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Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy

reuters.com

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Re: Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy

#41

Post by tbrownaw »

29athrowaway wrote: post #27
margalabargala wrote: post #19

I see the claim made that caste-ism doesn't fall under existing discrimination laws, but I don't really see how it's actually any different from run-of-the-mill racism. Caste is familially inherited. So a person is being judged based upon their ancestry. The only difference between "that group of families is inherently inferior" and "that race is inherently inferior" seems to be how broadly/narrowly you define "race"…

The law should simply say: do you observe any beliefs that make you treat a group of people in a favorable or unfavorable way, based on criteria other than academic or professional qualifications? If so, you should declare your conflict of interest at the beginning of each meeting and document and be excluded from professional decisions involving hiring, firing, promotions, etc. Ideally, this should also apply to inv…

Is "according to my personal experience this person generally knows what they're talking about" a professional qualification, or are you thinking more like formal certs?

Re: Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy

#42

Post by okaram »

fargle wrote: post #15
j45 wrote: post #10

Long overdue. Those who are most offended by a light being shed on this practice are often those who have benefited from it the most. For many (the 98% who are not the correct caste), caste is a sin that they cannot be freed of. This has been well being entrenched in place for over 20-25 years. It can be found at any large tech company not just in SV, but beyond too. Children are destined to be treated as less as if…

Honest question - once immigrated to the US or other places, what makes ones caste obvious? Is it found out by surname? Can it be faked ( not saying that's a acceptable solution, but it obviously doesn't seem work).

I'm not from India, but ... Think about how easy it is to identify race, or region, or social class in the USA. It's probably the same thing.

Re: Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy

#43

Post by bodhiandpysics1 »

vsskanth wrote: post #38
bodhiandpysics1 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sanskritists can't afford silver plates... it was the standard cheap metal everyone uses.

K just wondering. Sometimes they serve guests in silver plates, and usually they don't have more than one set. So it might appear like your utensils are separate. The food thing might be separate to tone down the spice levels for what's served to you.

I lived for quite some time in india... spice wasn't the issue. Have you ever spent time around Iyengar Brahmans of the old school?

Re: Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy

#44

Post by vsskanth »

bodhiandpysics1 wrote: post #39
vsskanth wrote: post #29

I wonder what's gonna happen once these reporters find out about regionalism (people favoring those who speak their mother tongue or those from the same state they grew up in India). These type of professional networks at work are so much more common. Many seem to forget India is a very diverse nation and you end up with entirely different cultures in the same nationality.

Hey Tamilians are gonna represent right?

Personally, I've not experienced tamilians helping each other in the US a lot. But I see way more cooperation and camraderie amongst Gujarati, Hindi, Malayali and Telugu speaking people. It's nice to see. I might be wrong due to sampling bias.

Re: Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy

#45

Post by bobobob420 »

raincom wrote: post #31

There are so many issues conflated around 'caste' and Indians. Let me unravel a bit using my experiences in the corporate world and anecdotes from friends. 1. Whoever first came to USA on H1-B (just before Y2K) are in high positions at many companies. They are VPs, not because they have good managerial skills, not because they have great competence in solving technical problems. Just they came early, these folks got…

Nicely done. It is rare to see a comment that encompasses so many cultural practices that many people cannot see. Usually you get these black or white comments on casteism that fail to take the real culture that is running the operations vs “he is not in my caste i dont like him”

Re: Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy

#46

Post by vsskanth »

bodhiandpysics1 wrote: post #43
vsskanth wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

K just wondering. Sometimes they serve guests in silver plates, and usually they don't have more than one set. So it might appear like your utensils are separate. The food thing might be separate to tone down the spice levels for what's served to you.

I lived for quite some time in india... spice wasn't the issue. Have you ever spent time around Iyengar Brahmans of the old school?

I have :) I am Tamil brahmin Iyer myself and I've spent quite a bit of time at the "agraharams". There are some brahmins who are extremely orthodox. They won't eat anything that grows under the ground, share utensils or even physically touch anyone they perceive to be a meat eater. This is however something that you usually observe with people living in temple adjacent communities or in very rural areas with religious duties. The rest are fairly urbanized so you don't see this normally.

I was just trying to give the benefit of the doubt to the family you ate with. But I now know whats going on here.

Re: Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy

#48

Post by hackerlight »

29athrowaway wrote: post #27
margalabargala wrote: post #19

I see the claim made that caste-ism doesn't fall under existing discrimination laws, but I don't really see how it's actually any different from run-of-the-mill racism. Caste is familially inherited. So a person is being judged based upon their ancestry. The only difference between "that group of families is inherently inferior" and "that race is inherently inferior" seems to be how broadly/narrowly you define "race"…

The law should simply say: do you observe any beliefs that make you treat a group of people in a favorable or unfavorable way, based on criteria other than academic or professional qualifications? If so, you should declare your conflict of interest at the beginning of each meeting and document and be excluded from professional decisions involving hiring, firing, promotions, etc. Ideally, this should also apply to inv…

Replace "academic and professional qualifications" with "competence-based merit", in order to avoid committing credentialism which can become yet another form of arbitrary clique-like discrimination.

Re: Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy

#49

Post by hackerlight »

mjh2539 wrote: post #5

When you find a southeast Asian person talking about "neighborhood" or "neighbors", e.g. "he's from my neighborhood", "they're from a neighborhood over", understand that these are nearly always thinly veiled references to caste (that, or they merely serve as proxies to talk about caste in a socially acceptable manner). You will almost never, ever, hear your everyday person talk about caste.

Do you mean South Asia?

Re: Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy

#50

Post by vsskanth »

raincom wrote: post #31

There are so many issues conflated around 'caste' and Indians. Let me unravel a bit using my experiences in the corporate world and anecdotes from friends. 1. Whoever first came to USA on H1-B (just before Y2K) are in high positions at many companies. They are VPs, not because they have good managerial skills, not because they have great competence in solving technical problems. Just they came early, these folks got…

Very detailed and very accurate picture of the state of Indian office politics in the US
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