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An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

politico.com

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Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#71

Post by eklavya »

ramraj07 wrote: post #43

If I have to count the number of times someone senior to me or some colleague has judged me or severed ties with me because of my caste, it will be 8-10. All in the United States. If anything it’s far worse here than when I grew up in India. I’m not of the “lowest caste” as it’s perceived but by looks I am often mistaken to be a Brahmin, one of the highest ones. So my fellow Brahmins get offended when I’m not strictl…

I am sorry you have had such a bad luck with your company. All the education in the world can't teach basic human decency. You can probably take some solace in the fact that I have not seen any such behaviour in the Indian tech scene so far. Maybe give it a shot and come here (trade a different set of problems). It must be an absolutely horrible of a mix in the US for this to be 8:10.

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#72

Post by jimbob45 »

whats_a_quasar wrote: post #16

I'm legitimately confused about the strength of opposition to the measure. It seems like it should be a small, uncontroversial, update to protected categories. Are people opposing the term "caste" appearing in U.S. law? Is the concern that the law will cause other Americans to judge Indian/Nepalese/Sri Lankan communities? If anyone here can explain the emotional significance of the bill to someone who is not South As…

There’s a glaring absence of any polling on the matter in this article. Instead we get a count of the number of protesters (hundreds!) and descriptions of lines spilling out the door.

I get the feeling the author is heavily pro-caste and is carefully selecting data to fit their narrative.

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#73

Post by [deleted] »

ncallaway wrote: post #57
Supermancho wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would it extend longevity? Codifying something in law (or code, ie unit tests) tends to ensure it's durability. Information is something that can exist as an idea ephemerally. Once you write down a definition, it has perceived historical value. Later this can be used as an example of how things were done that might be tried again. Many people recognize this as self-evident.

Yes, which is why the United States frequently has never-ending debates on whether soldiers should be quartered in the homes of civilians. I find that when people defend something as self-evident it often isn’t.

[deleted]

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#74

Post by whimsicalism »

mutant_glofish wrote: post #59
whats_a_quasar wrote: post #16

I'm legitimately confused about the strength of opposition to the measure. It seems like it should be a small, uncontroversial, update to protected categories. Are people opposing the term "caste" appearing in U.S. law? Is the concern that the law will cause other Americans to judge Indian/Nepalese/Sri Lankan communities? If anyone here can explain the emotional significance of the bill to someone who is not South As…

[flagged]

Sorry but your effort to conflate protected categories and aff am seems completely wrong to me.

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#75

Post by breadwinner »

Some states in India are less advanced than others. To those who are from the more advanced states, this supposed caste discrimination is a nothingburger, and they see such accusations as unfairly tarnishing the image of their community. See [1] for example. But to those from less advanced regions (those where education has not made inroads... some regions have less than 60% literacy rate), this is still an issue.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/caste-is-no...

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#77

Post by klyrs »

edgarvaldes wrote: post #44

As an outsider: Is there going to be people that now will openly admit they are low caste in an effort to be a protected class? That's the only reason I see as to why some people are against the proposal: people will start talking more and more about caste in a country and a culture where this does not exist.

North America has a caste system, though. We just don't call it that. The laws written to protect our lower castes aren't written to cover the Indian caste system, and caste discrimination is happening here. Hence, the effort to pass laws to cover it.

> Is there going to be people that now will openly admit they are low caste in an effort to be a protected class?

This is asinine. People who belong to lower castes should be protected from discrimination, whether or not they openly admit it. Do people point out that they belong to a protected class in order to fight cases of discrimination? Yes. That's why the law exists.

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#78

Post by dotnet00 »

rectang wrote: post #55

> a proposal that many felt was unnecessary and unfairly tarnished the image of the South Asian community I'm white yet I don't feel "unfairly tarnished" by the banning of white supremacy. Nevertheless, plenty of Americans (mostly but not exclusively white) do oppose legislative constraints on white supremacy and I think it's fair to say that they "feel tarnished" by them. My read is that this opposition comes from t…

Difference being that discrimination by race is already illegal and therefore banning white supremacy amounts to limiting speech. Banning white supremacy would be equivalent to banning support of caste discrimination, which is different from banning caste discrimination itself.

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#79

Post by kevinventullo »

whats_a_quasar wrote: post #22
kashunstva wrote: post #14

> “A lot of staff asked, ‘What is caste?’” Wait - these staffers are working in government but know so little about world history and culture that they’re clueless about caste? Maybe that’s part of the problem of getting progressive consensus on this bill.

To be fair, caste has no direct analog in U.S. or European culture. It isn't shocking that a staffer in the California state government would need to be educated about an issue, the first time it's become a political issue in the U.S.

caste has no direct analog in U.S. or European culture.

I mean, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Brahmin as one of many, many examples.

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#80

Post by slowmovintarget »

whats_a_quasar wrote: post #16

I'm legitimately confused about the strength of opposition to the measure. It seems like it should be a small, uncontroversial, update to protected categories. Are people opposing the term "caste" appearing in U.S. law? Is the concern that the law will cause other Americans to judge Indian/Nepalese/Sri Lankan communities? If anyone here can explain the emotional significance of the bill to someone who is not South As…

It appears that the South Asian community in California is angry that the bill would mean that caste discrimination exists, and there seems to be the implication that many in that community want to bring that aspect of their culture with them to America.

The actual bill: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

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