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Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

indiatoday.in

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

#521

Post by colpabar »

toast0 wrote: post #495
colpabar wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, IMHO, the underlying anti-discrimination intent is to treat people based on their skills and abilities etc, not based on the circumstances of their birth, and discriminating based on caste is clearly not within that intent. This is what really bugs me about DEI policies and the people who advocate for them. A lot of comments seem to say "well, caste isn't a protected class so they didn't know what to do,…

> A lot of comments seem to say "well, caste isn't a protected class so they didn't know what to do," which to me means "the company isn't afraid of getting sued for explicit discrimination because it isn't illegal, so no one is going to do anything." The company is probably also afraid of getting sued for firing the Indian person doing the discrimination that's not explicitly prohibited. With the right presentation,…

Sure, I completely understand that. But a wise man once said:

> Of course, IMHO, the underlying anti-discrimination intent is to treat people based on their skills and abilities etc, not based on the circumstances of their birth, and discriminating based on caste is clearly not within that intent.

I think we agree and I appreciate the insight. I am just very against deceptive advertising, and the way people advocate for DEI policies seems very deceptive to me.

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

#522

Post by hef19898 »

statguy wrote: post #506
hef19898 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I remember correctly, Sikhs are standing outside the caste system as well.

In principle yes, but in practice no: https://theprint.in/theprint-essential/who-are-dalit-sikhs-n...

And again I learned something... Perceived elitism seems to be universal, unfortunately.

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

#523

Post by registeredcorn »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #249
mcv wrote: 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…

The real shame is that living in Delhi, I’ve seen caste come back very strongly in everyday discourse. I’ve been here almost 20 years. This city used to be largely caste agnostic. Now when I meet new people, especially outside the elite tech circles, they will casually mention their upper caste status (“As Brahmins, we don’t do xyz of course!”). Even cars carrying caste stickers are more common.

I have not had to work with the caste system before. In your opinion, are there any benefits for low-to-mid caste in such a system?

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

#524

Post by thaeli »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #368
richiebful1 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the situation is that Western countries/companies don't usually have protected class status on basis of caste. Those protections exist for race, gender, age etc.

Ok are there also specific legal protections for Eye color, Hair Color, presence of Freckles, etc? Does every possible way to discriminate need to be clearly spelled out for it to be illegal?

In practice, in the US, the categories you listed have all been used as proxies for race and/or ethnicity. Making a claim of discrimination based on proxy characteristics isn't always clear cut, but it sticks often enough to make companies cautious of it.

But yeah, fundamentally, in the American system, something needs to either explicitly or implicitly be a protected class. Otherwise it's legal to discriminate based on that characteristic. Plus the list of protected classes varies by jurisdiction.

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

#525

Post by arethuza »

colpabar wrote: post #435
gedy wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe "no true Scotsmxn" etc

Lol. I think it'd have to be "Scotsperson" or "Scotshuman" or "Scotsfolk" - the X is usually reserved for a vowel that indicates masculine or feminine, like the super popular "latinx" that's totally used by more than just rich white liberals.

Fortunately you can just use "Scot" :-)

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

#526

Post by sreevisakh »

numbers wrote: post #451
illuminati1911 wrote: post #328

”Recently, talking about the incident to the New Yorker, Tanuja said, "A number of e-mails got sent to my VP, to the head of HR, to our chief diversity officer, to our CEO directly, claiming that the talk was creating a hostile workplace, that people felt unsafe, that the speaker was not qualified to speak on the topic and several other allegations." She also claimed that in tech companies, including Google, discrimi…

who's the victim here?

Accusations of victimization is a widely used strategy to deflect discussion of caste discrimination. And one common tool for that is the caste reservation system in India.

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

#527

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ummonk wrote: post #305
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Indians are more likely to be affected by racism than casteism in the west Should we ignore sexism faced by black women because they’re more likely to be racially discriminated against?

No, but we can (and black women do) talk about how concerns about sexism get wielded disproportionately against black men. It's intersectionality 101.

> we can (and black women do) talk about how concerns about sexism get wielded disproportionately against black men. It's intersectionality 101.

None of which is relevant to the frequency at which black women experience racism versus sexism.

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

#528

Post by thaeli »

saalweachter wrote: post #483
MichaelCollins wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discrimination against eye color would definitely be forbidden as discrimination against race; you can't ban everybody except those with blue eyes without having a racially disparate impact. This is probably true of those other physical characteristics too. But speaking more generally, the principle in America is that if something isn't forbidden, then it is permitted. You could probably get away with some nonsense l…

Thinking about it, astrological sign is probably safe; it shouldn't correlate with any protected class.

Yeah, I can't think of anywhere in the US this would overlap with a protected class - so long as it was consistently applied. If someone says they discriminate based on your sign, it would warrant a very close look to be sure they aren't actually only checking the birthdates of people of certain protected categories.. this sort of red herring discrimination does happen, but if it was truly and consistently based on someone's sign, that would likely be defensible everywhere in the US.

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

#529

Post by tablespoon »

washbrain wrote: post #192
tablespoon wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Wouldn't lose much either. I'd argue they'd gain face in today's climate. "DEI best practices aren't just for white people anymore" is probably a good look. > Ironically it tends to be high caste Indians who push this stuff (perhaps because of higher education levels). High caste Indian immigrants or their American children? I have trouble imagining someone raised outside of the American cultural context getting e…

You don't think there are folks in India interested in discussing DEI with respect to caste or colorism? What about in the EU? You don't think there are people there enthusiastically discussing DEI?

> What about in the EU? You don't think there are people there enthusiastically discussing DEI?

There probably are but: 1) I understand it's often thought of as an Americanism there, and 2) Europe doesn't have the same history, which would make its ground less fertile for it (white people are aboriginal there, and I understand there's little to no history of domestic radicalized slavery, etc.).

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

#530

Post by [deleted] »

tablespoon wrote: post #497
ska wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dalit activism has been a thing in India for many decades.

> Dalit activism has been a thing in India for many decades. I was specifically talking about the performative white liberal guilt thing, which "high caste Indians who push this stuff" brought to mind. It totally makes sense that lower-class/caste people would be pushing for equality, wherever they are.

[deleted]
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