Google cancelled a talk on caste bias • Hacker News Board

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#131

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

sumedh wrote: post #100

Vaslo wrote: post #65

Question from a layman. How does one know that someone is from another caste? If I was someone from India, how would I know what caste my fellow Indian is from? Is there some kind of code? Or where you are from?

Your parents tell you your caste. You can also get a caste certificate from you local municipal office which helps you take advantage of some perks if you belong to a "lower" class. Generally you wont be able to figure the caste of someone but there are clues like skin color, fairer skin generally is "upper" caste, sometimes your surname also gives away your caste. Unfortunately some Indians specially from the "upper…

Caste is a great illustration of how arbitrary racial identities are.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#132

Post by api » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

seneca wrote: post #87

api wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regional elitism in the USA is definitely a form of soft caste system. If you are from the upper East coast or the West coast you are a member of a higher caste than if you are from the interior, and inside the US there are definitely smaller caste differences. The South gets it the worst. When I was in college (University of Cincinnati) engineering students from the South were sometimes encouraged to lose their Sout…

This is maybe the strongest out-group bias in elite circles in the US currently. I believe that is largely because it is acceptable, or even required, in the current elite ideologies that dominate corporate and academic entities currently. And they hate to have it pointed out.

I've thought for a long time that woke could get actual traction by being more woke and extending the concept of "-isms are not okay" to include American caste and regional elitisms and classism that isn't about race.

A course on recognizing bias against lowland Southerners would be funny but not wrong or inappropriate and you'd see plenty of rich coastal fragility on display.

Classism and regionalism are absolutely huge in this country, especially when those on the receiving end are not in a racial minority.

But what would people do if there were no easily identifiable out groups to stereotype and mock?

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#133

Post by jeromegv » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #46

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/…

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

Of course your message was followed with people accusing the whole culture of robbing people. It's quite interesting how if you switched any other culture this would be downvoted to hell, but the moment we talk of Romani people, the most strong worded racist comments are just accepted. I guess we still have work to do.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#134

Post by salawat » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #40

cafard wrote: post #3

Quoted post unavailable.

Yeah, high school history tends to skip from the civil war to WW1, so most students miss out on reconstruction, and pretty much no curricula will talk about the explicit race discrimination in the GI bill/redlining.

What high school students curricula are you following?

All of those topics were covered where I went.

Though interestingly, the ones I do also tend to get across the point that caste discrimination was made illegal in India, and never tend to go into much explicit detail on how just because something is illegal, it doesn't mean it isn't done/is regularly enforced.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#135

Post by H8crilA » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

29athrowaway wrote: post #122

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…

> How dare we criticize another culture when we have our own problems? Because there are now 4.6 million Indian Americans and they are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the US. So it's our own problem now too.

It was a rhetorical question.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#136

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

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…

> every thread on this topic turns into a flame war with a bunch of people crying racism/religionism

Is there a term for shutting down a discussion by turning the belligerence to eleven? Such that people outside the discussion tune out not the views of those being belligerent, but the discussion itself?

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#137

Post by knorker » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #74

rob74 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except racism (and "caste-based discrimination" is also racism) shouldn't be considered "politics", everybody should be able to agree that it doesn't have a place in a modern company.

I'd posit that 99.999% of people agree racism is bad. It's mostly when the definition gets muddied and expanded that people start disagreeing and it becomes political and touchy.

I don't think it's a matter of definition. Unless you mean "it's not racism when I say it. When I say it it's just a fact".

Whether they use the N word, or saying "being on time" is "whiteness", racism is always defined as "not what I'm doing".

Actually the only real definition of racism I would say is "mentioning race in any way, except the way I do it".

For your 99.999%, I would say that WAY more than one in a hundred thousand would overtly say that their group (race, religion, skin color, gender) is "better" than another. Especially as you leave western countries.

Though in some countries their racism doesn't even place themselves at the top.

27% of Americans say that homeopathy is an effective treatement. I've never met anyone who would admit to this. I know someone who believes in crystals and fortune tellers though.

I don't know how many people are pro-racism, but it's not three orders of magnitude less than people who believe in the power of nothing.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#138

Post by leoc » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

29athrowaway wrote: post #122

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…

> How dare we criticize another culture when we have our own problems? Because there are now 4.6 million Indian Americans and they are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the US. So it's our own problem now too.

It seems the grandparent agrees with you on that, and not with the opinion which it summarised in that sentence.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#139

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

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/…

[deleted]

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#140

Post by lr4444lr » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

29athrowaway wrote: post #122

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…

> How dare we criticize another culture when we have our own problems? Because there are now 4.6 million Indian Americans and they are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the US. So it's our own problem now too.

I think he's being rhetorically sarcastic there.