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Comment by soligern | Hacker News Reader

I guess that depends on your definition of racism. Can people from the UK be racist to the Polish? If yes, fine. But technically it’s different from racism and more nationally based bigotry.

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The was a race in Europe that faut a genocidal war against East Europeans, based on perceived race.

Playing semantics during discussions on discrmination always has some undertones of trying to justify said discrimination, because of course it is something different...

Semantics may not be the most helpful during a discussion of this but neither is application of modes/solutions learnt from other forms of bigotry. The best way to kill the caste system is to forget about it which is in the process of happening. It’s not further entrenching yourself in that identity that may be necessary in more superficial forms of bigotry.

Does your proposed solution also include forgetting the benefits members of higher castes have historically received?

Because that sounds a lot like telling someone to pull themselves up from their bootstraps after stealing their boots.

There’s already a 30-50% quota in most public institutions that is very successful at giving lower castes an advantage. No bootstraps required.

Will those affirmative actions extend how long the caste system stays around? Probably but they’re meant to be in place for a couple of generations (40-80 years) which should be an acceptable amount of time to level the field.

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