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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

#501

Post by thebean11 »

hirako2000 wrote: post #98
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…

It's rather you to work on the explaining there. Pichai isn't claiming to be unaware of how caste politics may work. I think it's not only OK but desirable for companies to stop ruining the workplace with societal politics. There is a law and public debates for castes and how to address the (no doubt existing even outside India) problem. Prompting an employee of a tech company, even its CEO, reminding the audience of…

> stop ruining the workplace with societal politics

Isn't the failure to do so the subject of the talk?

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#502

Post by akavi »

anonymousab wrote: post #489

> After Gupta posted a link in the email group to a petition to reinstate the talk, respondents argued that caste discrimination does not exist, that caste is not a thing in the United States, and that efforts to raise awareness of these issues in the United States would sow further division. > Some called caste equity a form of reverse discrimination against the highest-ranked castes because of India’s affirmative a…

I think the argument that "efforts to raise awareness of these issues in the United States would sow further division" isn't totally without merit.

As an America-born Indian-American, I honestly don't know what my caste is beyond knowing I'm not Brahmin (I didn't do the string ceremony some of my childhood family friends did), and have basically zero idea of how I'd identify someone else's caste. I imagine that that's not terribly uncommon among ABCDs.

Educating people like me about that would suddenly create the ability for them to identify a difference that they wouldn't have noticed before. This makes it unlike gender, racial, or age discrimination, where the categories are usually surface level obvious. That in turn could have a star-bellied sneetches effect, where people identify with the new categories that they wouldn't have considered before.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#503

Post by capitalsigma »

api wrote: post #32
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/…

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…

Show me someone in tech with a strong Brooklyn or Boston accent.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#504

Post by jjcon »

anonymousab wrote: post #489

> After Gupta posted a link in the email group to a petition to reinstate the talk, respondents argued that caste discrimination does not exist, that caste is not a thing in the United States, and that efforts to raise awareness of these issues in the United States would sow further division. > Some called caste equity a form of reverse discrimination against the highest-ranked castes because of India’s affirmative a…

> efforts to raise awareness of these issues in the United States would sow further division.

I think is a real point and is true of many issues - the problem is how do you fix a problem silently in the background? Can it be done with better results than hyperfocusing on it? I would guess and hope there might be a way but don't know how.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#505

Post by [deleted] »

akavi wrote: post #502
anonymousab wrote: post #489

> After Gupta posted a link in the email group to a petition to reinstate the talk, respondents argued that caste discrimination does not exist, that caste is not a thing in the United States, and that efforts to raise awareness of these issues in the United States would sow further division. > Some called caste equity a form of reverse discrimination against the highest-ranked castes because of India’s affirmative a…

I think the argument that "efforts to raise awareness of these issues in the United States would sow further division" isn't totally without merit. As an America-born Indian-American, I honestly don't know what my caste is beyond knowing I'm not Brahmin (I didn't do the string ceremony some of my childhood family friends did), and have basically zero idea of how I'd identify someone else's caste. I imagine that that'…

[deleted]

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#506

Post by skyde »

anonymousab wrote: post #489

> After Gupta posted a link in the email group to a petition to reinstate the talk, respondents argued that caste discrimination does not exist, that caste is not a thing in the United States, and that efforts to raise awareness of these issues in the United States would sow further division. > Some called caste equity a form of reverse discrimination against the highest-ranked castes because of India’s affirmative a…

Well to be fair If in United States, I met/interview someone from India. I would have no idea which caste they are, so I don't see how I can discriminate one caste over another :)

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#507

Post by pessimizer »

notacoward wrote: post #243
ethbr0 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 atroc…

> failure to differentiate Israel (the state and government) with Judaism (the religion) with Jew/Hebrew (the ethnicity) That has not been my experience. AFAICT even people who are extremely careful and specific about criticizing the state of Israel - even more specifically the IDF or a political party within Israel responsible for a particular act - still get tarred with the "anti-Semitic" brush. Jewish people have…

> AFAICT even people who are extremely careful and specific about criticizing the state of Israel - even more specifically the IDF or a political party within Israel responsible for a particular act - still get tarred with the "anti-Semitic" brush.

Ironically, that often results in Jewish people being disproportionately tarred as anti-Semites, because they have specific and knowledgeable criticisms that they're not willing to just let go of.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-labour-antisemitism-ac...

> Jewish Voice for Labour tells EHRC that Jews almost five times more likely to face antisemitism charges than non-Jewish members

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#508

Post by Johnny555 »

anonymousab wrote: post #489

> After Gupta posted a link in the email group to a petition to reinstate the talk, respondents argued that caste discrimination does not exist, that caste is not a thing in the United States, and that efforts to raise awareness of these issues in the United States would sow further division. > Some called caste equity a form of reverse discrimination against the highest-ranked castes because of India’s affirmative a…

Anyone that really thinks the USA has no caste is in an upper level caste. It's less formalized here than in other countries, but it absolutely exists.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#510

Post by harperlee »

unixhero wrote: post #219
avensec wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a Director-Level in Engineering/QA/Quality Engineering. I currently lead a team where our ratio of Female Indian women is higher than any other engineering group at the company. Every Quality Engineering team I have been apart of has had a higher ratio of females, but not necessarily of any specific background. My N=1 experience is that this can be related, but not always directly about discrimination or sexism.…

I was test manager (never again) on a large enterprise system (never again) and half of our QA team offshore in India were all females; I didn't reflect on that at the time.

If you mean 50% of the india-based team was female, rather than all of the 50% of the team that were based in india, that shouldn’t be surprising?
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