Live data from Hacker News

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

politico.com

141–150 of 324 posts

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

#141
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Half of it came during my academic phase though!

Do you mean in India? If you don't mind can you tell me what years those were? I just want to see if I happen to live in a bubble or it was a different time (as in, sufficiently long ago for me to not see it).

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

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

White supremacy is not protected speech.

> there is effectively no "hate speech" exception to the free speech rights protected by the First Amendment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_in_the_United_Stat...

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

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ridiculous though, that's like saying that the 13th amendment assured the longevity of slavery since it was never as explicitly defined in the Constitution.

Try to divorce the concept from the specific issue. It's not ridiculous, on it's face. It's one aspect of history, that seems to hold true. The concept of a belief being promoted by enshrining it in writing, is not a truth, but a matter of circumstance. eg Any religious writings.

This is a perfect example of why we should always consider the specific issue, as opposed to latching onto general concepts.

Religious writings’ sole purpose is to establish & promote a belief system, based on subjective values.

Anti-discrimination laws’ sole purpose is to dissolve the practice of belief systems that objectively cause interpersonal harm.

These are conceptual opposites in many ways. But if I generalize the concept “writing makes ideas immortal”, then I am able to conflate the two.

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

#144

Great, good luck enforcing that. Good luck even verifying caste identity. The last name is not even close to 100% valid in determining caste identity. Also, I think whether we admit it or not, we definitely have a notion of caste in the west except it’s a combination of race and socioeconomic identity. Growing up my white friends had a whole network of friends with summer homes and we once took a tour around the USA…

White man here, citizen of US. I actually think this could work to our long-term advantage. We get some laws passed that ban caste discrimination, not realizing that the same problems exist in other parts of US society and is not just a "SE Asia problem". And then eventually someone comes along and uses the caste discrimination laws creatively for some kind of civil rights / liberties win that is not related to SE Asia. I'm pretty sure that a fair amount of our civil rights / liberties progress came about through creative use of laws that were not expected to be used for that purpose.

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

#145

This has nothing to do with civil rights, it’s just a continuation of colonialism and the rich white man’s “divide and conquer” ideology. They have Modi, Sunak, Vivek is coming, and pretty much every executive team of every major tech company is dominated by people from the Indian subcontinent. Let’s not be fooled here folks, this is cultural oppression and warfare in a hidden form. Why else of all people is Wahab dr…

This is a truly weird take. Imagine defending one of the most oppressive practices that happen even in our home country. Do better. >Vivek is coming Vivek ain't gonna go nowhere. ----------

No one is defending it. Being against the proposed legislation does not mean imply defending the practice. But the point is that the agenda of trying to fight so-called casteism comes from people who have little to no understanding of it, and what they are trying to do is to undermine a people as a whole, rather than the practice itself.

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

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To me, it seems that they are very closely related.

Protected categories = you can't refuse to hire someone because they're not white

Affirmative action = you can give someone an advantage in a hiring process because they're not white, with the intention of correcting historical discrimination

They are closely related in that they deal with race, gender, and class distinctions. But the ethics of the two are quite different. Banning discrimination by protected categories is uncontroversial. People have a lot more disagreements about affirmative action.

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

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like that should be grounds for expulsion IMO.

Impossible to prove tho. You can always just claim you don't like the person for other reasons. That's why this whole 'banning caste' stuff is mostly performative imo. People will just be hostile to each other but not be open with the reason.

[dead]

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

#148

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…

It's the classic melting pot dissolving identities, making those depending on it for self worth super zealous.

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

#149
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It must be an absolutely horrible of a mix in the US for this to be 8:10. The US is quite large so this is a YMMV thing. I solve this issue by just not associating very much with my ex-countrymen. I get enough of them when I go to visit my parents, I don't need to constantly mingle with more Indians. I have a solid set of diverse friends (one or two are Indian). It helps that in my workplace I tend not to think of…

I don't understand how educated people behave this way. I have seen this in illiterates but modern educated people behaving this way is absolutely mind boggling.
Post reply on HN