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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

#761

Post by xadhix »

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #727
rajup wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong, I wear the thread the same reason a Sikh wears a turban or a Muslim woman wears a niqab/burka. Wearing a sacred thread has about as much relation to condoning/accepting caste discrimination as wearing a niqab has to terrorism, but these kinds of bigoted ignorant comments are exactly why Google was right in not allowing the talk to happen.

The sacred thread is exclusive to Brahmins and a distinct caste marker. Non-Brahmin Hindus are not allowed to wear the sacred thread. Turbans and burqa do not have such intra-religious restriction. Comparing the sacred thread to turbans/ burqas is a false comparison.

Wanted to correct one part of what you said: The thread is not exclusive to Brahmins[1]

I know people who identify as Kshatriyas and Vaisyas wear it. It is just that almost all brahmins do it and the practice has reduced or stopped in the other two varnas.

And from what I see, he didn't compare the thread to burqas. He compared the calling of the thread as sign of discrimination to calling the turban as a sign of terrorism. There is a difference.

[1] https://www.firstpost.com/india/hinduism-denies-spiritual-ri...

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#762

Post by LambdaComplex »

JCharante wrote: post #713
rusticpenn wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty easy to find out. There are identifiers from the name to the dialect one speaks, what you eat etc

> what you eat etc This may sound uneducated, but do Indians in the US only eat Indian food? How would someone know if you rotate through different cuisines every day?

Apparently (from a cursory Google search) it seems that members of some castes (the higher ones, apparently? maybe just the highest?) are typically vegetarian.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#763

Post by t-writescode »

Thermosetty wrote: post #753

Quoted post unavailable.

The United States is one of the least racist countries in the world. Yes, really. Yes, we have too much racism still; but it’s a lot easier to look less racist when a whole country, 1/10th the size of the US is one nationality.

And if you’re from any of the New Worlds, go look how your country did or still treats its original population.

We’re all in glass houses and the US is actually one of the better ones, if you can believe it.

We’re not good. We have a long way to go. But look in the mirror, or if you’re American, go read another country’s history books.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#764

Post by ComradePhil »

Levitz wrote: post #658
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

At which point is this about race? Isn't this more like knighthood in the olden times?

At no point. Indians have a distorted view of caste because of 400 years of British invasion after 500 years of Islamic invasion.

Since economic mobility was greately reduced because of economic stagnation caused by centuries of invasion, they re-applied the originally profession-based caste system using racial discrimination brought to India by the Mughals and the British.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#765

Post by MauroIksem »

dheera wrote: post #701
thelit wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What makes you think that? People everywhere try to get an advantage on others why would they suddenly change in silicon valley? If anything, i think it would be worse because it's so competitive.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#766

Post by skyde »

wumpus wrote: post #540
skyde wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is there other form of affirmative action that are not : - just a type of quota to give preferential treatment to a group of people not because of merit but simply as a way to increase diversity for some arbitrary measurement (gender, race ...)

Yes, it's right there in the link I posted.

already spent more than 10 minutes reading that page and didn’t find any which is why I was asking.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#767

Post by MauroIksem »

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 :)

Thailand

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#768

Post by rramadass »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #724
roflyear wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I've witnessed issues with the Indian caste system in many large corporations. From Johnson & Johnson - where there is actually a development team - where they hired other Indians who were horribly unqualified (multiple times they were poached from IT support - I enjoy seeing people move up in tech, but they were entry level techs with no programming experience) and almost exclusively hired other Indians…

I hear a lot of instances of favoritism or nepotism in what you describe, possibly even corruption, but not much sounds like caste-based discrimination. "Incompetent person hires a lot of people they know instead of qualified candidates" is not really what's being discussed here, and I think Ms. Soundararajan would agree. As a side note, this illustrates quite neatly why most of us who come from India are somewhat re…

Well said.

Americans have no idea of what caste-based discrimination looks like and hence merely use it to foist their own prejudices (i.e. "they terk err jerbs") onto the Indian community. Indians have such diversity amongst themselves (North vs. South, State vs. State, Linguistic, Religious etc.) that anything can be used as a bone of contention (real or imagined).

The first thing to realize is that people with grievances whether factual or not, often use the American platform to push their agenda. While it makes some sense to raise Caste-based discrimination etc. within the Indian Workplace, it absolutely does not make any sense to raise it in the American Workplace simply because the repercussions would be vastly detrimental to the entire Indian Community. It is also the case that Caste-based discrimination has declined greatly in Urban India (since Independence) and more specifically in the IT sector where everybody is only after the almighty USD/INR and nothing else matters.

Hence i think Google did the right thing in cancelling this talk.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#769

Post by skyde »

michaelmrose wrote: post #618
skyde wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are basically saying its ok for a white dude from a family of homeless to be doubly discriminated (1- because he does have money to go to college 2- because college reserve seat for non-white people) And you justify it because statistically if you take a random white people and a random black people the black person would deserve it more. While this is true this logic is morally wrong because you punish or reward…

Attend more carefully to what I'm saying please. I said that discrimination is just discrimination. The term "reverse discrimination" is semantically nonsense. Selecting people based on skin color is always discrimination. That said the situation as it stands is so tilted against minorities in favor of white dudes that this injustice rarely leaves a white guy in the red on net and fixing what pitifully little prefere…

you just confirmed my assumption, by saying “it will on average net out”. I agree that “on average” the white population will still not be disadvantaged.

But it’s still morally wrong because for one particular individual it would not.

It the same thing as laws making it illegal to own a pit bull dogs in some city.

Maybe it’s true the majority of pitbull are dangerous! but is it still fair to the pitbull owner that have a well trained one to suffer the ban because it will average out ?

In my example you can say that affirmative action (banning pitbull) is still discrimination against pitbull !

which is why people call it reverse discrimination. but if you prefer you can simply call it legal discrimination

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