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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

#91

Post by ta_vf7xjd34cc »

Good.

The West does not understand caste. Their only comparison is slavery which is completely irrelevant. The closest thing to caste in the West is class.

This is the British social classification experiment all over again where they came to India, invented criminal tribes and martial races, and took the fluid jati/varna system and froze everything as part of law instead of letting society deal with its problems at its own pace. The result is there for every one to see. Three hundred years later, politicians in India want a caste census to maintain their caste-based vote banks, and caste groups that used to rule entire kingdoms demand to be classified as backward castes because it helps them compete with other caste groups who are benefiting from reservations/affirmative action.

If the US legally recognizes caste, in 50 years time, you will see Indian politicians campaigning for votes on caste lines in California.

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

#92

Post by function_seven »

ribosometronome wrote: post #42
function_seven wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see hiring managers avoiding Indian candidates if they think it would add risk of future lawsuits from that candidate’s subordinates in the future. (“Don’t hire him, he might use caste-ist decision-making when building his team.”) In practice, only other South Asians would likely run afoul of this law, so they now have baggage that workers of other national origins would not have.

If the law already covers it, why would explicitly enumerating its coverage add risk of lawsuit?

I'm describing what I think is a predictable second-order effect of this explicit enumeration.

Prop 65 seemed like a fine idea. Let's make sure people know about the carcinogens in their daily lives! Oops, now that stupid sticker is on everything, because you've created a fear in the minds of retailers and manufacturers. It's entirely useless, nothing has improved, but now people spend additional time wasting paper and ink and resources to stay clear.

Or for a more recent backfire example, see the FDA's new rules on sesame seed labeling (https://reason.com/2023/07/28/fda-commissioner-no-one-envisi...)

The law itself thinks it's covering a hole in existing protections, so people are going to modify their behavior accordingly to make sure they don't get in trouble. What's the easiest way to do that? For Hindus already employed, they can take extra care to ask about a candidate's background to ensure they're not skewing their workforce. Indians applying for a job now get to check a box next their caste. Most will probably check "prefer not to say", or maybe they check whatever one they think will give them an advantage. For non-Hindus, they can just decide to hire Mike Smith, who doesn't even know what a caste is. There's this whole new thing that must be accounted for, and those doing the accounting will find the easiest path through it.

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

#93

Post by notatoad »

isykt wrote: post #3

If it’s already covered, what’s the harm in letting the bill go into effect?

poorly understood and difficult to enforce laws cause a ton of harm. basically any time somebody wants to delay or obscure, their best tool is an unenforceable or redundant law. "oh, before we can start on that project / cancel that project / hire that person / fire that person we need to consult with legal to see the impacts under suchandsuch law"

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

#94

Post by miscaccount »

theogravity wrote: post #73
huytersd wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought they can also sometimes identify via last name?

not really, many of the states does not use last name and many take up their fathers name as last name. It also varies from state to state, so the probability of you identifying another person caste from their last name is very small.

With many people taking different names that are modern from parents ,its really hard to know .

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

#95

Post by belltaco »

olliej wrote: post #63
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.

You're making a lot of assertions with no sources across multiple comments.

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

How do 'we' know that?

> 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.

You're also losing business and violating laws.

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

#96

Post by tpmoney »

gameman144 wrote: post #69
tpmoney wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The nature of the law isn't relevant to the analogy. The point is that you can't say anything about the current state of the law simply by noting the size of the opposition to a new proposed law. The analogy would work just as well if it were a law that prohibited the killing of children, punishable by generational imprisonment. There are any number of reasons to oppose the introduction of such a law, and none of that would be evidence that killing children is currently legal.

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

#97

Post by bsder »

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…

> People do not want to import this shit into the US.

It already exists whether you wish to acknowledge it or not.

The question, at the end of the day, is whether or not existing law is sufficient. Presumably we are expecting that caste falls under "religion or creed" in terms of protected characteristics.

Has that actually been established?

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

#98

Post by theogravity »

miscaccount wrote: post #94
theogravity wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought they can also sometimes identify via last name?

not really, many of the states does not use last name and many take up their fathers name as last name. It also varies from state to state, so the probability of you identifying another person caste from their last name is very small. With many people taking different names that are modern from parents ,its really hard to know .

My wife has her father's name as her last, so what you say definitely tracks.

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

#99

Post by belltaco »

miscaccount wrote: post #87
addicted wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Only stories alleging caste discrimination trend on HN and are assumed to be true. Not when they're withdrawn for lack of evidence, so we can't blame GP for not knowing that.

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

#100

Post by galangalalgol »

gameman144 wrote: post #69
tpmoney wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am not familiar with the issue, but to parrot other comments that are, it seems that because caste is not ethnicity or nationality, even having a law that recognizes caste as a difference os a step in the wrong direction. Making certain castes protected under the law has backfired horribly in India, and many do not want to see that repeated.
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