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Google’s caste-bias problem

newyorker.com

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Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#251

Post by John23832 »

thunkshift1 wrote: post #151
John23832 wrote: post #19

(Outside looking in perspective. I am not Indian.) When I worked as a software engineer are capital one earlier in my career, thus was a very noticeable trend. You had entire teams/groups (and to some extent geographical regions given the way the capital one workforce was split between Richmond Virginia, McLean Virginia, and NYC) where particular castes grouped together. It became particularly acute when you took int…

I am curious to know.. how did you know of their caste? Its not something that comes up in office conversations

It is if you talk with Indians. Id sit and eat with my Indian coworkers and they would describe the lay of the land.

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#252

Post by opportune »

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.

In my experience, it’s very uncommon for this to happen in big corporations at such a frank level. Like yes maybe your buddy from work years back gets tapped for a leadership position, but not your actual brother or cousin, or your childhood friend from the same small town. And if it does happen it’s more of a 1:1 thing and not a huge cluster of your extended family (again, in big corporations. I’m sure it happens a lot in smaller, private family companies).

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#254

Post by thunkshift1 »

John23832 wrote: post #251
thunkshift1 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious to know.. how did you know of their caste? Its not something that comes up in office conversations

It is if you talk with Indians. Id sit and eat with my Indian coworkers and they would describe the lay of the land.

I see.. In my experience, I don’t think this is topic of everyday conversation over lunches among indians. You seem to have rather chatty colleagues!

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#255

Post by [deleted] »

fleddr wrote: post #241
rdtsc wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consequently, to filter out the potential troublemakers, for short a period of time encourage “bring your whole self to work”, “open and honest conversations” etc. See who starts to raise issues and then put them on PIP for purely “technical” reasons.

If anybody would say "bring yourself to work" my first response would be "are you really sure"? They're collective lies. Things we tell each other to make us feel better about ourselves. Same for "open and honest conversations" which really means a tiny subset of allowed conversations fitting ideology.

[deleted]

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#256

Post by [deleted] »

Karawebnetwork wrote: post #23

Previous thread on a similar topic (2022): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31593799 And another (2020): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23697083 --- One good resource (imo as an outsider) from the recent one is this: "As a Dalit myself, I wrote a Dalit 101 for non Indian audience. https://thelit.substack.com/p/dalit-101 " by user thelit ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31595663 )

[deleted]

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#257

Post by andsoitis »

andsoitis wrote: post #183
lampshades wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am an avid supporter of reforming our increasingly militarized police force, why wouldn’t I be? And to be clear, I don’t think cops “target white people” just like I don’t think cops “target black people”. Cops have an aggression problem, are trigger happy, and poorly trained.

> I don’t think cops “target black people”. This. Here lies the core of the disagreement. Data suggests otherwise.

From https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01846-z

“By one estimate, Black men are 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed by police during their lifetime. And in another study, Black people who were fatally shot by police seemed to be twice as likely as white people to be unarmed”

And

“Data from California show that police stopped and used force against Black people disproportionately, compared with other racial groups, in 2018 (see go.nature.com/2bgfrah). A December 2019 paper reported that bias in police administrative records results in many studies underestimating levels of racial bias in policing, or even masking discrimination entirely”

Etc.

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#258

Post by akdor1154 »

anonymoushn wrote: post #238
jquery wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

No downvotes, but I haven't yet figured out why racial quotas for Jews were bad and racial quotas for Asians are good.

Because one is 'at least' and one is 'at most'?

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#259

Post by jquery »

anonymoushn wrote: post #238
jquery wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

No downvotes, but I haven't yet figured out why racial quotas for Jews were bad and racial quotas for Asians are good.

Asians don’t have a representation issue in education.

When Jews were being discriminated against they were nowhere near a majority of the student population or squeezing out the representation of other groups.

If you don’t think representation matters then all of this will seem very silly to you.

Re: Google’s caste-bias problem

#260

Post by woweoe »

kyawzazaw wrote: post #248
woweoe wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. Casteism is virtually a non-existent concept among the Indian diaspora in the West, who are mostly in the second generation or further, though the US is possibly an exception. If you asked an Indian person in Australia about casteism then they would look at you as if you were asking something about India history and implied they weren't Australian. Furthermore casteism in the Indian American circles or ev…

> Casteism is virtually a non-existent concept among the Indian diaspora in the West Doesn't Cisco case deny this statement?

Which is why the "America might be a different case" was added. I suspect that the casteism was allowed to flourish among some Indian Americans, whereas in India the casteism was actively dismantled (and to how the IT industry is primarily in areas where casteism is less). Indian diaspora in the rest of the West were more middle class and probably did not care for caste at all in the first place.
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