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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

#81

Post by jstarfish »

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.

Not Indian, but from observation in America, Indians get weirdly interested in specific information about the other party's hometown and family when making workplace introductions. It only happens between Indians and the same questions have never been asked of me.

I assume this is how all the caste stuff surfaces.

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

#82

Post by cataphract »

catlover76 wrote: post #41
tekla wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This makes so little sense I can't really tell whether or not this is in good faith. > People do not want to import this shit into the US. You realize people discriminating on this basis are the ones "importing this shit into the US", right? > I REALLY do not want the Govt to literally categorize me into a bucket I do not give a shit about You realize that this law wouldn't involve the government compiling a list of…

Regardless of the merits of this law, your take is very simplistic. All laws are trade-offs and they achieve their purposes imperfectly and with side effects. Not to mention the administration of the law (the justice system) is far from perfect.

Just to give a perhaps contrived example based on what the GP said. We can imagine that companies start worrying about the caste of their employees (or just if they're indians) when they otherwise wouldn't, and constrain their actions lest they be exposed to higher legal jeopardy down the line.

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

#83

Post by function_seven »

catlover76 wrote: post #56
function_seven wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I guess you could argue that all Californians—regardless of their ethnicity—are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of caste. The law would literally prohibit everyone from discriminating on the basis of caste. There's nothing arguable or debatable about that. As I posted above, I think it's a valid point for Hindus to make that they feel kind of targeted, but the flip side of that is that they feel that wa…

> The law would literally prohibit everyone from discriminating on the basis of caste. There's nothing arguable or debatable about that.

I'm not debating the literal law, I'm debating the effects of the law. Harsher sentencing for crack cocaine literally applied to everyone of all races. But... yeah, it was done that way to target Black offenders, sentencing them more harshly for a couple rocks than White stock brokers got for a kilo of powder.

Just because a law technically applies to all, doesn't mean it does so in practice.

This law does target Hindus. They may have a pervasive problem, but I'd prefer the solutions to be neutral to nationality or religion, like the ones we have now. Step up enforcement of existing laws so you can deal not only with caste-ism, but also sectarian strife among other groups. Shia or Sunni, Catholic or Protestant, Orthodox or Reformed, etc.

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

#84

Post by whatsup7123 »

gnicholas wrote: post #77
whatsup7123 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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* ..."

That appears to cover consumers, but doesn’t cover employees. Is there another law that also refers to ancestry that applies in the employment context?

FEHA covers this. Between the two, consumers and employees are already protected.

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

#85

Post by ac54321 »

silenced_trope wrote: post #16

I agree with Newsom, this is covered already. > The veto dealt a blow to state Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward), a first-term lawmaker who shepherded one of the more controversial bills of the session through the Legislature. It's like when a new VP joins the company you work for and suddenly there's a useless project of some kind. A new initiative or re-org that they are spearheading to justify their position/salary. I…

Aisha Wahab is an first-term Sen and an Afghan Muslim. So, one of the things that has always bothered me is if this was driven by some kind of Hindu-phobia or other agenda.

Obviously it can be argued that she was championing a cause dear to some of her ethic Indian constituents, but still.

I think it’d be similarly odd if a first term Hindu Sen were to champion the cause of Shia/Sunni discrimination, or the discrimination against Ahmadia Muslims or Orthodox Jews or whatever. All of which are already covered under existing laws.

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

#87

Post by miscaccount »

addicted wrote: post #72
olliej wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the many documented examples of caste discrimination who have been unable to do anything because caste discrimination is legal?

The California govt is literally suing Cisco for caste based discrimination. They clearly don’t think it’s legal.

this was dismissed for lack of any evidence.

https://theprint.in/opinion/dismissal-of-cisco-case-proves-e...

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

#88

Post by serial_dev »

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.

No, it is not.

If I propose adding "don't be sneaky little hobbitses" to the MIT license and people don't want to add it, is it evidence that we have sneaky Hobbits infiltrating the software developer community?

Or something more serious, people who are against the PATRIOT Act are evidence that we need the laws and they are not patriots, anyway? Is it the level of discourse we want?

You take what's in the bill at face value and believe it has only positive effects, and don't even consider why others might be against it.

NYT mentions that the bill "would make South Asians (...) more vulnerable to unfair accusations of discrimination."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/us/south-asians-are-divid...

My attempt to understand their argument: imagine you are from India, living your life, conducting interviews, working to the best of your abilities, then someone sues you, alleging that you only didn't hire him, because of his cast. Now, you'll spend months if not years trying to prove that you didn't, while people around you will believe the accusations and start treating you like a casteist bigot. Then, as this gets more and more common, companies stop hiring people from South Asia because they don't want to deal with this.

Now, is this true or is it their only argument against it? I don't know, but you can see how people could be against it for other reasons than "oh I want to discriminate so hard and this bill won't let me".

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

#89

Post by Bukhmanizer »

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.

I don't think this is very good logic. I'm not South Asian, but I can understand not wanting to be subjected to the judgements of a majority who neither knows or cares about the nuances of my culture, yet has to judge me through the lens of that culture.

The amount of times in these and other threads where people just try to explain the culture by simply analogizing to American history (X are the [Black|Mexican|Jewish] people of India) is ridiculous. America is not a macrocosm for the rest of the world.

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

#90

Post by belltaco »

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.

Just like all the anti-Sharia laws that were proposed in the US?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/30/anti-sharia-...

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