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Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#111

Post by JPLeRouzic »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #80
washadjeffmad wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people in QA who are Patel. We have women from India who work at all levels, from ED to L1. All pillars are necessary. The biggest problem I've encountered is that they are sometimes socially isolated because Western colleagues don't know how to approach them, when they're really easy to talk to and have a lot to say!

>There are people in QA who are Patel What does this mean? I thought Patel was a surname.

From Wikipedia:

"Etymology The term patel derives from the word Patidar, literally "one who holds (owned) pieces of land called patis", implying a higher economic status than that of the landless,[6] ultimately from Sanskrit paṭṭakīla,[7] with the ending -dar (from Sanskrit "धार" - supporting, containing, holding) denoting ownership.[8]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patel

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#112

Post by the_only_law »

zionic wrote: post #104
lolinder wrote: post #15

> “We also made the decision to not move forward with the proposed talk which — rather than bringing our community together and raising awareness — was creating division and rancor,” Newberry wrote. This doesn't surprise me one bit. Even on HN, every thread on this topic turns into a flame war with a bunch of people crying racism/religionism. How dare we discuss something we don't fully understand? How dare we critic…

>The role of caste within the US is a super important conversation to have, and every resident of the US is entitled to participate, but there are a lot of people with a vested interest in shutting it down and the tools to do so. I don't believe HN's current moderation policies/leadership make this the place to have that conversation though. Participate in good faith all you want, you'll still earn a ban/warning for…

Last time I saw a big thread related to the topic there were super deeper threads of people just straight up calling each other slurs. They probably would have been flagged, but the threads were just so deep you wouldn’t see that unless you’re intently following the thread.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#113

Post by thereddaikon »

toper-centage wrote: post #42
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US laws and Google policies forbid discrimination Does U.S. law have precedent for discussing caste? There is a case for typing the lowest-caste Indians, the Dalits this cancelled talk was meant to discuss, as a race and thus protected class under U.S. and Californian law. But I don't know if this is legally precedented.

Isn't racism fundamentally a type of caste/class discrimination? Not as well defined castes like seen in India, but "black people" are discriminated as a result of slavery, "asians" as a result of mass immigration. To the point where in many countries you were not allowed or able to marry outside your "caste", had different rights than locals/whites etc. People today don't feel racism as caste discrimination, but to…

The word you are looking for is bigotry. That's the generalized equivalent of racism. Thing is, bigotry in general isn't illegal. Specific kinds of bigotry are in regards to hiring though. Racism is one of them. But caste isn't.

A lawyer might be able to make the claim that it would fall under "national origin or ancestry" since, to my knowledge, caste is hereditary and hard to change.

But if so then that makes these kinds of talks all the more important. Because it helps Americans recognize a form of illegal discrimination they would otherwise not recognize.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#114

Post by throwaway894345 »

car_analogy wrote: post #85
naravara wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe, Google, instead of just giving up you should be asking why a speaker on Dalit rights and inclusion is causing "division and rancor" in your community? Or is that also a difficult conversation you'd rather not have? The same reason speakers on Palestinian rights often can. While they may be on the right side of the issue, it's also very easy for closed discussion spaces to rapidly devolve into pretty viciousl…

Do you demand this strict moderation and sensitivity also when it's white people that are being accused of discrimination?

Not the OP, but I think the same principle applies. Whenever you accuse an entire race of something (as opposed to isolating your criticism to individuals or even systems), you’re engaging in racism, and this is unfortunately common in DEI trainings and among “race activists”. I don’t think strict moderation is necessary in the general case (especially since a lot of the most credentialed people who would moderate are themselves the sort of race activists who agitate)—rather, I think we’ll work through it in time.

It is a shame though that we were on this path toward a post-race world and then some of us abruptly reversed course and dragged the whole nation with them, setting us back decades.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#115

Post by sumedh »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #33
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #12

Quoted post unavailable.

> importing ethnicities means importing their ethnic conflicts too, always Is there evidence for this? Couldn't null be valid: those choosing to emigrate are most likely to be willing or wanting to leave that nonsense behind? Caste has no place in America. It's antithetical to our founding values. Plenty of Indians emigrate while leaving their caste identity, and any will to act on it, behind. There may remain implic…

> Plenty of Indians emigrate while leaving their caste identity

Caste is something most Indians grow up with, you dont really lose it just because you go to another country. Most kids of these Indians fortunately dont really care about caste.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#116

Post by TrackerFF »

likis wrote: post #57
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #18

Is there a Wikipedia list of obscure 'race'-isms? I find reading about other cultures or other time period's biases to be informative and wonder what the common elements might be. Off the top of my head, issues I can think of where an outsider may be oblivious between the "sides" are: Indian caste Japanese Barukumin caste Protestant/Catholic in Europe Jewish people in Europe/US/USSR English Class System, or Southern/…

Sami people is another example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1mi#Discrimination_again...

Not sure how the Sámi people are treated in Sweden, Finland, or Russia - but here in Norway there has indeed been a long history of discrimination against the Sámi.

But tbh, it's just half a century ago that pretty much all people from Northern Norway were discriminated against, in the southern parts. Which is why most people moving south were recommended to change accent - fast. More so if you wanted to work in any client/customer-facing job...

Back to the Sámi - unfortunately there are still shitty people out there that feel the need to voice their opinion if they see Sámi people wearing traditional clothing. But it should also be said that there's conflict within the Sámi community, which also comes down to what type Sámi you are (sea/coast Sámi vs hill/raindeer). Most of the real conflicts in any case revolve around land/areal usage.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#117

Post by ajsnigrutin »

farmerstan wrote: post #97
izacus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe, you can always reliably find a massive amount of racism against the Romani people ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people ).

Quoted post unavailable.

Yep...

I live in a country with two large-ish gypsy areas, and we have a lot of people who are very loud about their rights and discrimination against them...

...somehow none of those people actually live anywhere near them.

There really is discrimination against them, but on the other hand, the system (police, courts, politics) allows them to do all the shitty stuff they're stereotyped by.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#118

Post by yalogin »

The talk should have allowed to go through. The post I think said it right, people wanted to shut it down and the only way to do it is to discredit the speaker because they know there is truth to the arguments.

However we should step back and think about how important it in the American context. What purpose is that talk going to serve? I don’t know if it does anything other than satisfying esoteric learning needs of a few. It may be an issue in he US but the problem may be among single digit or double digit individuals at best. Is it worth spending cycles on it?

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#119

Post by ethbr0 »

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #95
naravara wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe, Google, instead of just giving up you should be asking why a speaker on Dalit rights and inclusion is causing "division and rancor" in your community? Or is that also a difficult conversation you'd rather not have? The same reason speakers on Palestinian rights often can. While they may be on the right side of the issue, it's also very easy for closed discussion spaces to rapidly devolve into pretty viciousl…

Would you dismiss Martin Luther King as an “activist”? But your point is in some ways valid, as it’s important to be able to see Israel through the lens of colonialism and to show that the state’s brutality applied to brown people of all faiths, including Jews. I also find it really strange that any criticism of Israel is labelled as anti-Semitic. I actually think equating the brutal behaviour of the Israeli governme…

The central issue with discussions about Israel is a failure to differentiate Israel (the state and government) with Judaism (the religion) with Jew/Hebrew (the ethnicity).

(And yes, I realize Israel is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state, but to a first order approximation and given current political dynamics... it's not)

Given that there are relatively few states with as intertwined religions and historical atrocities perpetrated against their people, it makes sense the ability to talk about this is underdeveloped.

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