I am surprised that India has managed to hide its caste system from the rest of the world so well; the ridiculous caste system which assigns a person's worth based on birth circumstances and cannot be changed during her/his lifetime.
Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system
331–340 of 592 posts
Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I am from “upper caste”. My experience might not be commonly heard perspective. In 10th grade of schooling, my parents changed my lastname to avoid that folks figure out the caste. Due to affirmative action (aka reservation) on steroids, upper caste were losing opportunities. My parents wanted to avoid that I lose out on selection, promotions.., where subjective discretion was involved. I'm sorry but this makes no…
Perhaps if something doesn’t make sense, ask for clarity instead of asserting that changing one’s surname makes zero difference. I am also familiar with many upper-caste people who have changed their surname to something generic (like Kumar) to avoid revealing their caste. This doesn’t just apply to job seeking in private enterprises. They do this to avoid any kind of attention drawn to their surname, and hence caste…
I called the stated reason i.e. fearing losing out on jobs and promotions nonsensical.
Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
Caste among Sikh[1] and Muslim[2] communities is as deeply rooted as caste in Hindus. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BSN-3nmMyM [2] https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-muslim-community-under-a-...
Did you just man-splain someone’s own religion/community?
Ah yes, no one can ever have factually wrong beliefs about their own community. The Serbs were merely defending themselves on Yugoslavia in the 90s.
Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
They both are explicitly sexist. Hard to define that away. Maybe it's not bad; but it's sexist. Just as it would be racist if the criteria was making sure one of the interviewers was of specific race or nationality.
That's your opinion, most people probably disagree. A common way to define racism is: negative prejudice + power (The same can be done for sexism, though obviously on different characteristics) From that point of view, making sure that a marginalized candidate is also interviewed by at least one member of the same marginalized community, if possible, is neither racist nor sexist. (Because you're not negatively discri…
> A common way to define racism is: negative prejudice + power
This is an idiotic way to define racism that makes it completely subjective to give the wielding accuser of racism to be highly discriminatory while claiming not to be bad.
Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what percentage of people do you think are "passing"?
High.
People that can pass of as white are more often of mixed heritage. Even then its really rare for them to be passable into the majority racial population. It all depends on their racial/ethnic composition. If one is half-latino/half-North African/levant and half-white, chances are they're going to be passable and most likely identify as white. Even the U.S census considers people from MENA as white. There are also white-Hispanics. But same can't be said of people that are a mix of African-American + Caucasian. See Barack Obama, Jordan Peele or Keegan-Michael Keys as examples. What you consider "high" for passable are still a small fraction of the minority population.
Also passable isn't a think most people do these days. At least not since the 1960s where racial barriers were much higher. These days people of mixed heritage will most likely identify with the minority side of their heritage. (For many reasons).
As a Brazilian friend of mine once told me - Racial classification and categorization in the United States is just weird.
Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that genuine conflicts of interest need to be addressed. It seems absurd to declare a-priori that “no Indian shall be the unsupervised leader of a Pakistani (nor vice-versa) because that’s a conflict of interest”.
I didn't say that. What you've said here is a straw man
The original comment that spawned this discussion definitely was.
> One thing I recommend to my hiring managers is to not allow people from frictioned backgrounds to manage and interview people from the other side.
Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system
#337The reason for my current user name here at hn was this exact form of racism. It is the first post I made when I created this throwaway. I was assured that my experience was unique and not widespread. I am both sad and happy to see this, sad because it exists, happy because it is getting some attention here at HN. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that everyone of us needs to be vigilant about this t…
I’m native Chinese and I don’t hold any opinion against Japanese people… especially in my job, that’s just not professional and seems very childish and immature…
It's the other way around. Japanese look down on Chinese.
Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system
#338Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system
#339I am surprised that India has managed to hide its caste system from the rest of the world so well; the ridiculous caste system which assigns a person's worth based on birth circumstances and cannot be changed during her/his lifetime.
Hide it?
We learned about it in middle school. Maybe that’s not common elsewhere in the US?
Re: Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system
#340> For Siddhant, who now lives in the South Bay in a $2 million home, wearing his father’s Ambedkar watch reminds him of where he comes from—and where he still wants to go. Even now, whenever the stakes seem especially high, he’ll put on the watch and double-check that his shirt sleeves are long enough to conceal it. comon this is a bit over the top. Is this for real??
Do you mean the home or the watch thing? Either way, it doesn't sound as far fetched. People will still judge you no matter how well you do for shit like this if they see you as inferior. It's very easy for them to explain away your success, be it affirmative action, hiding your past, or even calling it pure dumb luck. Hiding a watch with a clear symbol of the caste you belong to does seem plausible