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Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

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Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#701

Post by dheera »

thelit wrote: post #398
okdood64 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey there! Thanks for writing this. One question I've always had is, how do you know you're Dalit if you were born outside of India? How do others? Especially, say, when meeting other Indians in some tech company in the US?

If you’re a Dalit, you’d know. As I mention in the post, membership to a caste is granted by birth. If both your parents are Dalit, you’re a Dalit too. How do others know: it’s not obvious. Dalits either change their last name to something common enough to not have any caste indicator. They’d avoid any discussion on caste. So effectively, they hide but there are some who don’t and keep their last name. Still, not eve…

> plainly ask other what their caste is

Why do they do this, and what do they hope to gain out of asking that question?

Related question -- I would have thought that high-tech Indians in Silicon Valley would detest a system like that. Is that not the case?

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#702

Post by sizzle »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #691
sizzle wrote: post #673

Genuine question, what is stopping you from identifying as another caste in 2022 with the mass adoption of the concept of identifying with different genders? Just like being assigned a sex of Male or Female at birth, those who don’t want to associate can identify with another gender identity or even transition their bodies to whatever sex they please. I don’t buy the notion that once a Dalit by birth you are destined…

> Genuine question, what is stopping you from identifying as another caste in 2022 with the mass adoption of the concept of identifying with different genders? Since this is a genuine question, there’s something you should know about not conforming to the gender you were assigned at birth: we’re not accepted for our identity either. The concept of self-identification is separate from cultural acceptance of it. Moving…

What would it take to plant the seeds of change in the youth to abandon casteism conceptually as technology allows us to be on a more equal platform with all the world’s information at our fingertips?

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#703

Post by _carbyau_ »

hndamien wrote: post #615
whack wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at the brown-eye-blue-eye experiment that a teacher did with her students. Everyone already knew the color of their eye, but no one gave it much significance. But as soon as the teacher started talking about the socioeconomic-status associated with eye color, students immediately divided themselves and started fighting over eye color. Never underestimate people's ability to segregate themselves using what…

I was shocked at how quickly divided society became over vaccinated/unvaccinated.

Any two groupings will cause the humans in each group to support their In group and work against the Out group.

At least with vaccines there was a cause/effect behind it. But then yeah, the usual bullshit starts.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#704

Post by [deleted] »

hammock wrote: post #681
ip26 wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine trying to identify as a midwesterner except you secretly grew up in Canada. Sooner or later someone is going to figure it out, eh?

Not really. There are scores of famous Hollywood actors, musicians etc who most would never guess were Canadian.

[deleted]

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#705

Post by noduerme »

colpabar wrote: post #643
noduerme wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why generating a sense of racial grievance in their electorate is such a powerful and dangerous tool for populists both left and right.

Yep, and look how well it's working. We've gone from occupy wall st, which was about ultra-extreme-unbelievably-rich vs everyone else, to the "culture war", which is everyone except the ultra rich vs each other. I hate it so much.

This. The sleight of hand that replaced class awareness with false awareness based on race is all you need to know about where progressive politics diverged radically from the traditional liberal left in the past decade. This is poison for the Democratic party and for workers' rights. It's pretty much the hitlerian model of substituting racial groups and racial strife as a corporatist placebo for class awareness to keep the masses atomized and confused.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#707

Post by eternalban »

sreevisakh wrote: post #698
eternalban wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

! This was in US? What school was this?

"If Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Indian caste would become a world problem." - Dr. B R Ambedkar said this in 1916 [1]. The surprising incident in US was predicted more than a century ago. For more context, Dr. B R Ambedkar was the main architect of the constitution of India. He also formulated the affirmative action for Dalit representation, called the reservation system. He was one of the so called Dali…

> The surprising incident in US was predicted more than a century ago.

That's my question: was this in US? Because in US if anyone pulls that kind of shit you head straight to the dean's office and address the problem. 2 years sleeping on a couch because of your roommate's conceit? It boggles the mind.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#708

Post by narag »

Aeolun wrote: post #659
devnonymous wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were born outside of India, it would be pretty much like any other national /racial identity -- inferred from family (based on family names for instance). Like mentioned in the GPs write-up: > Unlike race, it’s easier to hide your caste, especially in a new country. Many dalits change their official last name to something common enough that it’s hard to identify them.

Ah, like how in my home country, it’s a ‘well known fact’ that people lower on the economic ladder like to give their children foreign sounding names, whereas people that are well off give their children traditional, and even double traditional names. Guess the country :)

That's common but sometimes the cause is not what you would think.

In Spain there are many people with foreign or uncommon names... that are also biblical names. Abraham, Sarah, Aaron, Jonathan or Josuah (Josué) were unheard half a century ago. Now they're usual.

Why? In part, because Evangelical missionaries were more successful in poor quarters, specially among gypsies.

Also there's the famous actors thing. But now Vanessa also sounds natural enough.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#709

Post by otterley »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #605
otterley wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter what the race of the speaker is?

Because race really matters when your worldview is all about creating post-facto equity between races, not equal treatment and opportunity. When you have an a-priori assumption that every difference in outcome is due to oppression of some sort, the argument is over -- you've already allowed that discrimination on any basis is OK, as long as it's against whoever you've labeled the "oppressor" group. As a final coup de…

Respectfully, you didn't really answer my question at all. The question, which I'll phrase slightly differently, is "why can't a person who's not from a particular race or group (i.e., an outsider) observe that people in that group are treating each other poorly, unfairly, or unjustly?"

What you said, on the other hand, is a bunch of familiar, well-worn complaints dating back to the 1990s from privileged white people who think they're being oppressed, even though that's not even the subject.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#710

Post by noduerme »

kelnos wrote: post #660
noduerme wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always the white folks who claim this. The often false assumption that people who are non-white must be being discriminated against and that being colorblind is not enough, etc., is just a new version of the "white man's burden." It's neocolonialism dressed up as empathy. Most people want to be treated as just... people . Not handled with kid gloves or lumped into a racial group and having all kinds of assumptio…

> So sure: Introduce new ways that people can feel like they've been discriminated against. But this isn't "new" and isn't a "feeling". Caste-based discrimination is real among Indians. This is not even remotely new. And it's not a "feeling". It happens, and it's widespread. > This white guilt If you feel guilty, then maybe you should sit down and think about why. I'm a white dude. I don't feel guilty. I feel disappo…

I'm not white and I don't feel guilty - nor should white people who aren't racist. My point is that white guilt and white racism are two sides of the same coin. The endless hunt for new forms of oppression which do not legally exist in America, such as the caste system, has the extremely undesirable effect of actually defining and codifying them into law here, even if that law is intended initially to protect some groups from discrimination. There does not need to be a law or a movement specifically privileging one type of discrimination over another, or affording special protection to one group over another. It creates a perverse incentive to define oneself in terms of oppression and forces one to be part of an oppressed group one doesn't necessarily identify with just because they have the same color skin. That box - brown people vs white people - is created and perpetuated by white people, even or especially those who think they're doing the world a service. They're not. You treat everyone equally. Speak up against anyone who doesn't. That's all you need to do. Not tell people that they're oppressed because of what you perceive or imagine their experience to be. I don't need your checkbox on the hiring form to get special dispensation, and I don't want it on the hiring form because it has zero to do with my ability.
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