The Casteism I See in America

Every single piece I've read about casteism by American outlets comes off as incredibly shallow and often completely wrong.

I have written about this before, and I will keep this one short. We used to have a joke about us Indians that the only thing all Indians can agree on is that no one understands this nation. Simple explanations, however, tempting will almost always be wrong. You are talking about what's probably the only remaining ancient civilization that didn't undergo full cultural eradication. It is supposed to be difficult to reason about.

First, the desperate attempt to tie caste to race completely misses the point. It reminds me of the Christian pursuit to understand Hinduism from an Abrahmic lens or the kind of person who says, "Can you explain soccer to me in basketball terms?"

Second, caste is not caste. It is an umbrella term for narrower identifiers that some Indians use to 'place' a person. Caste as the NYT writes about it, is everywhere and in all races. If they want to shed light on India, these pieces need to get their hands dirty.

Journalism is not journalism. Indian journalists and liberal academics have activist journalism and sycophanty embedded into their very foundation. The ones who go status seeking to western outlets are often even worse. I do not know this author, so it would be unfair to use any adhominems against them. But, generally, I would consume news about faraway foreign nations in American outlets with deep skepticism. There is totally a 'gellman amnesia' thing going on here.

Lastly, caste is not caste anymore. The nature of internal sharding, class division, and discrimination in the diaspora has its own patterns that don't abide by caste lines.

Caste matters are so complex that even a tldr takes 1 full-page. I love the interest, but you better be ready to do a phd before you even so much get the 101 of caste in India.

The Atlantic seems to have a bug on mobile that makes the screen unscrollable if its showing its cookie notice/GDPR bar. its been like this for 6 months now, i think.