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

Post by proxiful-wash » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 5:18 PM UTC

margalabargala wrote: post #47

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…

What's mentioned in the article is that as caste is a primarily SE Asian phenomenon, this is a bill that targets SE Asians. People tend not to like being singled out on the basis of their race. Mentioned in the article was one person who tried to address this by banning discrimination "on the basis of ancestry, including caste" which seems to me to be a completely reasonable adjustment.

Post by margalabargala » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 5:19 PM UTC

amluto wrote: post #82

margalabargala wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's mentioned in the article is that as caste is a primarily SE Asian phenomenon, this is a bill that targets SE Asians. People tend not to like being singled out on the basis of their race. Mentioned in the article was one person who tried to address this by banning discrimination "on the basis of ancestry, including caste" which seems to me to be a completely reasonable adjustment.

> What's mentioned in the article is that as caste is a primarily SE Asian phenomenon, this is a bill that targets SE Asians. People tend not to like being singled out on the basis of their race. That seems weak. One should not (and legally may not) discriminate on the basis of being Indian, which is a South Asian phenomenon. One should not discriminate on the basis of having Native Hawaiian ancestry, which is a Hawa…

Post by boxed » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 5:19 PM UTC

KenArrari wrote: post #58

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…

I do kind of get the argument that this creates a category of crime that only indians can be convicted (or even accused) of. At least, nobody is openly saying that they're opposing the law because they want to do caste discrimination but if someone wants to be taken seriously they need to give a good answer for how they'll be addressing it.

Post by mkoubaa » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

whatsup7123 wrote: post #76

This California law from 1959 already bans discrimination by ancestry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unruh_Civil_Rights_Act From a legal perspective, is a new law even necessary? Isn't it legally redundant?

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #50

whats_a_quasar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Wait, what? Systemic racism in what's now the U.S. was literally codified as a caste system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta And we're still dealing with the legacy of that, many centuries since.