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Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

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

#121

Post by quantified »

jfengel wrote: post #57
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.

"Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws." -- Antonin Scalia It would be great if we could trust that laws would b…

Right. Scalia or Thomas would strike down those things called laws because they prevent things that were historically allowed (originalism).

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

#122

Post by innagadadavida »

btilly wrote: post #102
singlow wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he means it would be better proof if you simply gave an example case which was dismissed because a Judge ruled that it didn't qualify as a civil rights violation.

That isn't how it works. The issue is that cases are not brought because it is hard to prove it illegal. https://www.equalitylabs.org/castesurvey documents that 2/3 of Dalits in the USA report being mistreated at work. I'm only aware of one lawsuit about it. That was the CISCO case. No federal agencies got involved because it does not fall into race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic i…

> Therefore discriminating by caste is legal under federal law

I’m curious if those people filed a lawsuit of any kind? I would imagine that discriminating against them would fall under in-group vs out-group type of discrimination and companies discourage this. Workers get unhappy about work and other co-workers, this doesn’t mean laws were broken.

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

#123

Post by ta_vf7xjd34cc »

quantified wrote: post #115
ta_vf7xjd34cc wrote: post #91

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…

How is this related to the British? Caste is not their invention. Indian politicians will try to maximize votes overall. Only in a district with supermajority caste-culture population would they be able to prefer their caste over others someone in campaigning, and why wouldn't they do that anyway? As it stands now, an elected Indian official is free to appoint only same-caste officials when said officials are also In…

> How is this related to the British? Caste is not their invention.

Technically, it is. This happens when people who do not understand a particular society or its conflict hierarchy start writing the laws for that society.

From Wikipedia:

> Modern India's caste system is based on the artificial modern superimposition of an old four-fold theoretical classification called the Varna on the natural social groupings called the Jāti. Varna conceptualised a society as consisting of four types of varnas, or categories: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra, according to the nature of the work of its members. Varna was not an inherited category and the occupation determined the varna. However, a person's Jati is determined at birth and makes them take up that Jati's occupation; members could and did change their occupation based on personal strengths as well as economic, social and political factors. A 2016 study based on the DNA analysis of unrelated Indians determined that endogamous Jatis originated during the Gupta Empire.

> From 1901 onwards, for the purposes of the Decennial Census, the British colonial authorities arbitrarily and incorrectly forced all Jātis into the four Varna categories as described in ancient texts. Herbert Hope Risley, the Census Commissioner, noted that "The principle suggested as a basis was that of classification by social precedence as recognized by native public opinion at the present day, and manifesting itself in the facts that particular castes are supposed to be the modern representatives of one or other of the castes of the theoretical Indian system."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste#In_South_Asia

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

#124

Post by ribosometronome »

belltaco wrote: post #107
ribosometronome wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you use the same logic to argue in favor of California updating it's law to remove listing race, sex, color, and ancestry from the list of explicitly defined prohibitions? The argument in the case of caste is that it's already covered by way of the law presently prohibiting discrimination based on "ancestry". But additionally, the law prohibits discrimination based on "genetic information", which seems like it…

> But additionally, the law prohibits discrimination based on "genetic information" That sounds specific to using DNA tests for things like health insurance or work fitness. In most of the cases you don't need to swab DNA to find someone's race, sex or ancestry. You can find those by other means. So that law won't prohibit discrimination based on sex, race and ancestry.

My interpretation could be and probably is wrong. I'm not sure it's super important to the point I'm trying to make, though, especially given that Newsom's explicit argument is that this is unnecessary because we already can liberally interpret some categories to cover this.

I'm more getting at why value conciseness over clarity? Even if "genetic information" doesn't cover them presently, there's no reason it couldn't to achieve Gavin Newsom's new goal of not having laws be overly explicit.

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

#125

Post by belltaco »

TMWNN wrote: post #120
innagadadavida wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't care. I shouldn't care. I shouldn't have to know or care in the first place! Newsom vetoing the bill is on similar grounds - no one should care or talk about cast and certainly it should not be mentioned in any CA bill.

I know. I am going further, and stating that if South Asians are arguing *in the US* about the existence and extent of caste-based discrimination, and it's gotten to the point that a law was proposed and almost enacted, maybe we Americans should question whether we should have the arguers, as well as the arguments, in the US in the first place. I mean, you can say that the South Asian presence in the UK is because of…

> maybe we Americans should question whether we should have the arguers, as well as the arguments, in the US in the first place

That certainly doesn't sound blanket racist against an ethnicity of 1.5 billion people...

Land of free speech indeed.

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

#126

Post by ribosometronome »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #119
ribosometronome wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you use the same logic to argue in favor of California updating it's law to remove listing race, sex, color, and ancestry from the list of explicitly defined prohibitions? The argument in the case of caste is that it's already covered by way of the law presently prohibiting discrimination based on "ancestry". But additionally, the law prohibits discrimination based on "genetic information", which seems like it…

> Would you use the same logic to argue in favor of California updating it's law to remove listing race, sex, color, and ancestry from the list of explicitly defined prohibitions? If, as you have indicated, those provisions are already redundant under California law - of course I would. You seen to be asking this question as if you expect to catch someone in a contradiction, but I don't think you're going to find peo…

Mmm, sure. I ask because I expect folk would balk at removing explicit protections for race, sex, and the like because it could be liberally interpreted from other protections listed, as seems to be Gavin's argument here.

Prior to this thread, I didn't really think folk would be up in arms in making the language of law being explicit in barring something we apparently all agree it does bar and should bar rather than leaving it ambiguous and reliant on judges not construing the law slightly less liberally than Newsom thinks they should. In other contexts, replacing the explicit callouts with ambiguous, broadly interpretable ones seems like the opportunity for harm is obvious.

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

#127

Post by belltaco »

ribosometronome wrote: post #124
belltaco wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But additionally, the law prohibits discrimination based on "genetic information" That sounds specific to using DNA tests for things like health insurance or work fitness. In most of the cases you don't need to swab DNA to find someone's race, sex or ancestry. You can find those by other means. So that law won't prohibit discrimination based on sex, race and ancestry.

My interpretation could be and probably is wrong. I'm not sure it's super important to the point I'm trying to make, though, especially given that Newsom's explicit argument is that this is unnecessary because we already can liberally interpret some categories to cover this. I'm more getting at why value conciseness over clarity? Even if "genetic information" doesn't cover them presently, there's no reason it couldn'…

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

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

#128

Post by TMWNN »

belltaco wrote: post #125
TMWNN wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know. I am going further, and stating that if South Asians are arguing *in the US* about the existence and extent of caste-based discrimination, and it's gotten to the point that a law was proposed and almost enacted, maybe we Americans should question whether we should have the arguers, as well as the arguments, in the US in the first place. I mean, you can say that the South Asian presence in the UK is because of…

> maybe we Americans should question whether we should have the arguers, as well as the arguments, in the US in the first place That certainly doesn't sound blanket racist against an ethnicity of 1.5 billion people... Land of free speech indeed.

>Land of free speech indeed.

Yes, and I want to keep it that way.

I ask again: What is the obligation for America, or Americans, to host intra-South Asian arguments and their arguers? Arguments that do not, in theory, involve any non-South Asians whatsoever? Is the only allowed outcome one in which the number and volume of said arguments hosted by America increase?

As I said:

>Like all immigrants Indians should be evaluated on their potential to contribute to the US in positive and negative ways.

There is no inherent right for South Asians to enter the US other than on the US government and its people's sufferance of same. If Americans decide that the disadvantages from the presence of South Asians (or Kenyans, or Danish, or Guatemalans, or New Zealanders) exceed the advantages, there can and should be consequences regarding immigration, visa, and naturalization laws. What should not happen is to preemptively squelch any efforts toward determining this as "blanket racism", any more than existing laws that apply uniformly toward all of a particular national origin are such.

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

#129

Post by oldbbsnickname »

booleandilemma wrote: post #103

I can think of few things more un-American than the concept of caste. We should not even acknowledge that caste exists any more than bodily humors. All men are created equal.

The problem is a massive influx of naturalized Americans to a limited number of geographic areas bring their culture, good and bad, with them. This causes a dilution of the melting pot effect typical of areas like say NYC. If there is suffering that can be effectively reduced by legislating against it, then it needs to happen. IANAL, so I can't speak to if this was something useful or if it was a liberal purity test pandering to a demographic.

In my limited experience, the few Brahmins I worked with were absolutely intolerable, toxic, mean people. It was probably an aberration as I don't have a large enough sample size to condemn an entire group as "mostly horrible because of a caste system".

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

#130

Post by nirav72 »

addicted wrote: post #70
huytersd wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 incl…

Not GP - but I come from a lower caste family. Although I was born and raised in the U.S, I cant recall a a single time someone wanted to know my caste or made it an issue. I have several friends who like me are of South-Ancestry. A diverse multi-ethnic group whose parents came from all over India. None of us are even aware what caste hierarchy we fall into.
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