An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve • Hacker News Board

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#281

Post by alsodumb » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 10:41 PM UTC

pandaman wrote: post #277

alsodumb wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a caste thing, let's not make everything a caste thing. I've got similar messages from many Asians in general. It's based on a bunch of blogs/influencers asking folks to always reach out to someone in a company on LinkedIn and ask for a referral even if you don't know them. A referral is not a recommendation. Most companies have referral programs where they can refer pretty much anyone and you don't explicit…

99% of these I get are from Indians, I figure few other Asians that sent same requests were influenced by their Indian classmates. And I've never worked in a company where a referral given to somebody you don't know is worth something, did not imagine there is such a thing. What is the point of this, to select for candidates proficient in scripted mass-mailing?

From what I've seen, the point is to convince an acquaintance or alumni (even if you didn't explicitly know them) to give you referral so that they can get ahead of the online application madness. Happens quite frequently, checkout blind where people are constantly asking for referrals (and many giving them to random strangers).

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#282

Post by slg » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 10:42 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #274

slg wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can you describe a specific incident in your employment history where you were fired from a job or denied a promotion due to your caste or ancestry? Just clarifying that discrimination doesn't have to result in being fired or passed over for a promotion to count as discrimination.

Can you give an example please?

IANAL, but basically anything that negatively impacts a protected class and doesn't have a clear business purpose can be argued as discrimination. "Reasonable accommodations" without "undue hardship" are key phrases you will commonly hear as being the expectations for employers. Those accommodations can include stuff like installing ramps for an employee in a wheelchair or granting a new mother time to pump. The employee doesn't have to be fired or denied a promotion, simply making their job or life more difficult is often enough to be considered discrimination.

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#283

Post by margalabargala » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 11:02 PM UTC

petesergeant wrote: post #123

margalabargala wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's mentioned in the article is that as caste is a primarily SE Asian phenomenon, this is a bill that targets SE Asians. People tend not to like being singled out on the basis of their race. Mentioned in the article was one person who tried to address this by banning discrimination "on the basis of ancestry, including caste" which seems to me to be a completely reasonable adjustment.

> is that as caste is a primarily SE Asian phenomenon South Asian, not South-East Asian.

You're right, my apologies.

It is unfortunately too late to edit the original post :(

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#284

Post by pandaman » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 11:09 PM UTC

alsodumb wrote: post #281

pandaman wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of these I get are from Indians, I figure few other Asians that sent same requests were influenced by their Indian classmates. And I've never worked in a company where a referral given to somebody you don't know is worth something, did not imagine there is such a thing. What is the point of this, to select for candidates proficient in scripted mass-mailing?

From what I've seen, the point is to convince an acquaintance or alumni (even if you didn't explicitly know them) to give you referral so that they can get ahead of the online application madness. Happens quite frequently, checkout blind where people are constantly asking for referrals (and many giving them to random strangers).

I'd figure it would be easy to target Linkedin spam to the alumni, since the schools are in the same profile where they get the workplace. Instead they wrap their requests into invites to connect, get bounced and I don't know if this still a thing but Linkedin used to throttle your ability to send invites if you get enough rejections... But thanks for explaining, I used to be completely mystified by this behavior.

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#285

Post by eldaisfish » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 11:24 PM UTC

catlover76 wrote: post #239

boxed wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshi and Nepalese.

Not really; the argument would be that it creates a crime only Hindus can be accused of. A Muslim or Christian or Sikh Indian, Pakistani, etc., would not be targets for caste discrimination lawsuits, under the logic. Of course, as a legal matter, that's not true; anyone could be accused of caste discrimination if the law passes, whatever their religion, race, or national origin.

This is wrong and is a flawed understanding of how caste works in the indian subcontinent. Every single brown person has a caste. They may be unaware of it (in which case they are likely not lower caste) or not acknowledge it but it definitely exists. It certainly exists among muslims, sikhs and christians in the indian subcontinent. In those cases, religion is the perceived identity to the outsider but caste is right there, under the surface.

Hinduism codified and forms the basis for the caste system but every other religion evolved later or was forced upon people who already had caste.

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#286

Post by boxed » Tue, Sep 05, 2023, 12:14 AM UTC

catlover76 wrote: post #239

boxed wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshi and Nepalese.

Not really; the argument would be that it creates a crime only Hindus can be accused of. A Muslim or Christian or Sikh Indian, Pakistani, etc., would not be targets for caste discrimination lawsuits, under the logic. Of course, as a legal matter, that's not true; anyone could be accused of caste discrimination if the law passes, whatever their religion, race, or national origin.

> Not really; the argument would be that it creates a crime only Hindus can be accused of.

I replied to "that only indians can be convicted of" but as you point out AND THAT I POINTED OUT it's about Hindus, not Indians. There are big populations of Hindus in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

Basically you just replied "not really; exactly what you wrote".

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#287

Post by ramraj07 » Tue, Sep 05, 2023, 12:17 AM UTC

catgary wrote: post #254

ramraj07 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The academic phase was during my PhD between 2009 and 2017 in Texas. Upper Caste Hindu professors (2) and fellow grad students and postdocs (2). The professors thankfully weren’t my advisors, but made it their business to pester every Indian student during poster presentations if they found they were not upper caste or weren’t behaving as one (by eating or dating habits).

You can absolutely still report them, if you’re no longer in the university they don’t have much power to influence your career anymore.

I think you might have too much faith in the HR departments of Texas universities :)

UT Southwestern is quite famous for protecting its image at all costs.

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#288

Post by ramraj07 » Tue, Sep 05, 2023, 12:29 AM UTC

alsodumb wrote: post #69

A lot of discussion about caste system in California came up after the Cisco discrimination law-suit by the California civil rights department accusing two supervisors and Cisco of discriminating based on caste. It's important to note that the civil rights department voluntarily dismissed its case against both the supervisors and court filings show very little evidence to support the discrimination case. The truth is…

1. Casteism is not going down in India but has become much worse. Even in developed cities. Me and my friends live through a life where our relationship choices continue to become pain points or even complete ostracizations, these are IIT educated Brahmins for example. You’re right you might live your life without knowing this exists especially in a city like Mumbai if your family and friends circle is progressive but that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem.

2. I think a higher proportion of American Indians (including second generation) than even Indians in India are casteist. Just my observation. Leaving their home country and in this political climate with their general ideologies seems to engender embracing such ideas as part of their identity.

3. You can’t just stay away from such folks, if those folks are in places of power at work or community. If you wish to live a life where you don’t want interact with anyone or move up somewhere sure that’s fine but Indian Americans tend to be in a lot of places of power (and guess which fraction of them also might be casteist) so it’s not escapable all the time.

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#289

Post by mortureb » Tue, Sep 05, 2023, 2:49 AM UTC

trehalose wrote: post #28

Supermancho wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would it extend longevity? Codifying something in law (or code, ie unit tests) tends to ensure it's durability. Information is something that can exist as an idea ephemerally. Once you write down a definition, it has perceived historical value. Later this can be used as an example of how things were done that might be tried again. Many people recognize this as self-evident.

What's the difference between codifying anti-discrimination laws and codifying laws against other things, such as shoplifting?

If you make categories by law and afford certain benefits to those categories then people will continue to adopt them and perpetuate it. Caste is complex, build over many generations. It is however very easy to destroy by just forgetting the things people use to categorize others and would be nearly impossible to rebuilt in the modern world as it was a system built for local communities where people intimately knew each other for generations. The goal should be breaking and forgetting knowledge that let’s people distinguish castes in the first place.

Shoplifting is shoplifting. No one is going to “forget” you can steal things so you need explicit laws forbidding it in perpetuity.

Re: An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve

#290

Post by Shawnj2 » Tue, Sep 05, 2023, 3:14 AM UTC

slowmovintarget wrote: post #80

whats_a_quasar wrote: post #16

I'm legitimately confused about the strength of opposition to the measure. It seems like it should be a small, uncontroversial, update to protected categories. Are people opposing the term "caste" appearing in U.S. law? Is the concern that the law will cause other Americans to judge Indian/Nepalese/Sri Lankan communities? If anyone here can explain the emotional significance of the bill to someone who is not South As…

It appears that the South Asian community in California is angry that the bill would mean that caste discrimination exists, and there seems to be the implication that many in that community want to bring that aspect of their culture with them to America. The actual bill: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

*some people in the south Asian community

No one I know supports the caste system and as a person with Indian parents living in California I cheer this bill happening. People from South Asia aren’t a monolith, and my understanding is that caste based discrimination is more common in the Bay Area than other parts of the state, but either way discrimination based on religion, sex, gender, race, ethnicity, income, or any sort of box you can end up in that you don’t choose to be in should be illegal under the civil rights act.