are mostly oblivious to in the West, should inform HR policy.

These things are real, and discrimination based on them can be concealed and is often as the very fascinating article says, invisible to outsiders. I'm with you on the way to address this is by bringing more attention to it than with other commenters who suggest that it's actually racist or discriminatory to acknowledge and address this. It's hard to refute the line of the other commenters cuz on the face of it it is racist and discriminatory to provide affordances for these types of issues because you're assuming someone faces them based on their background. But let's remember something important which is that the words racist and discriminatory in their essence are actually neutral... they simply mean discernment based on something, in one case race.

That can be used negatively but it can also be used to try to write the wrongs that were done by the inverse of that. So sometimes to address a specific wrong you have to deal with the same parameters as created the wrong but invert the effect. Otherwise you're basically giving all the power for the use of racial and discriminatory actions to the side that wants to use them for bad. You have to be able to use them for good too but obviously you need to be careful in how you go about this but I don't think that less attention on this issue is the solution, so I like to jump behind the point that this person is making because it seems like a very brave point that they're making but it sounds like a good idea to me.

I mean I have no idea how these observers would work in practice but maybe one way to do this is to sort of have like a pre hiring congress where all parties meet and have a chance to discuss their background and any bias and how they feel about people from another place. But saying it, I don't think that would really work so easily, tho it might. Every group of people is unique to some extent...I think it's a very tricky thing to do... But closing one's eyes and not talking about is probably not the way to get progress on this.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#300

The reason for my current user name here at hn was this exact form of racism. It is the first post I made when I created this throwaway. I was assured that my experience was unique and not widespread. I am both sad and happy to see this, sad because it exists, happy because it is getting some attention here at HN. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that everyone of us needs to be vigilant about this t…

>> One thing I recommend to my hiring managers is to not allow people from frictioned backgrounds to manage and interview people from the other side. What? This is racist in and of itself and would be blatantly illegal for any number of reasons. Also the problem is not necessarily limited to Pakistani and Indians. It's Indians and Indians. Not sure what you want done there. I freely believe that the caste system of t…

It's called a conflict of interest, and anyone who has a conflict of interest in a given business situation should absolutely be removed from making any decisions around that conflict of interest (and they should be more than forthcoming about those conflicts of interest). Standards of Business Practice 101.
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