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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

#841

Post by narag »

doetoe wrote: post #813
narag wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

Probably these names were actually prohibited half a century ago, when only the (Castilian Spanish) names of Catholic saints were allowed

Biblical names forbidden? I don't think so.

Actually not even foreign names. IIRC only names that were insulting or prone to be laughed at were forbidden.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#842

Post by [deleted] »

rramadass wrote: post #768
quadrifoliate wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gri…

[deleted]

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#843

Post by throw93 »

yes_really wrote: post #683

The real reason why Google canceled the talk is because the speaker has a long history of anti-hindu rhetoric and multiple employees complained about the talk to HR. That Washington Post article is lying (or being extremely disingenuous) to take advantage of outsiders without context of the situation.

If X has been marginalizing Y throughout history and you belong to X class then its possible that you might be uncomfortable to hear the history and find it anti-X. But that doesn’t invalidate the struggle of Y right?

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#844

Post by djohnston »

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…

It's interesting to read how bigots from around the world will independently converge on eugenics.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#845

Post by djohnston »

rramadass wrote: post #825
jjeaff wrote: post #816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be an American, but sometimes it doesn't take an expert on the Indian caste system to spot caste discrimination. I have literally heard people say "I don't have to listen to him, he is of a lower caste" or some variation of that sentence. In fact, just yesterday, I was watching an episode of one of Gordon Ramsay's kitchen shows. The chef was Indian and said "he can't tell me what to do, we are the same caste an…

Not everything in life is simple and in particular; nuances matter very much when it comes to understanding other Cultures/Social Structures. Anecdotes like yours really bother me because they sound so outlandish that their veracity cannot be taken on faith. Having spent a considerable part of my working life in the US, i can state that never once has the subject of Caste ever been a topic of relevance with my Indian…

So you have no evidence, he has evidence, and your argument is simply "I don't believe you." These are the same forum discussion strategies of white nationalists, and this has been a fascinating thread to read!

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#846

Post by apun47 »

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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#847

Post by djohnston »

yes_really wrote: post #683

The real reason why Google canceled the talk is because the speaker has a long history of anti-hindu rhetoric and multiple employees complained about the talk to HR. That Washington Post article is lying (or being extremely disingenuous) to take advantage of outsiders without context of the situation.

People complaining to HR about a talk that examines their unfair privelege and nepotism? Color me surprised :O

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#848

Post by istjohn »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #427
istjohn wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After Trump's nativist rhetoric, a steady stream of police brutality against black men like George Floyd making national news, and a resurgence of white nationalist terrorism like the recent shooting in Buffalo, I agree we've been set back decades. But the blame doesn't lie with overzealous woke activists. Woke activists might make some white people more uncomfortable than tiki torch-wielding Caucasians chanting "Jew…

> After Trump's nativist rhetoric, a steady stream of police brutality against black men like George Floyd making national news The media coverage of police brutality against black men predated Trump's candidacy and it was entirely falsely predicated: the media cherry-picked instances in which black people were killed by police (or rather, those instances were plastered on the front page of national outlets for weeks…

You're blaming left-wing rhetoric for right-wing violence. That doesn't compute. The voices shaping the narrative on the right have agency. They are not puppets of the left, and they don't get to simply point at woke Twitter and say, "They made me do it."

There is a rot in American culture that is giving rise to anti-democratic and racist violence, it needs to be rooted out, and it has found shelter and succor not in radical university campuses or woke social media, but in right-wing America.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#849

Post by rramadass »

djohnston wrote: post #845
rramadass wrote: post #825

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything in life is simple and in particular; nuances matter very much when it comes to understanding other Cultures/Social Structures. Anecdotes like yours really bother me because they sound so outlandish that their veracity cannot be taken on faith. Having spent a considerable part of my working life in the US, i can state that never once has the subject of Caste ever been a topic of relevance with my Indian…

So you have no evidence, he has evidence, and your argument is simply "I don't believe you." These are the same forum discussion strategies of white nationalists, and this has been a fascinating thread to read!

I wrote;

>their veracity cannot be taken on faith

If you think what he "claims" is evidence, i have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

I will place my decade and a half of working experience across half a dozen companies in the US over any anonymous person's "evidence".

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#850

Post by istjohn »

djohnston wrote: post #844
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…

It's interesting to read how bigots from around the world will independently converge on eugenics.

Yes, or more precisely, scientific racism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism
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