I am surprised at how far from reality many of the comments are! I am an Indian living in both USA and India and I never witnessed cast-based discrimination to the extent some of the comments describe (I do understand it exists subtly) .. at least in the urban part of India where we live it is almost non-existent. I want the cast system to diminish - for me, the casts of my colleagues never mattered and so does for m…
Google cancelled a talk on caste bias
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Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias
#982Earlier quoted context omitted.
The claims made in this post are in dire need of citations, and don't strike me as believable. And just FWIW, most first-generation Indians in America couldn't give two shits about the caste system.
Well, we are in the comments for an article which exactly disproves your point. You say Indians don't care about caste but I want to see some intercaste Indian couples and Indians without caste surnames among your "first-generation" Indian Americans.
Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias
#983Earlier quoted context omitted.
The parent comment died while I typed my response, so I'm just throwing it here to elaborate on your comment: I'm not Indian, but I read a lot about this when the Cisco stuff came out. The gist that I picked up from interviews with Indians dealing with this was that there is A LOT of cultural background that you'd be very unlikely to know if you hadn't grown up in a certain caste. A (likely shitty) analogy: You can l…
Shiboleths
Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias
#984Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If you are a Dalit with 50% mark you will get admission to a medical seat and you will be a cardiac surgeon, but if a brahmin girl gets 99% she will not get admission and will be a clerk. Is it possible for someone with a 50% GPA to finish a cardiac surgery training program in India? Or is that a gross exaggeration?
I'm sure OP is exaggerating a bit but it's no different than the American affirmative action system where if you are black/native then you can get a 1300 SAT and get into an T20 school but if you are Asian then you need a 1600 and a laundry list of achievements.
In the US, someone with a 1300 SAT has a good chance to graduate from T20 school, but someone with a 50% GPA is unlikely to be admitted to any medical school, and if they are admitted, they have roughly 0% chance of getting accepted to / completing a cardiac surgery residency, which is incredibly demanding.
Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias
#985Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Europe, you can always reliably find a massive amount of racism against the Romani people ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people ).
Of course your message was followed with people accusing the whole culture of robbing people. It's quite interesting how if you switched any other culture this would be downvoted to hell, but the moment we talk of Romani people, the most strong worded racist comments are just accepted. I guess we still have work to do.
Go to police.hu and every time you see someone with the family name Balogh | Góman | Lakatos, you drink. I guarantee you will be dead from alcohol poisioning in an hour or two.
Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias
#986Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Washington Post does not like India or Hinduism.
They don't like Modi and BJP for sure. But if you're drawing equality between these and India or Hinduism, you're kinda implicitly asserting that the things that are problematic with the former stem from the latter.
Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias
#987Earlier quoted context omitted.
A rational person would fear those with a long history of reckless violence a lot more than those with a marked history of non violence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa
This is like a European pointing at the Bible and saying, "see, our holy book preaches non-violence, don't believe the naysayers!" Meanwhile, how many Muslim pogroms have there been in India since independence?
Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias
#988Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everything may have a political lens with which it can be viewed, but that doesn't make literally everything "political" in the typical usage of the word. Are all workplace conflicts political? Is all unethical workplace behavior political? Is failure to follow IT security guidelines in the workplace political? It's possible to confidently answer "yes" to all of these questions with the right logical contortions, but…
We are actually in agreement. What we don't seem to agree on is that easiest way for a corporations to avoid this particular pitfall is by not being anywhere near it. Especially in 2022.
I think we disagree in that I don't believe many of these issues can be avoided. If you're seeing caste-based discrimination in your workplace (for instance, just to use an issue that isn't legally mandated to address), any attempt to avoid it is a tacit endorsement of the practice. There are no sidelines upon which to stand.
Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias
#989Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my admittedly limited experience, people born to Indian parents in the US don't care about caste unless they are Brahmin, in which case, they'll be taught their caste rituals. Indians recently arrived from India care a lot more because reservation (think affirmative action by caste) and Hindu nationalism have become a big deal in Indian politics.
Hindu nationalism has the most support from Upper castes. The majority of Hindus in the west anyway support RSS and in the west they become champions of minority rights and anti-discrimination. A majority of Indians who come to the west are also mostly Upper castes because unlike the gulf which give the job to all strata of people, only high profile people are given visas which happen to be high castes because genera…
Your comment supports my observations. The newly-arrived Indians really don't like reservation and therefore care about caste. Second generation non-Brahmins in the US don't care about caste because it doesn't affect them.
Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias
#990Earlier quoted context omitted.
Either that is lack of awareness or a misrepresentation. Please have a look at this: https://theprint.in/opinion/brahmins-on-india-campuses-study... . There were lots of anecdotes about this going around. But it's documented news these days.
I would know if I were being discriminated against