41–50 of 291 posts
Maybe i'm being ignorant, but why don't you just not work for the company that has few or no Indians? Because other nations of course don't know about which last name means which caste or would ever care about it, you won't be a subject for discrimination. And besides, these places will probably pay better anyway.
As someone doing management in a company that hires many Indian workers, both in on-shore and off-shore teams, this is a highly relevant topic for me. I'm a native western european so I'm likely blind to some extend for these issues. Like the article says, this sounds like harmful class-ism that silences or disadvantages specific groups, but not in an "obviously" racist manner based on skin color. Anyone care to shar…
Isn't being blind to caste distinctions the optimal way to avoid discrimination? It's like a blind audition.
I take no position on the broader issue of the article, but I was shocked to see that Isaac Chotiner (a repeat India-related article writer at New Yorker) failed to mention that Narendra Modi is an OBC in the context of describing the BJP's caste base. Truly, an egregious oversight and one that misleads readers.
As someone doing management in a company that hires many Indian workers, both in on-shore and off-shore teams, this is a highly relevant topic for me. I'm a native western european so I'm likely blind to some extend for these issues. Like the article says, this sounds like harmful class-ism that silences or disadvantages specific groups, but not in an "obviously" racist manner based on skin color. Anyone care to shar…
Isn't being blind to caste distinctions the optimal way to avoid discrimination? It's like a blind audition.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saw this at American Express. In many cases, VPs and Directors were actually cousins or even siblings. This was a decade ago. Fast forward to now, and they are at the top of many NYC banks running IT divisions, the same group that worked together so many years ago. Theres an invisible network in many large corporations and none of the jobs are available to employees of those corporations
It seems like you are describing the norm. The prime advice for everyone is networking, networking, networking, isn’t it? And it’s not what you know, but who you know. Going to the right schools to be able to make the right friends, etc.
It seems an increasing disbelief in politics and democracy has moved these discussions from public forums to private companies. This is problematic, as it’s not in a private company interest to promote discussion (even if it’s pretending to do so, for PR or legal reasons), neither is it a power equilibrium since a company can just fire you at will.
As someone doing management in a company that hires many Indian workers, both in on-shore and off-shore teams, this is a highly relevant topic for me. I'm a native western european so I'm likely blind to some extend for these issues. Like the article says, this sounds like harmful class-ism that silences or disadvantages specific groups, but not in an "obviously" racist manner based on skin color. Anyone care to shar…
There is plenty of colorism within India too (everywhere in fact). I think you should definitely read about forms of discrimination.
As someone doing management in a company that hires many Indian workers, both in on-shore and off-shore teams, this is a highly relevant topic for me. I'm a native western european so I'm likely blind to some extend for these issues. Like the article says, this sounds like harmful class-ism that silences or disadvantages specific groups, but not in an "obviously" racist manner based on skin color. Anyone care to shar…
Isn't being blind to caste distinctions the optimal way to avoid discrimination? It's like a blind audition.
They seem to focus on this blanket ban against discussing this issue at Google, as the discriminatory act - rather than alleging that actual caste discrimination is being perpetrated at Google (for the most part).
They do however seem to point to two examples of rumoured alleged casteism at Google (I think):
"I think the Cisco case is probably the most publicly known example—is that, within a team, when you’ve got people who are caste privileged and caste oppressed, the people who are caste oppressed start to be given inferior assignments, get treated differently, left out of meetings, which are certainly things that I heard from Google employees within the company. "
"Asking things like “What’s your last name? I’m not familiar with it.” Then, when the manager hears that last name, they’re, like, “Oh, so you’re from this caste—no wonder you have these leadership skills.” Things like that. And somebody else in the room is, like, “What the hell?” It’s those different types of experiences that I’ve seen or that have been shared with me that show that caste discrimination is happening in the workplace.
By the tone of the article/employee I'm confused whether the employee is discussing hearsay based on examples of how discrimination could be occuring at Google - based on what they read about stuff at Cisco or elsewhere (perhaps with the intention of explaining why such issues could be relevant to discuss at Google) - or if they actually met Google employees facing these issues.
I wonder if the journalist themselves are trying to intentionally conflate the issues of 1) actual caste discrimination possibly taking place and 2) not being allowed to talk about casteism
Either way censoring internal talks about employee grievances/ possible workplace discrimination/discrimination outside the workplace (which one was the talk going to be about!?) is not a good look on Google - given that they've always tried to paint an image a company that lets its employees openly discuss anything for the most part.
People can be truly diverse, including in ways that other people find offensive, objectionable, or unacceptable, when they're not forced to share the same physical spaces.
The question of how google should solve the complex and confusing world of indian caste politics is a stupid question. Google should fix their search results and leave fixing India to Indians.