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

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

#231

Post by uptownfunk »

mkoubaa wrote: post #204
uptownfunk wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s actually worse. Why are we focusing on caste, which is very isolated, when class divide and class discrimination is a much worse problem. Probably because the upper class who would be adversely affected by any efforts to fix it are the ones in control of driving the agenda. We’re too focused on idealistic feel good politics and not focused enough issues that are affecting most of the nation

Are you seriously alleging that class discrimination is a problem that society is ignoring? Did the 20th century simply not happen?

Basically. Even if they aren’t ignoring it, they aren’t addressing it effectively. Look at rich men north of Richmond. Hard to afford much of anything these days. But oh wait, that’s not the problem, the real problem is some obscure ancient practice from india coming to USA affecting highly privileged and overpaid tech workers.

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

#232

Post by catlover76 »

I am surprised nobody in this thread or in the article mentioned that Wahab is Muslim (or at least was raised as such)--like, I'm surprised nobody is lobbing allegations of intentional anti-Hindu bias stemming from her own religious background.

(To be clear, I assume her motivations are genuinely altruistic, I'm just saying it seems like an obvious line of argument for someone who is opposed to the measure)

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

#233

Post by [deleted] »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #109
zozbot234 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

We are? The US is still dealing with the legacy of the Spanish formalized caste system, because of territory it took over from Spain and/or Mexico a century and half ago? I call baloney. The US is still dealing with the consequences of its own sins. I don't think it inherited Spain's sins when it took the land.

[deleted]

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

#234

Post by bandyaboot »

chargingmarmot wrote: post #225
mkoubaa wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's more retroactive. The confederates didn't have any shame about their motivations when they seceded.

I'm not sure what you're arguing, but I don't think its true that the claim "we want to secede because of injustices against us" was retroactive. see: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati... "The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Gov…

It wasn’t necessarily retroactive, but it was always pretense.

edit: see Texas’ declaration of secession for what it looked like when they weren’t shy about saying the quiet part out loud.

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

#235

Post by catlover76 »

numpad0 wrote: post #214
eklavya wrote: 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's not like "these people" haven't heard of that idea of basic human decency, more like they think whatever the books they carry has a priority over someone else's ethics and laws. But teaching them what's correct to a free man is a bit weird and it's also a rather steep slippery slope towards Chinese Uighur camp situation, so these problems are starting to grow and compound everywhere in developed worlds.

> But teaching them what's correct to a free man is a bit weird and it's also a rather steep slippery slope towards Chinese Uighur camp situation

You think teaching them that it's wrong to discriminate based on caste is a step on "a rather steep slippery slope towards" genocide??

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

#236

Post by uptownfunk »

mkoubaa wrote: post #111
uptownfunk wrote: post #31

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…

I have no idea what point you're making

And that’s the whole problem. We have lost the point. Divorces are increasing, single parents, single moms are increasing, kids growing up lost in broken homes, a crumbling education system shifting to only individuals who can afford private schools, crime increasing, social media toxicity. But no no no it’s casteism that’s the problem, let’s legislate on that and pat ourselves on the back. Wake up people, your nation is crumbling before you.

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

#237

Post by chargingmarmot »

bandyaboot wrote: post #234
chargingmarmot wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're arguing, but I don't think its true that the claim "we want to secede because of injustices against us" was retroactive. see: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati... "The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Gov…

It wasn’t necessarily retroactive, but it was always pretense. edit: see Texas’ declaration of secession for what it looked like when they weren’t shy about saying the quiet part out loud.

This one is called a circumstantial ad hominem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Circumstantial

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

#238

Post by uptownfunk »

lannisterstark wrote: post #112
uptownfunk wrote: post #31

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…

> just staying in unoccupied summer homes of rich white friends. Class divide is not caste divide. Imagine if you went to the market, and you touched someone, and immediately, their parents/people around them flicked drops of water at them to purify them because they got touched by an untouchable. Do you experience THAT in the US? Do you know how humiliating that is? You're being absurd at equating the two.

Your “flicking of water” happens to many middle class who go to high end boutique stores. Classism is just an evolved form casteism that has embedded itself into the subconscious so we don’t recognize it as such.

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

#239

Post by catlover76 »

boxed wrote: post #105
KenArrari wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshi and Nepalese.

Not really; the argument would be that it creates a crime only Hindus can be accused of.

A Muslim or Christian or Sikh Indian, Pakistani, etc., would not be targets for caste discrimination lawsuits, under the logic.

Of course, as a legal matter, that's not true; anyone could be accused of caste discrimination if the law passes, whatever their religion, race, or national origin.

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

#240

Post by hef19898 »

chargingmarmot wrote: post #128
ghodith wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The bill has already been modified to use that verbiage. "Eventually, Wahab agreed to place caste under “ancestry” rather than list it as a standalone category" So it seems that those still opposed to the bill are not sati…

The bill is opposed by the Hindu American Foundation. They give their rationale for opposing the bill in: https://www.hinduamerican.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/HAF... They claim: "We share the admirable goals of protecting civil rights and eliminating all forms of prejudice and discrimination, including based on caste. As such, the question is not whether we deal with allegations of caste discrimination, but how.…

So, the problem is also the fact the whole concept of caste, not just discrimination based on it, risks being painted in a bad light.

I am reading between the lines so. Would be a stretch to speculate about the caste make-up of said association?

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