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Google’s caste-bias problem

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Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#171

Post by jackling »

upupandup wrote: post #110
jrsj wrote: post #70

I've also heard rumors about discrimination by Indian managers against non-Indian employees at the largest employers in my city. I'm inclined to believe this is true as I've heard from multiple people who worked there that most of engineering management consists of upper caste Indians now but that group represents a relatively small minority of engineering as a whole. I wonder if these two things are connected. In so…

> Indian managers against non-Indian employees This happens all the time in Canada. When you have a large ethnic majority and they start identifying with the language and start bringing toxic work culture with management fully aware of the issues and exploiting this. For example for a startup I worked for in Vancouver had a large Chinese/Russian majority in the development team. They would stay behind past working ho…

"not a surprise why Canada has a brain drain going on"

As a fellow Canadian, I really doubt this is the reason Canada is having "brain drain" problems. I'm in Toronto, not Vancouver, and I have never heard anyone leaving the country because of bad management. It's usually just for money.

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#172

Post by fleddr »

The simplest solution from a company perspective is to not hire activist type employees. It just never ends well. You may very well find the activist's point valid and just, but it still won't end well in most cases.

Other than the fact that perhaps they should spend time on actually working, the typical activist method cannot ever succeed. It starts with some sweeping assertion affecting a large group: men oppress women, this cast has a bias to this cast, white people discriminate against black people.

So it starts with a sweeping accusation. Which is presented as fact. The accused can't bring forward any counter point as this confirms the accusation, according to activist logic. Instead, you need to sit down and be "educated" and humiliated on things you don't even agree you did, as an individual.

We shouldn't be surprised that this approach makes people angry and creates even more division. Activism, DEI and its struggle sessions are wildly unpopular and ineffective.

Recently there was a good article (a serious one, I promise, from a progressive research institute) concluding the same: DEI in corporates is a massive failure. It's done nothing to progress any cause, instead deepened division. In extremer cases it even ends in a shouting/bullying match.

Vague sweeping claims do not work. If you have a case of discrimination, document it the best you can, have a good story with tangible evidence. And then take it forward.

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#173

Post by Manuel_D »

thot_experiment wrote: post #155
zo1 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's abundantly clear that any discrimination against non-favored groups is ignored and in cases promoted/celebrated. Heck, I live in a country with anti-white and pro-black laws/regulations. Minorities here plainly get denied jobs due to the color of their skin and no one bats an eye. I'm all for fairness for all, no matter their race, but seeing what I've seen in person is very eye opening. I no longer have sympath…

white + male is still obviously the best build for life and it still needs more nerfs, but the devs are all playing white male and think the balance is fine

At Google, whites are underrepresented in engineering roles. In 2022, 36% of tech hires were white, about half their national population. Asians on the other hand, made up 55% of tech hires despite making up 6% of the population [1]. Why do an underrepresented group deserve a "nerf" while vastly overrepresented groups do not?

Certainly, there are demographics influences at play: higher Asian concentration in California, higher rates of graduation in tech fields. But all this DEI talk really makes one wonder if race-based hiring isn't at play here. It's really interesting how often people claim there's bias in hiring, but opposed anonymized hiring and other measures that eliminate the ability to discriminate between applicants.

1. https://about.google/belonging/diversity-annual-report/2022/

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#174

Post by anonymoushn »

> The first thing is denial. Saying this doesn’t even exist. That is a form of discrimination. There were messages on e-mail threads that talked about how this isn’t a problem here. If you replace the denial of caste discrimination with the denial of the Holocaust or something like that, it instantly clicks where other people start to realize, “Oh, something’s wrong if people are denying this.”

It seems like if you said there was discrimination against tall white men, people would also deny that.

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#175

Post by betaby »

hackerlight wrote: post #122
AuthorizedHelp wrote: post #16

I always find it funny how there are massive east asian only groups in all major corporate entities. This is not diversity, this is racism. Nice work FANG.

Define "East Asian only group". Do you mean a division that's only East Asian? Or a social group within the company that is exclusively for East Asians? And how would that come about organically? East Asians aren't really homogeneous, there is a lot of ethnic strife between the different East Asian groups (HK vs Mainland, Mainland vs South Korea vs Japan). So I can't really see how they'd naturally be a closed off cl…

Do you see Ukrainians vs Russians in an 'ethnic strife'? Serbs vs Croats vs Czechs vs Poles? Are Eastern Europeans homogeneous?

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#176

Post by faeriechangling »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #37
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #25

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.

No the issue is that high caste Indians are every bit of vicious nepotists as WASP whites but for some reason only the threat of the WASP whites is taken seriously. My local laws literally treat caucasians and non-caucasians differently because they were written by white people who literally could not imagine themselves not being on top.

I also absolutely think there is a double standard in regards to how seriously allegations of racism against white and non-white managers are taken.

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#177

Post by endtime »

jimmywetnips wrote: post #73
remflight wrote: post #52

Deleted because it’s clear I won’t change anyones mind. People who want to believe that Google is guilty, will believe they are guilty no matter what.

A friend once showed me the internal Google meme page and it was so safe and PG that it was unintentionally funny as hell in how lame it was. But I understand it has to be this way in any large company Just like I can't blast my music tastes on others, not everyone should be subjected to insane Eric Andre humor

It wasn't always that way...it got sanitized a few years ago. I specifically remember the demanding Asian dad meme template being banned because it offended someone. And the overly attached girlfriend template, often used to make fun of our product design (things like today's YT premium trial nags).

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#178

Post by Aunche »

arvindamirtaa wrote: post #137
Aunche wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your platform champions people's subjective experience, and Indians at Google feel that Soundararajan is discriminatory herself, then they have a right to oppose her talk without being labelled as caste bigots.

What about those that felt discriminated? Where is their forum to talk about what happened to them? Might I add, if you weren't a party to an experience, an off handed observation that those are just subjective experiences, is frankly not yours to make.

Google's reaction was the Damore memo was that it didn't matter that Damore felt discriminated against. People felt attacked by the memo, so his opinion wasn't welcome. If they want to be consistent, they had to reject the caste talk. It's that simple.

>Might I add, if you weren't a party to an experience, an off handed observation that those are just subjective experiences, is frankly not yours to make.

Do you share the same opinion about the white activists who are supporting Gupta? Why are you calling me out for expressing a nonzero disagree of sympathy towards her opposition who also claim they are discriminated against? I'm not Indian, but I've seen fairly egregious examples of caste being used to attack Indians. Admittedly, it was on 4chan, but I'm sure weaker forms of this attitude exist in real life as well.

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#179

Post by ggfdh »

I can understand why Hindus would be resistant to being labeled the “oppressor” in an “oppressor/oppressed” dynamic. Instead of discussing individual discrimination and behavior these discussions always result in the “reverse” hatred where the oppressed group is vilified. See white people in discussions of racism and Christians in discussion of LGBT issues.

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#180

Post by jquery »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #131
thisiscorrect wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Networking and having a reputation among peers for doing good work is one thing. Ethnic nepotism is a different thing. It's a massive failure on the part of many of these companies that this is allowed to happen.

Nepotism is a failure, and working against it is definitely a worthwhile effort. But I have also seen non Indian nephews/nieces get hired into internships because their relative knows someone in the decision making process, etc. We very openly have universities in the US that favor admitting children and relatives of alumni. Hell, we just had a US President that installed his own kids and son in law in various govern…

No, what Indians are doing is not unique to them. Americans discriminate against black people, notoriously so. I’m sure the Indians who support these caste systems would merely say it’s meritocracy in action, same as all the whites/asians opposing any governmental rule that tries to level the playing field for black people in America.

(This comment will of course be downvoted heavily and/or flagged)

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