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Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

politico.com

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Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#61

Post by olliej »

chmorgan_ wrote: post #49

Do we need laws against every specific thing if another law already covers it? I'd argue no, we don't need to call out special groups as protected, then there is precedent for doing so for every special group. Keep our laws general and comprehensive, with as few special cases as possible, especially when it comes to protecting rights.

The whole point is that existing laws do not clearly do so: they aren't discriminating against gender, race, religion, politics, or any of the other examples Newsom pointed to. That this discrimination is occurring is not up for debate, it is objective fact, which demonstrates the existing laws are not sufficient.

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#62

Post by catlover76 »

olliej wrote: post #51
catlover76 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one good faith argument is that Hindus feel targeted by it because, de facto, this is about higher-caste Hindus discriminating against low-caste Hindus. Whether or not that's particularly convincing or a reason not to pass it is debatable, but I think it's a valid reason that merits consideration. Any reasoning beyond this ends up being gobbledygook.

I mean there are plenty of caste based systems in many religions, perhaps of relevance to the US are Mormonism and Scientology which both have ranking systems that determine options for people in the religion (and who have tried to leave it). It's also worth noting that if you are born in a specific caste, and convert from your religion, you will still be subjected to caste discrimination from the folk in the origina…

I don't think Mormonism/LDS has anything like the Hindu caste system (I neither know nor care about Scientology)

I'd be interested to know whether any other major religion has anything quite like the caste system.

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#63

Post by olliej »

oh_sigh wrote: post #31

Lots of claims in this article but I'd love to hear more details. What part of the civil rights law protects against caste discrimination? How would this law jeopardize or put other businesses at risk?

Well we know the discrimination happens, and currently is not prevented by courts.

The harm to businesses, is that say you own a business and don't want to serve people of the wrong caste, now you can't. That's very damaging to you as you want to be a bigot but you've lost that freedom.

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#64

Post by huytersd »

function_seven wrote: post #35
theogravity wrote: post #5

> “not only target and racially profile South Asian Californians, but will put other California residents and businesses at risk and jeopardize our state’s innovative edge.” How? Because south asians can't be caste-ist against others now?

They would be the only group “exposed” to this law. The vast majority of non-Indian people in California have very little idea how caste works, and how to identify membership, etc. So now there’s this new law that de facto only applies to a specific ethnicity of Californians. I guess you could argue that all Californians—regardless of their ethnicity—are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of caste. But to me…

Indians can’t even tell castes unless they are from essentially the same county/local cluster. This is only really a problem because you have a lot of people from the same part of Andra pradesh coming and working in the tech sector.

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#65

Post by 0thgen »

tekla wrote: post #22
locofocos wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. I'm trying to understand the resistance in good faith, but the article didn't explain their position very clearly. "It's already prohibited" - so why the fierce opposition? "Passing a law against discrimination of X will stigmatize X" - Imagine someone was making this argument for an existing federally protected class.

People do not want to import this shit into the US. They left these systems behind, and making a law codifies the system into law, which is kinda fucked up. I myself have seen discrimination in non obvious ways (not Indian but exact same idea where your birth dictates certain societal ideas about you) , and would be absolutely pissed if anyone made a law that protects against that because discrimination is already pr…

there is an interview with a person from India involved in a caste discrimination lawsuit that people should watch: https://youtu.be/XhGZUE1ABuo?si=r9DVUDAoexoS0-aB

they make similar arguments about why they feel the bill is a bad idea

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#66

Post by whatsup7123 »

ethanbond wrote: post #2

The large and vocal constituency activated against the bill is good evidence that in fact it is not already accounted for under existing civil rights law.

It is accounted for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unruh_Civil_Rights_Act

"...the unlawful discrimination is in part based on a person's sex, race, color, religion, *ancestry*..."

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#67

Post by belltaco »

huytersd wrote: post #52
praveen9920 wrote: post #33

Very unfortunate. I have heard lot of cases from friends in US about how they are discriminated based on caste and they can’t say anything because of backlash they might face. Unfortunately, Unlike other kind of discrimination, caste based discrimination is hard to prove in courts. And on top of that they have to prove that caste based discrimination is illegal too, making it hard to bring justice.

Who even knows someone’s caste in the US. As an Indian living in the US for 20 years, I have never once even heard it come up in any conversation even in passing. How would you even tell? I grew up in India and I can’t tell.

Same. No one even brings up caste at all, except very rarely in the context of someone's parents back in India wanting a spouse for their child overseas (for arranged marriages) to be of a similar caste(like date/marriage racial preferences in the west). Things are changing fast in India and that is becoming rarer as time goes on.

Very strange that it comes up a lot on HN for some reason. I'm not higher caste and I never felt anyone has ever mistreated me in professional or personal life.

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#68

Post by catlover76 »

emmelaich wrote: post #44
ethanbond wrote: post #2

The large and vocal constituency activated against the bill is good evidence that in fact it is not already accounted for under existing civil rights law.

There's a vast array of prejudices and grievances in most cultures. Are you going to enumerate them all? I reminded of that scene in "Mad Men" where Pete Campbell is denied a sale by a McDonald. You know, because of the 1692 Massacre at Glencoe and related. https://www.ccsna.org/the-campbells-and-macdonalds . Then there is the Balkans ....

I'm not sure if you noticed, but there are already legal protections for discrimination on basis of race and religion.

> There's a vast array of prejudices and grievances in most cultures. Are you going to enumerate them all?

Are you going to enumerate them all in defense of caste discrimination on the faulty logic that we have to eliminate every other possible injustice before we tackle caste discrimination?

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#69

Post by gameman144 »

tpmoney wrote: post #9
ethanbond wrote: post #2

The large and vocal constituency activated against the bill is good evidence that in fact it is not already accounted for under existing civil rights law.

Whether or not it is already accounted for under existing law, this sort of reasoning is about as valid as "the large and vocal constituency against a bill requiring everyone to pledge allegiance to the US is evidence that people aren't loyal to the country" Better evidence would be someone who would have been eligible to bring a case under the new law having been denied justice under the existing laws.

The analogy here isn't quite the same though: you can pledge allegiance, but you aren't required to. A bill saying that you are now required would be a change in obligations, and patriotic citizens might still oppose that.

This bill, however, is proscriptive: it is saying that you cannot perform an action. It's a hard case to say that we shouldn't put that restriction into law while also believing that discrimination should be restricted.

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#70

Post by addicted »

huytersd wrote: post #52
praveen9920 wrote: post #33

Very unfortunate. I have heard lot of cases from friends in US about how they are discriminated based on caste and they can’t say anything because of backlash they might face. Unfortunately, Unlike other kind of discrimination, caste based discrimination is hard to prove in courts. And on top of that they have to prove that caste based discrimination is illegal too, making it hard to bring justice.

Who even knows someone’s caste in the US. As an Indian living in the US for 20 years, I have never once even heard it come up in any conversation even in passing. How would you even tell? I grew up in India and I can’t tell.

You have to be upper caste to not have to think about caste.

That being said, I’ve seen very little evidence of this as well.

Which makes it even more perplexing why groups would oppose the addition of caste among the list of factors on which someone can be discriminated.

I do think Newsom is right in that it’s covered under current ancestry laws (proponents point to a case in NY decades ago when ancestry wasn’t included). Clearly the CA govt actually believes that because they’re sued Cisco over caste discrimination a few years ago.

But again, I don’t see why people are opposing adding it to the list. If it’s added and redundant it makes no difference, except then they can point to the lack of caste based discrimination in the U.S. based on the low number of such cases that have succeeded.

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