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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

#361

Post by vijaybritto »

sitkack wrote: post #14
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #5

A good read for some additional context on caste discrimination in the American tech industry: https://www.wired.com/story/trapped-in-silicon-valleys-hidde...

Not just caste discrimination, but also sexism. I have worked at least three companies where if there were Indian women, the vast majority were in QA.

Interesting fact: Talk to Indian upper caste women who claim to be feminists about caste; you'll be shut down quickly. I have had countless arguments only to be named "mansplainer". The activism from powerful groups will flow in the same social structure which does not affect their power.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#364

Post by wolverine876 »

avensec wrote: post #326
wolverine876 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know nothing about the parent or their experience [edit: and thanks to the parent for posting this]. I do know that commonly, people in positions of power (managers or people in the majority) believe the following but it's often not true; that is, the signal is always same, but not the reality. That is, the signal is meaningless as an indicator of the underlying situation, but when I find myself thinking it, it is…

As the parent, just wanted to give a quick reply with thanks. My reply here is meta given the topic, but I almost didn't submit my original comment because I've seen how these threads go. Any additional information in my comment would lead to even more complexity/areas to pick apart. Less information becomes easy targets for flame. I can understand why the talk was pulled, because they often seem to result in negativ…

Yes, and I hope it was taken as discussion. I am not even making suggestions to you, not knowing anything about you, your employee, or the situation. I do not for a moment think that I do know based on a couple paragraphs on the Internet.

Thanks for submitting your comment. It's so valuable to have someone openly discuss these things.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#365

Post by walkhour »

lyaa wrote: post #360
walkhour wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You claim "at least partly" and then proceed to prove it with anecdotal evidence. You'd need to prove it with a study similar to the ones that send identical CVs to companies, just changing one thing, which is what they want to discover if there's bias against.

I am not obliged to defend every statement I make with a study for my thoughts and experiences to be worth sharing. Also, anecdotal evidence is evidence. Not as generalizable as controlled studies but not as worthless as you seem to think. In any case, I have done the five minutes of googling you seem to want. Biases in evaluating resumes based on gender and other such factors are not new nor unknown: here is an earl…

You can sure share your thoughts, and I can share my thoughts on whether you're correct, I'm just pointing out it's not proven your personal experience proves discrimination is part of the explanation.

None of those studies support your original claim. They support the more broader claim that women are discriminated in the job market.

> Not as generalizable as controlled studies but not as worthless as you seem to think.

Sorry, a single data point, by itself, when you share it attempting to generalize, is worse than worthless, since it can be terribly misleading.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#366

Post by alex_smart »

hef19898 wrote: post #340
alex_smart wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly would you determine that a manager is acting against an employee under them due to an internal caste bias and not due to lack of performance or insubordination (or whatever other valid grounds there are for acting against an employee)?

If a manager is acting against an emoloyee, someone should ask very pointed questions why. If caste might be at play, yes, saidanager ahould get a very stern talk from his superiors and HR explaining how this behaviour is unacceptable.

>If caste might be at play

Again, how is that determined? Do you assume that a caste angle might be at play every time the manager is upper caste and the employee's of lower caste? Do you wait for the manager to be stupid enough to outright utter a casteist slur at the workplace?

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#367

Post by dekhn »

jcranberry wrote: post #297
rob74 wrote: post #21

> Soundararajan appealed directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who comes from an upper-caste family in India, to allow her presentation to go forward. But the talk was canceled, leading some employees to conclude that Google was willfully ignoring caste bias. > Pichai, the CEO, “is Indian and he is Brahmin and he grew up in Tamil Nadu. There is no way you grow up in Tamil Nadu and not know about caste because of how…

>According to Gupta’s letter and Soundararajan, the decision to cancel the talk came from Gupta’s boss, Cathy Edwards, a vice president of engineering, who had no experience or expertise in caste. Truly puzzling decision.

Nothing abot this is puzzling. beneath the surface of Google's attempts to "look happy", there is a huge amount of resentment between individuals, and between individuals and leadership. Even when I joined in 2007 it was noticeable, but by the time I left (the second time) in 2019, it was painfully obvious.

Sundar's goal has been to smooth over this resentment and prevent events that would exacerbate it. That often occurs by cancelling a venue for discussion/healing. GOogle sort of evolved itself into a state of weaponized progressivism, and is now realizing just how unrealistic its naive view of using technology to transform the world for good was, and how it needs to turn into everything that it said it wasn't to continue to succeed in the face of more determined competitors.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#368

Post by Pigalowda »

istjohn wrote: post #352
Pigalowda wrote: post #307

There are 200+ million Dalits in India. These are the people which were previously called “untouchables”. I work in medicine, many Indians work with me and most are Brahmins with a few Christian Malayali from Kerala. I think the Malayali have shown it is possible to escape the caste system and to have success. However I am worried Dalits have been at the bottom and treated as such for thousands of years that it has e…

That sounds like a barely plausible, extremely convenient justification for bigotry that could be employed by any number of racial or ethnic groups.

Not barely plausible at all. For my epigenetic comment - Here is a relevant paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2579375/

And secondly, low SES populations have much higher rates of psychiatric disorders and pretty much all diseases. If one were to combine thousands of years of epigenetic effects and persistent unescapable low SES status, then it does not take a leap of faith to hypothesize there will be long term effects. Much less "barely plausible", a comment that only arises because this is not your domain, but it is mine.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#369

Post by seoaeu »

naravara wrote: post #316
car_analogy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I didn't used to, but after seeing how noxious communities get when you normalize the kinds of reflexive confrontationalism and assumptions of bad faith you find online I changed my tune. I haven't seen a single place improve once people start treating and talking about structural discrimination as some sort of original sin that individuals need to repent and seek absolution for. It's generally much more useful to fo…

Useful to whom? Presumably not the people who want structural changes

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#370

Post by alex_smart »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #336
alex_smart wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly would you determine that a manager is acting against an employee under them due to an internal caste bias and not due to lack of performance or insubordination (or whatever other valid grounds there are for acting against an employee)?

There's no silver bullet. It's equally hard to determine when a manager is acting against subordinates because of petty grudges, or when a manager is acting against subordinates because they're bad at effectively telling subordinates what they want. I think that's kinda the job you sign up for when you choose to join higher-level management.

Caste-based discrimination would be a pretty serious charge against a manager, surely sufficient grounds for termination. We need to have a talk of how we are going to determine when it's happening if we are seriously considering policies to act against it.
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