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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

#151

Post by Bukhmanizer »

ethanbond wrote: post #141
Bukhmanizer wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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|Jewis…

Well the thing about American laws is that they apply to America and American culture. A pluralistic society like ours has no reason nor obligation to import (or even respect) ass-backwards concepts like caste.

Either you misunderstood my comment or you're deliberately interpreting it in a way that is easier to argue against. In no place do I argue that we should be importing the "concept of caste".

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

#152

Post by olliej »

huytersd wrote: post #59
olliej wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? The whole point of caste based discrimination is that people are putting you, as you say, in a bucket and then discriminating on that basis. By having such discrimination be legal you ensure that such discrimination is (a) legal, and (b) gets to be entrenched in the US.

It’s impossible for it to get entrenched because people from India can’t even tell a persons caste unless they are from the same cluster of towns and villages. This is Indian “county specific” knowledge that cannot survive a cosmopolitan society.

Uh, no it’s not?

You can [and people do] use family names as an effective proxy for caste, and if you’re planning on discriminating on caste that’s more than enough. The Dalit's (in the case of Cisco) are not all the same "village" as the people they're claiming are discriminating against, and it's bizarre you would think that clusters of immigrants from a country of a billion people would magically already know each other.

I know of people who through marriage had their family name change from a lower caste to a higher one, and experience an immediate drop in questions of the “how could you get here?” Form.

More to the point: if it were already impossible to discriminate based on caste then this law would not impact anyone.

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

#153

Post by olliej »

catlover76 wrote: post #62
olliej wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mormonism and scientology both have castes, albeit in varying forms of "ranking". A person of a lower rank is always subservient to the higher ranked version, which is castes.

There may be a degree of mobility between ranks, but mormonism at least makes it explicit that a black person for instance starts at a subservient rank, and can never reach the top rank, as that is reserved for white people.

Your position in a job, or the availability of that job, or housing, or in fact anything, should never be restricted simply due to some religious doctrine.

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

#154

Post by mulberrybush »

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.

- Age, gender, sexual orientation etc apply to all human beings. But caste is applicable only to people from the Indian Subcontinent, and even though Indian Muslims, Christians and Sikhs all practice caste it was presented as though it was only applicable to Hindus. So this was seen as a bill that was specifically targeted at Hindus.

- The senator who presented the bill is a first generation Afghan muslim. This adds to the suspicion among Hindus that this is a Hindu-phobic action. It is kind of like a Palestinian senator pushing a bill to protect Sephardi and Misrahi jews from discrimination by Ashkenazi jews in Californian workplaces.

- The bill was based on a questionable survey by Equality labs - this survey has been challenged as unscientific and biased. For e.g. see [1] Anatomy of a Dishonest survey.

[1] https://medium.com/@rachelgotham5/equality-labs-caste-report...

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

#155

Post by [deleted] »

olliej wrote: post #152
huytersd wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s impossible for it to get entrenched because people from India can’t even tell a persons caste unless they are from the same cluster of towns and villages. This is Indian “county specific” knowledge that cannot survive a cosmopolitan society.

Uh, no it’s not? You can [and people do ] use family names as an effective proxy for caste, and if you’re planning on discriminating on caste that’s more than enough. The Dalit's (in the case of Cisco) are not all the same "village" as the people they're claiming are discriminating against, and it's bizarre you would think that clusters of immigrants from a country of a billion people would magically already know eac…

[deleted]

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

#156

Post by dooraven »

olliej wrote: post #152
huytersd wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s impossible for it to get entrenched because people from India can’t even tell a persons caste unless they are from the same cluster of towns and villages. This is Indian “county specific” knowledge that cannot survive a cosmopolitan society.

Uh, no it’s not? You can [and people do ] use family names as an effective proxy for caste, and if you’re planning on discriminating on caste that’s more than enough. The Dalit's (in the case of Cisco) are not all the same "village" as the people they're claiming are discriminating against, and it's bizarre you would think that clusters of immigrants from a country of a billion people would magically already know eac…

Yeah maybe in North India.

South India it's pretty impossible, since it went through the self respect movements and basically got rid of surnames. Most south indians have surnames based on their fathers names.

But it is definitely common to use surnames as proxies in North Indian communities (unfortunately)

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

#157

Post by strangesmells02 »

whatsup7123 wrote: post #80
strangesmells02 wrote: post #7

How populated with Indian people is California if statewide legislation is being written for this?

Caste discrimination is not limited to the Indian population. As a matter of fact, ancestral caste is not a concept introduced by Hinduism or Indian culture (look up "varna", which is native to Hinduism and is not necessarily assigned by ancestry). The word "caste" itself derives from the Portuguese words "casta".

Oh I didnt realize in modern times numerous cultures practiced the caste system. I thought it was just the Indian people.

What other cultures in modern times practice the caste system?

Sorry Im not knowledgeable about such things.

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

#159

Post by the_third_wave »

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.

You're assuming that all of those 1.5 billion people support the caste system simply because they come from India. This type of generalisation used to be the basis for the definition of the term "racism" before it got coopted by identity politics:

"racism, also called racialism, the belief that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races”; that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioural features" (Encyclopedia Britannica; emphasis mine)

I assume the original poster means to keep out the discussion of the caste system by keeping out its supporters. Disregarding the feasibility of such a plan [1] it does put this proposal in a different light: keeping out supporters of a system or ideology which divides people based on unalienable characteristics is something which those who claim to be against racism should welcome.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/06/29/attitudes-ab... shows that support for the caste system is less prevalent among higher educated Indians who are more likely to immigrate based on employment opportunities so in that respect it would be feasible. Given this fact a rule to keep out caste supporters could be easily construed as an attempt to keep out less educated people by those seeking to weaponise identity for political purposes.

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

#160

Post by belltaco »

olliej wrote: post #148
belltaco wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newsom pointed to ancestry, which covers caste perfectly because it's all about ancestry. > That this discrimination is occurring is not up for debate, it is objective fact Source for this so called objective fact? > which demonstrates the existing laws are not sufficient? Even it true it doesn't doesn't demonstrate that. There are strict laws against murder, theft, assault etc. and they happen quite frequently. The…

> Source for this so called objective fact? This law came about after a case about caste discrimination against Cisco was dismissed. Or you can do some basic searches of twitter and mastodon for first hand accounts. > Even it true it doesn't doesn't demonstrate that. There are strict laws against murder, theft, assault etc. and they happen quite frequently. The fact that they are occurring doesn't automatically mean…

Cisco case was dismissed coz it was made up bs. Not because of lack of laws.

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

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