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Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

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Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#121

Out of curiosity, for Indians working in America, how hard is it to hide your caste or pretend to be of another caste altogether? Is this something that comes up in conversation among Indians? Do names tend to correlate to you caste? And if so, do people change them as a way of hiding their family caste?

Your surname literally gives it away.

Not really. You’ve no way to find out the caste of a Prasad or Kumar or Deshmukh or a Muralidharan

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm strongly generalizing here, but the overall population statistics might mean that minorities hiring minorities is more of an outlier than white people hiring white people. In a predominantly white society, it is perfectly conceivable that you'll hire predominantly white people even if you are completely unbiased, purely because they are strongly over-represented in the population. White people hiring white people…

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045221 Anything not aligned with the breakdown here is just straight up racist hiring practices - 60% white, 20% hispanic / latino, 15% black, 5% asia (subcontinent & se asia).

I agree with the general sentiment of this comment, but would add that the employee breakdown should match the applicant pool's demographics, not the demographic breakdown at large. For example, to expect a gender breakdown close to 50-50 would be unrealistic in software engineering roles since generally women are less represented in those roles.

Though id love to see this shift (Women in stem!!)

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#124
post #37
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Edit: as if to prove my point about racism, in this very thread there is already a comment talking about Indian nepotism. I was wondering if you could clarify this. Why is the caste system fair game to criticize but nepotism isn't?

I didn't say either was fair game to criticize. Criticism of both tends to provide cover to or be motivated by racism. Especially when there isn't equal emphasis on WASP or Jewish nepotism, when most early tech companies tended to have mostly WASP or Jewish leadership.

> Criticism of both tends to provide cover to or be motivated by racism.

Good example of association fallacy [1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#125
post #69

Out of curiosity, for Indians working in America, how hard is it to hide your caste or pretend to be of another caste altogether? Is this something that comes up in conversation among Indians? Do names tend to correlate to you caste? And if so, do people change them as a way of hiding their family caste?

I'm not Indian American my origins are Caribbean but I have some Indian origins and can offer a few answers from my experience. > Is this something that comes up in conversation among Indians? It starts casually with "where are you from?" and the questions get more invasive. > Do names tend to correlate to you caste? In India, yes it does family name is derived from caste. I had some friends adopt English names to ge…

> I had some friends adopt English names to get from under their caste names. So quite a few Johnsons, Smiths, Matthews, Pauls out there.

There is an interesting history behind this. When Christian missionaries first arrived in India to spread their religion (in the late 1700s/1800s) they were initially unable to make much progress, but then found success among lower caste Indians by promising them a life of equality. So the vast majority of Christian converts in India are from these castes.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm strongly generalizing here, but the overall population statistics might mean that minorities hiring minorities is more of an outlier than white people hiring white people. In a predominantly white society, it is perfectly conceivable that you'll hire predominantly white people even if you are completely unbiased, purely because they are strongly over-represented in the population. White people hiring white people…

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045221 Anything not aligned with the breakdown here is just straight up racist hiring practices - 60% white, 20% hispanic / latino, 15% black, 5% asia (subcontinent & se asia).

Well this article is about Apple so you’ll want the Santa Clara county census. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/santaclaracountycalifornia

Whites (non-Hispanic) are only 28.9% and Asians/Indians are 40.6%.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like desperate H1Bs that are afraid to shake the boat because one wrong move and they are out of the country. We shouldn't celebrate slave mentality.

Again, I pre-empted these types of debates by saying we can split hairs on why this is. I am not denying this is the case for some, but also it's not the entire picture. I know plenty non-H1Bs that fit this bill, and there have been plenty of articles written on the rise of the Indian-American worker, especially in the tech sector https://www.southasiamonitor.org/spotlight/unprecedented-ris... , use your favorite sea…

I've noticed the same kind of trend, except in my case it's not working out the same way. My Indian team mates are happy to diligently put in the hours, but it has been difficult to convince them that they should instead rock boat a little in cases where those hours aren't clearly helping anybody.

20 well thought out hours > 40 hours running tests you know will pass.

It's a pity that discussing cultural differences as things that can be an asset or a hindrance is taboo. I surely have my own inherited hang-ups and it would be helpful to have it pointed out every now and then.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#128
post #3

My dad once told me of how at his work (in the 1980s or early 1990s, I think), they had a team of two Indians assigned to a project. One turned out to be of a much "higher" caste than the other, and refused to work with the other, making him utterly useless to the project. It's good that Apple, IBM and other tech companies are taking steps to prevent this sort of discrimination. It's a shame that Google seems be goin…

I know who I would have fired without hesitation.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#129
post #114
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Casteism, while bad, is not racism. Saying casteism is ingrained in Indians on the other hand is racism.

This doesn't sound right. Weren't castes based on race and conquering populations initially? How would you describe casteism's status among expatriated Indian populations at a population level? Or is the fact one refers to a population at all to be help in contempt as "racism"?

> castes based on race and conquering populations initially.

No. Varnashram and Jati system were not formed due to any imaginary invasion from the outside, that’s the discarded Raj era AIT speaking.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#130
post #89
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't lose much either. I'd argue they'd gain face in today's climate. "DEI best practices aren't just for white people anymore" is probably a good look.

Ironically it tends to be high caste Indians who push this stuff (perhaps because of higher education levels). Maybe they’ll be circumspect about dishing it out to white people after some sessions having to confess their “Brahmin privilege.”

I predict they’ll love the opportunity to indulge in theatrical ethnomasochism, just like high status whites do.
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