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Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

indiatoday.in

261–270 of 667 posts

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#261
post #3

My dad once told me of how at his work (in the 1980s or early 1990s, I think), they had a team of two Indians assigned to a project. One turned out to be of a much "higher" caste than the other, and refused to work with the other, making him utterly useless to the project. It's good that Apple, IBM and other tech companies are taking steps to prevent this sort of discrimination. It's a shame that Google seems be goin…

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Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#262
post #176

I could have misread or maybe it was some sort of propaganda but I thought I read somewhere that Silicon Valley's caste discrimination is the inverse of what used to be in India? i.e. the lower castes discriminating against the higher castes.

In the US, you often see claims of "reverse racism", e.g. around affirmative action or just from general vibes. This is the equivalent - high caste people interpreting attempts at leveling the playing field as if they are being discriminated against.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#263

looks the other way when Indian director has all Indian SDMs reporting to him It’s all lip service. Nepotism is rampant at FAANG

I love when there is a position that sounds awesome but then says something like: "Hispanic or other underprivileged groups are encouraged to apply". It's legal to say that out loud?

The most charitable interpretation is that they are attempting to increase representation in the pipeline of candidates, such that their unbiased, neutral selection process will naturally produce outcomes representative of their candidate pool.

That’s legal.

In reality, when you have companies literally setting hiring targets on the basis of protected characteristics?

It’s very unlikely that the selection process is neutral to those protected characteristics, which is not legal.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazilians. I know of one group of ~4 that basically follows the leader (a Director / CXO type) to every position. Whenever he moves, they all inevitable end up at the same exact company within 1-3 months. It's actually impressive how consistent their resumes are going back a decade or so.

That is something that always happens, regardless of nation, race or religion.

To some extent, people don‘t quit jobs, they quit managers.

In the same sense the opposite can be true.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#265
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not just talking about skin color.

> not just talking about skin color Steve Jobs is ethnically Syrian. Most people would call him white. The fact that some e.g. North Africans may fit the classic conception of whiteness better than many Europeans doesn’t dissolve every racial boundary therebetween.

If Jobs had grown up in (say) New England rather than California, there is no way he would be have been treated the same as white people there. He would have clearly stood out.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#266
post #13

I have mixed feelings on this. There are of course things that aren't explicitly prohibited by workplace policies but are no doubt unacceptable - e.g. discriminating against left-handed employees. But it's still useful to have explicit policies against caste discrimination to make clear that it's unacceptable. On the other hand, as an Indian in a top tech company we're more likely to experience racism than casteism (…

Did we avoid explicitly banning racial discrimination because there might be a backlash against non-whites? Nope.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“DEI” is both a very recent and a uniquely western ideological construction.

DEI is just rebranding of the struggle for equality, in which the fight against casteism has been raging for decades. This is a very western centric view.

DEI is intersectional praxis, not a “rebranding of the struggle for equality”

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#268
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are various caste markers that casteist people use to identify the caste of the other person. Some of them include food preferences, accents (yes Indian languages also have different accents). I have seen that people can be casteist on both ends of a spectrum and it’s really hard to tell what marker of yours will be noted by the other party. I’ve seen that most people these days don’t try to pretend about hidin…

White americans do this too. Think ozarks. I know plenty of ridiculously smart people from this region, who if they talked about the food they ate or didn't work hard to extinguish their accents would probably not have jobs w/ coastal tech companies.

The discrimination based on accent is obvious to me but the food surprises me.. what kind of food from that region is looked down upon on the coasts?

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#269
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are various caste markers that casteist people use to identify the caste of the other person. Some of them include food preferences, accents (yes Indian languages also have different accents). I have seen that people can be casteist on both ends of a spectrum and it’s really hard to tell what marker of yours will be noted by the other party. I’ve seen that most people these days don’t try to pretend about hidin…

Food preferences? What if you happen to prefer food from a different caste?

Your accent will probably give you away. Or your last name. Or your physical features. Or they'll just guess you're a different caste and treat you differently anyways.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#270
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a large semiconductor company, the same could be said for many groups: Chinese hiring other Chinese, one group hiring native Americans mostly, others with Hispanic origin…

A Native American group? I mean damn, that’s gotta be so rare I’d almost support it. Or did you mean an American company hiring Americans? That’d be pretty rare too.

Yes, this was a local software engineering manager who is "Native American" as in, a native people original to the land, aiming to hire other Native Americans as well as majorly minorities.

As a whole the company reports figures showing mixed diversity within the company, but it is really sort of segregated inside because folks don't really mix within immediate groups or teams. So if you're from a typical Caucasian descent, it's hard to adjust within groups like that. One reason is because it is hard to connect - business thinking is different, world views, work ethics, communication style... so I don't blame folks for hiring similarly. For groups when you "need to get things done" it makes sense, but for creative thinking and problem solving, you really should have diversity within the team itself.

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