Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system • Hacker News Board

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#321

Post by beebmam » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 3:40 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #313

beebmam wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree that genuine conflicts of interest need to be addressed. It seems absurd to declare a-priori that “no Indian shall be the unsupervised leader of a Pakistani (nor vice-versa) because that’s a conflict of interest”.

I didn't say that. What you've said here is a straw man

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#322

Post by wozniacki » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 3:45 AM UTC

gryn wrote: post #292

wozniacki wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are you saying that

  a) since such a cumbersome effort to weed out highly
  probable biases, that go unnoticed or unchecked, would
  likely be too prohibitively expensive for employers to
  undertake and hence any such lofty expectations should be
  done away with or 
  b) are you denying the possibility that such biases can
  exist in huge numbers in hiring & career growth decisions?

The former might be somewhat of a valid concern - corporate governance may not have evolved enough to make room for such things yet. Although, given the pace with which other reforms have been addressed in areas of women & BIPOC representation in the workplace, this sort of thing may not be too far out in implementation.

But the latter surely is wrong. It's just that no one wants to be the first to open that can of worms. Thats all.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#323

Post by mtalantikite » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 3:46 AM UTC

intrasight wrote: post #314

I don't "hide" the fact that I am Italian (couldn't if I had my mom's maiden name) but nor do I tell anyone - because a) they don't need to know and b) it's of no relevance. Honest question: why is it different with caste? Rather than "hide" it, why not have it a non-thing?

Because it could cause violence towards or the destruction of that Dalit person’s life: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste-related_violence_in_In...

Caste is a very complex topic that spans back thousands of years — including the exploitation of the Manusmriti [1] by British colonists to wield their own power while colonizing South Asia — and is really not at all comparable to, say, being an “ethnic” white person like an Italian in early 20th century America (half-Irish here myself).

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manusmriti

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#324

Post by sfmike » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 3:49 AM UTC

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?

what is a #FFFFFF man?

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#325

Post by winternett » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 3:51 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #185

throwaway_dcnt wrote: post #11

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…

One of the primary things these stories never truly elaborate properly on in the quest to establish social rank out of a caste-based society is that Black Americans, that were native to the US, and even for black migrants to India and other countries, are some of the most affected by caste politics of this kind in employment and work opportunity.

Often having darker skin, Black Americans are even prone to more discrimination domestically. Any editorial that doesn't recognize that fact as a truth has no legs to stand on in my opinion. The fact that people still hang on to caste ideology in any way, and treat it as a continuing reality should disqualify them from any role concerning equal opportunity. "Gradual change and understanding" is not a reasonable discussion in America, or we're all coddling the same violent and hateful past that America was born from.

I write this as someone who has lots of Pakistani and Indian friends, and has regularly struggled to get them to understand how different each of the dynamics are on this matter, but zero tolerance is essential to get people to understand that the issue is more serious and damaging than they could ever know.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#326

Post by flat-pluto » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 3:55 AM UTC

intrasight wrote: post #314

I don't "hide" the fact that I am Italian (couldn't if I had my mom's maiden name) but nor do I tell anyone - because a) they don't need to know and b) it's of no relevance. Honest question: why is it different with caste? Rather than "hide" it, why not have it a non-thing?

This is a false equivalence though. Ideally it would be a non-thing.

It has been a part of Indian society for a very long time, going back millennia, but it was codified in its modern form by the British. For instance:

"Nicholas Dirks has argued that Indian caste as we know it today is a modern phenomenon as caste was fundamentally transformed by British colonial rule. According to Dirks, before colonial rule caste affiliation was quite loose and fluid, but colonial rule enforced caste affiliation rigorously, and constructed a much more strict hierarchy than existed previously, with some castes being criminalized and others being given preferential treatment." [1]

Preferential treatment in this case means educational opportunity, administrative jobs, etc - essentially avenues of upward socio-economic mobility. Since then, it has almost become ingrained in Indian culture. So much so, that people think that one caste is "better" than the other, marrying into another caste would bring disgrace to the family and community, and so forth.

Another factor to consider is affirmative action. There are few good public universities and jobs in India, and a certain percentage of them are reserved for groups who have been historically discriminated against. This kinda rubs upper-caste people the wrong way since some of them believe casteism no longer exists and that even if reservations are required, they should be based on the socio-economic status as opposed to one's caste.

Overall, as you can tell by now, it's a pretty tense matter. Things are improving but by no means is it a non-thing.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#327

Post by barry-cotter » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 3:57 AM UTC

unmole wrote: post #306

I have no trouble believing that people carry their casteist prejudices to Silicon Valley or that they act out their casteism in vile ways. But when I read stuff that is so clearly nonsensical, I start questioning what embellishment factor I should I account for. > Questions about a person’s last name or home village can be seen as invasive attempts to identify caste. A pat on the shoulder might be a friendly greetin…

> There is simply no way to figure out someone's caste by their home village.

Most Indian villages will have multiple jatis (sub-caste groups) and it’s perfectly normal for endogamy to be so complete that people’s families speak exactly the same language and the genetic distance between them is on the order of that between Swedes and Sicilians. Indian genetics is fascinating.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#328

Post by barry-cotter » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:02 AM UTC

flat-pluto wrote: post #252

DesiLurker wrote: post #100

I am an indian & have been in valley for last couple of decades. anecdotally speaking between me and my friends I have never heard of the caste based discrimination until that cisco case. so much so that people would bring it up at gatherings etc. Also in case anyone is wondering, I do not belong to the upper caste and most of my friends like me are not (not dalits either). btw in my experience internet dating & marr…

"have never heard of the caste based discrimination until that cisco case" I didn't hear of it either until I noticed large groups of Indian-origin devs and managers (mostly at older companies such as IBM, Oracle, etc), and somehow only the 'upper caste' folks would get promoted and be invited to happy hours and such. How much that can be attributed to inter-personal relationships and professional competence as oppos…

It’s modernity, of which these sites are a part. Only marrying within one’s caste is a way point from only marrying in one’s jati, on the way to caring about socioeconomic status and not much else. In the US marrying within the religion, but outside the ethnic group lasted at most 50 years. Panmictia is coming.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#329

Post by ardit33 » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:04 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #185

throwaway_dcnt wrote: post #11

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 is called a 'conflict of interest'. (in this case it is national interest).

Fifa has often rules for this, where it avoid drawing to teams to play together when they are in constant/active conflict.

So, if there are some national tempers flaring, or a war somewhere, it is a better idea to have some boundaries.

Why we hope most people are good natured, we don't live in a perfect world, and it would be insane, or completely naive to believe that 'biases' do not exist.

The other side of it is 'ethnic nepotism', where people hire and favor people from their own countries, creating this pools of mono-ethnic teams in a company which statistically are not probable. This is actually a very common sight in Tech companies and we all know it.

Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system

#330

Post by russelldjimmy » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:05 AM UTC

unmole wrote: post #307

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 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'm sorry but this makes no…

Perhaps if something doesn’t make sense, ask for clarity instead of asserting that changing one’s surname makes zero difference.

I am also familiar with many upper-caste people who have changed their surname to something generic (like Kumar) to avoid revealing their caste. This doesn’t just apply to job seeking in private enterprises. They do this to avoid any kind of attention drawn to their surname, and hence caste. This attention can then play out differently in different scenarios.