An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve
politico.com
politico.com
I’m not of the “lowest caste” as it’s perceived but by looks I am often mistaken to be a Brahmin, one of the highest ones. So my fellow Brahmins get offended when I’m not strictly vegetarian, and get more so to learn that I’m not Brahmin or that I believe India should remain secular.
I’d advise anyone not fully informed to not give too much credence to people opposing this legislation; I spend a lot of time weeding and working around them and can assure you this is a real thing and should be codified just to remind them what America should stand for.
UT Southwestern is quite famous for protecting its image at all costs.
The US is quite large so this is a YMMV thing. I solve this issue by just not associating very much with my ex-countrymen. I get enough of them when I go to visit my parents, I don't need to constantly mingle with more Indians. I have a solid set of diverse friends (one or two are Indian).
It helps that in my workplace I tend not to think of anyone as a 'friend' and just keep my interactions professional.
I guess the works for all kinds of cases of discrimination.
And because I know people will wonder: no, I am not Indian and know very little about caste so you can rest assured this isn't a biased response.
You think teaching them that it's wrong to discriminate based on caste is a step on "a rather steep slippery slope towards" genocide??
When I was a child there were a lot of scandals about girls disappearing from school because they were married off to a cousin back in Morocco.
Just clarifying that discrimination doesn't have to result in being fired or passed over for a promotion to count as discrimination.
1. If a bunch of co-workers who are vegetarian due to their ancestry choose to exclude me from lunches because I want to eat meat, can I sue them for caste discrimination?
2. If someone makes fun of me because I wear a mark on my forehead, can I sue them for caste discrimination?
All laws need to have bounds that operate within the constraints of the US Constitution. This is why I was limiting the scope of my comments to hiring/firing/promotion related topics. I am sympathetic to social issues like what OP is talking about, but also do not believe that new laws can solve all of them.
Also, the existence of such a law should have a chilling effect on this behaviour. Even if it doesn't get rid of it. E.g. presumably HR policies & training will have to be updated to highlight it on pain of exposing employers to legal action.
see: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati...
"The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union."
I think there's a tendency for discussions about the south's position in the civil war to end up with slavery poisoning the well.
edit: see Texas’ declaration of secession for what it looked like when they weren’t shy about saying the quiet part out loud.
That they might no longer be allowed to engage in chattel slavery at some indeterminate point in the future. Outright abolition was still a fringe policy at the beginning of the war.
They seemed to regard abolition as no longer a fringe policy but one which, in the North, was effectively mainstream, and were certain that after Lincoln's inauguration the North would wage a war to exterminate slavery.
> For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms [emphasis in the original] of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. ...
> On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.
The Texans seemed to have similar viewpoints that the abolition of slavery was not a fringe policy, and would be carried out during the next administration:
> By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments. ...
> And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slave-holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States.
(I trust that "within the next administration" isn't what you mean by "indeterminate".)
In the north and even in the Republican party itself immediate abolition without compensation was still certainly a 'fringe' view. However the new administration was pretty explicit about not allowing new slave states to join in the future while simultaneously allowing accept new free states.
Slave states would've been outvoted in Congress, which would've probably led to eventual abolition. However it would've been a slow and gradual process with possible compensation and much closer to a 'death by a thousand cuts' (anything else would've just triggered a secession and most northern politicians certainly preferred allowing the Southern states to maintain slavery for the foreseable future).
So I certainly doubt most reasonable people in the South expected that slavery would be abolished 'within the next administration,' but they still must have seen the writing on the wall and judged that they'll never be in a stronger position than they were at that time. When they actually decided to secede, it made sense to use the strongest/most outlandish language possible in their propaganda (since of course, there were still probably some people who might have believed it)
> immediate abolition without compensation
Whoa there. Please do not shift your argument.
Earlier you wrote "indeterminate point" not "immediate abolition" and you wrote "outright abolition", not a specific type of abolition.
My reading of the declarations was they thought would be during the Lincoln administration, not "immediate" upon his inauguration, but also not "indeterminate".
> So I certainly doubt most reasonable people in the South
Do you have supporting evidence for your belief? I mean, these people elected the leaders of the state, so why do you think "most" people disagreed?
Depends on how do you define 'believe'. Politicians back then (just like now) certainly often said things they didn't believe in when doing so was politically advantageous.
I certainly believe that they thought that the new administration was probably the biggest threat to slavery in the last 50 years or so and its actions were likely to lead to eventual abolition. Does not change the fact that immediate abolition was politically infeasible (which is something Lincoln himself reiterated during his inaugural address and I have to reiterate that while opposed to slavery Lincoln himself was not an abolitionist and did not run on abolitionist ticket).
> Whoa there. Please do not shift your argument.
Am I? Sorry, my comment might not have been clear, I certainly did not want to imply that abolition was likely at any point during the Lincoln administration (at least before the next election).
> Do you have supporting evidence for your belief? I mean, these people elected the leaders of the state, so why do you think "most" people disagreed?
I'll have to shift my argument in this case and say "most rational people".
Also if we look at all of the quotes you posted:
- slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.
- that the South shall be excluded from the common territory
- war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States (unless you believe they mean a literal war)
- and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States.
none of these seem to imply that their authors believed that abolition was imminent (in the next 4 years or so):
> Do you have supporting evidence for your belief
Anyone who vaguely understood the political situation in 1860 would have know that (peaceful) abolition during the next 4 years was unfeasible.
> so why do you think "most" people disagreed?
Disagreed with what exactly?
Why do you believe that? All of the declarations of succession I've argue otherwise.
Georgia's says "The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity."
Mississippi's says "until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice" against "the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world".
You wrote "none of these seem to imply that their authors believed that abolition was imminent (in the next 4 years or so)."
The documents of succession are clear that they don't want to be under Lincoln, with the Republican party in control.
Mississippi's says "There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union"." They are clear that if they stay in the Union then they are certain abolition will come.
South Carolina specifically named "On the 4th day of March next" as the day when "The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy."
Georgia again: "Such are the opinions and such are the practices of the Republican party, who have been called by their own votes to administer the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States. We know their treachery; we know the shallow pretenses under which they daily disregard its plainest obligations. If we submit to them it will be our fault and not theirs. ... because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity."
These aren't people thinking they can wait until the next election to see what happens, and perhaps they can decide to succeed then. These are people convinced that if they stay with the Union any longer then their entire way of life will be destroyed. That's why seven states succeed before Lincoln was inaugurated.
How do you get from those statements to "none of these seem to imply that their authors believed that abolition was imminent (in the next 4 years or so)"?
You commented;
> Does not change the fact that immediate abolition was politically infeasible (which is something Lincoln himself reiterated during his inaugural address and I have to reiterate that while opposed to slavery Lincoln himself was not an abolitionist and did not run on abolitionist ticket).
That's not relevant because my comments all concern chargingmarmot's claim at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37383422 , concerning the reasons for why the South succeeded.
That those reasons may be ill-founded is a different discussion, while I want to stay on topic as Civil War discussions have consumed countless hours.
The fact is, many of the states which succeeded did do because they want to keep slavery, as they very clearly justified at the time. The injustices they felt were because they (correctly!) thought that the Constitution was created to preserve slavery, and that compact was no longer being followed.
If you conjecture it was merely "politically advantageous" and they didn't actually believe it, then you aren't taking this seriously and presenting solid evidence to support your conjecture.
Otherwise, are we also to take racist nonsense like
> We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
as more political posturing that they didn't actually believe?
Yes, thank you, that's exactly what I sad. Southern politicians believed that they'll never be in a stronger position than they were at that point and if they were going to do something they have to do it now.
> The fact is, many of the states which succeeded did do because they want to keep slavery, as they very clearly justified at the time.
Absolutely. Never claimed the opposite. My only point that they rebelled because they believed that the Republicans will weaken and restrict the institution of slavery over time which would result in eventual abolition.
> If you conjecture it was merely "politically advantageous" and they didn't actually believe it, then you aren't taking this seriously and presenting solid evidence to support your conjecture.
I'm sorry but you arguments seem to lack nuance to an almost extreme degree. There is a lot space between "maintaining the status quo" and "imminent (over the next 4 years) abolition". Of course they believed that the new Republican administration and shifting popular opinions in the north (from maintaining the status quo to limiting the expansion of slavery into new territories) were a huge threat to slavery.
> How do you get from those statements to "none of these seem to imply that their authors believed that abolition was imminent (in the next 4 years or so)"?
I'm seriously puzzled how do we get the complete opposite by reading the same words? None of those quotes imply that they believed that abolition was imminent or might happen in the near future.
My entire point was and still is this:
while their desire to maintain slavery was obviously the main reason of the rebellion nobody viewed abolition as an imminent threat or that it might occur over the next 4 years (that was politically inconceivable both in the south and the north). The southern states seceded because their politicians assumed that the new administration will do everything it can to weaken the institution of slavery and limit its expansion which would've led to its eventual demise (at and indeterminate point in the future).
Could you clarify which part exactly do you disagree with?
Documents like that are a much better guide to the normative beliefs to which the authors wish to appeal than the factual beliefs they hold.
What are those "frequent violations of the Constitution"?
> In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.
> The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
> This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
> The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
> The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.
It's all about the injustice that they are not able to keep slaves like they want to.
Second sentence:
"For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery."
Third sentence:
"...and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property..." (my emphasis)
C'mon.
Obviously it was about slavery in the broad sense but the rebellion was mostly preemptive and they had to come up with some justification. Chances are that slavery would've lasted another 10-20 years had the southern states not seceded.
Why then should the South believe any statement made by Lincoln?
We know what the State of Georgia thought about the Republican Party: "The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers ... We know their treachery; we know the shallow pretenses under which they daily disregard [the Constitution's] plainest obligations."
They were motivated because they didn't trust the treacherous Republican Party to maintain slavery.
> Why then should the South believe any statement made by Lincoln?
Because it was politically infeasible to actually abolish slavery in the next 4 years and because Lincoln is still accountable to his northern voters (overwhelming majority of whom preferred the continuation of slavery to the collapse of the Union).
> They were motivated because they didn't trust the treacherous Republican Party to maintain slavery.
I'm not sure treachery is the right word. Republicans were generally pretty open their desire to weaken the institution of slavery and limit it's expansion into new territories. Eventually that would've probably led to abolition. Southern politicians understood and that's why they rebelled (it had nothing to do with the threat of imminent abolition).
You are rejecting the literal words they used to describe the Republican party, which I quoted. Those are by definition the right words for describing their viewpoints because that is what they wrote.
You also reject the reasons they wrote to justify secession, because you think it did not make sense. Remember, these are people who believed "the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty", and whose use of slave labor enriched their economy - you have different belief in what God wanted, so cannot use your beliefs as a lens to interpret what made rational sense to them.
You cannot have a good understanding of history if you filter the primary documentation through your own interpretations and discard anything that does not make sense to you.
No, I never said that.
> Remember, these are people who believed "the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free
How is this relevant? I never defended slavery or claimed that the southern states did not rebel to protect slavery.
> if you filter the primary documentation through your own interpretations and discard anything that does not make sense to you.
I'm not doing that either.
Did you read the quote you posted?
> "The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers ... We know their treachery; we know the shallow pretenses under which they daily disregard [the Constitution's] plainest obligations
Could you explain how exactly am I misinterpreting it?
If you reading that quote as "we believe that the abolition of slavery is imminent and will happen in the next years" that's a pretty obvious misinterpretation.
I don’t give a shit about caste, never have, and for most part can’t tell based on last names, but I’ll be honest that even after decades I still feel a little raw about reservation.
And therein lies the rub, as in will it or not, these legislations lead to people being unfairly sued for caste discrimination upon not getting a job due to lack of capability.
None of that matters since many of these incidents happen within 15 minutes of the first meeting. Roughly around when they start to realize and ask, “oh, you’re not Brahmin?”
Importantly, this question sounds more like trying to find a reason why casteism is justified tbh.
No of course it’s not justified, and not sure why you thought I was trying to do that. I apologize if my comment came across like that.
I have never been in your shoes, so was trying to understand.
It kind of sucks that South Asians apparently need to be singled out like this, but it seems like a pretty cut-and-dried civil rights issue.
If anyone here can explain the emotional significance of the bill to someone who is not South Asian, I'd appreciate it!
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.
The bill has already been modified to use that verbiage.
"Eventually, Wahab agreed to place caste under “ancestry” rather than list it as a standalone category"
So it seems that those still opposed to the bill are not satisfied with that amendment.
Discrimination based on ancestry shouldn't be allowed regardless of whether it's on a short timeframe (caste) or a long timeframe (race).
What we're seeing now is what happens when people in positions of nonzero power who are used to getting to discriminate, are told not to. We saw the same thing in the American south when people were told they had to stop discriminating against people of African ancestry.
https://www.hinduamerican.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/HAF...
They claim:
"We share the admirable goals of protecting civil rights and eliminating all forms of prejudice and discrimination, including based on caste. As such, the question is not whether we deal with allegations of caste discrimination, but how. If and when caste discrimination allegations emerge, they should be adjudicated under the existing protected class of ancestry, just as the state of California did in California Department of Fair Employment Housing v. Cisco Systems, Inc."
In https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u0jxQY_cLti2XP3nEw0d9OBa... they state:
"There is only one legal case on the issue of caste-discrimination in the United States to date. It involves an allegation of caste-based discrimination in the US."
and give some facts related to that case.
I am reading between the lines so. Would be a stretch to speculate about the caste make-up of said association?
>In 2010, HAF issued a report titled "Hinduism: Not Cast in Caste" alleging that Christian missionaries were able to push their proselytizing agenda only because of the prevalence of caste discrimination in India; it went to argue that caste cannot be considered to be an intrinsic definitional aspect of Hinduism—due to a lack of theological sanction in its most sacred texts—and urged for reforms led by Hindus themselves. This led to a flutter in conservative Hindu circles of India and the next year, HAF toned down their report; they cautioned against the trend of passing resolutions against caste discrimination adopted by various global organizations and held caste to be an internal affair of a sovereign India. HAF has since portrayed castes as occupational guilds which had brought stability to premodern India before being reified under British colonialism; it has vehemently opposed drawing parallels between caste-discrimination and racism, and even any depiction of the caste-system as a rigid birth-determined pyramid of hierarchy.
They started off fighting against the caste system, until the elites in India told them no. Ever since, they've minimized the impact the caste system had and still has -- not just in India.
That seems weak.
One should not (and legally may not) discriminate on the basis of being Indian, which is a South Asian phenomenon. One should not discriminate on the basis of having Native Hawaiian ancestry, which is a Hawaiian phenomenon. And one should not discriminate on the basis of how many of someone’s ancestors happen to have been slaves in America, which is an American phenomenon (although there are surely analogues elsewhere).
edit: SE -> South.
But IMO it's fine, because banning discrimination based on ancestry in general is better than banning discrimination on the basis of ancestry only when caste is involved.
Mrs. McCoy shouldn't be able to discriminate against Mrs. Hatfield on the basis of last name either.
Japan comes to mind, e.g. the Burakumin aka Japanese Untouchables
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin
> Burakumin (部落民, 'hamlet/village people', 'those who live in hamlets/villages') is a term for ethnic Japanese people who are believed to be descended from members of the pre-Meiji castes which were associated with kegare (穢れ, 'defilement'), such as executioners, undertakers, slaughterhouse workers, butchers, and tanners...Due to severe discrimination and ostracism in Japanese society, these groups came to live as outcasts, in their own separate villages or ghettos. After the caste system was abolished, the term burakumin came into use to refer the former caste members and their descendants, who continued to experience stigmatization and discrimination.
South Asian, not South-East Asian.
It is unfortunately too late to edit the original post :(
At least, nobody is openly saying that they're opposing the law because they want to do caste discrimination but if someone wants to be taken seriously they need to give a good answer for how they'll be addressing it.
I couldn't find details in the article (I just skimmed it though), but what if a non-Indian with almost no understanding of the caste system wakes up and decides they want to take their bigotry to the next level and starts discriminating based on caste just for the hell of it? Wouldn't they still be guilty under this law?
2. Opponents of this say that it only targets a certain group of people, but for the exact same reasons, it also only protects one group of people.
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.
Having left law to once again be a software engineer, I almost never find myself curious about the development of caselaw, but I think I'd follow that case lol
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.
There are definitely things like social stratification based on wealth or ethnic group, and you can see things which, I suspect, are remnants of things adjacent to the caste system, such as Jatis, in the form of things like the Memon community.
Granted, even though I am talking about a range of ethnic groups, I'm still talking about north-west Indian ethnic groups: Gujratis, Panjabis, UP/Delhi people, and Pashtuns. Thus, maybe what you're saying holds true in other parts of the subcontinent--or perhaps just in very rural areas (?)
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".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34615972
Japan has generally moved on with heavy government crackdown.
I get the feeling the author is heavily pro-caste and is carefully selecting data to fit their narrative.
The actual bill: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
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.
Not sure why south Asians in general would be any more enlightened.
It's disappointing that companies lack the ability to deal with this issue in a mature way because having a policy and culture of inclusivity _should_ be enough to address this.
I realize this is all derived from an optimistic viewpoint, but I think it's still worth sharing.
Not a legal expert but this is extremely far fetched. You must have a great deal of contempt for the US legal system if you think this.
This is an invalid argument. You are effectively defending a practice based on the argument that it's not widespread. That's the same as saying that we don't need to protect transgender issues because they hardly ever get discriminated against. No -- for one, you cannot say for certain how widespread the practice is (and "I'm transgender myself" does not make you an authority on that), and second: low prevalence is not a reason for not prohibiting something. What's next? We shouldn't make laws against police violence because they kill less than 100 people/year?
If you really want to see casteism dissolved, you should not oppose laws trying to codify exactly that.
That's absurd. The laws aren't for people who wouldn't discriminate. They're for the people who demonstrably do.
The title was, that it hit a nerve, that bill. It seems that truely is the case...
E.g. you can be a white manager and not a racist and promote a better-qualified white employee rather than a less-qualified black one, and then be sued. "Just because I automatically found myself being white!"
The solution is simply to have good documentation around the reasons for who you're promoting, and then the suit will lose. (In 99.99% of cases, the suit won't happen in the first place because no lawyer would take it if there isn't hard evidence of actual racial discrimination.) This kind of documentation is generally pretty easy, and it's good business practice besides.
This has worked pretty well at making a big dent in race-based discrimination. Why should it be any different for caste-based discrimination?
You can not get away from your race. But you can get away from religions and caste. I would like to get away from my religion and caste. This bill makes it impossible.
That seems to be factually untrue. And you can't cite the lack of court cases as evidence, because court cases aren't brought unless there's a law in the first place.
> I would like to get away from my religion and caste. This bill makes it impossible.
No, the bill is a path to do precisely that. What you're saying makes as much sense as "passing anti-racism laws makes it impossible to get away from race as issue". That's not how it works.
Others probably have more expertise than me, but I would highlight the following points:
1) The only way such a lawsuit would be successful is if he actually did something to indicate some decision was based off of caste.
2) Everyone can already be sued based off of attributes they have inherited against their will. People can be sued for discriminating against the opposite (or even the same!) gender, people can be sued for discriminating on the basis of race. Your son didn't choose to get born Indian, but he could still be sued for promoting Indians over Hispanics or something.
3) It is not only higher caste Hindus that can be sued for caste discrimination if that's a protected status. A manager of no religion or any religion could also be theoretically sued for discriminating against low-caste Hindus--or descendants of Japanese butchers, which, to my knowledge, constitute a low caste in Japan.
I’m also genuinely surprised and frankly intrigued by how quickly this topic gets flagged off HN. It seems there is serious disagreement about this in the tech community.
Some idiot ages ago (lets call them M) thought it was a good idea to build a system where people could bake in a heirarchy that dictated and guard railed what one could do, be and have. M's f****ery was well recognized by BR Ambedkar(one of the founding fathers of the Constitution) who baked into the constitution that this was basically not just illegal but also we needed tons of affirmative action just to repair the damage. And it has not gone away.
If someone(like I mistakenly did once) talks about equality to push back against reservation, they are missing the point. You have the luxury to not see, nigh rail, against what is never wrought on you. You may thus have the luxury to not see caste.
You have to understand one thing. What ever the vedas, puranas and upanishads are or have , they have nothing[2] (atleast nothing remotely consistent) on the the modern form of jurisprudence present in most democracies i.e. no one who wrote those things seemed to care or understand anything about the idea of Equality, Liberty and Fraternity before the law.
So if you hear someone say about indian culture was much more "advanced" socio-economically ages ago. Ask for context, Ask them about M[1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manusmriti [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manusmriti#Chronology
But I always thought the way the predominant Indian leadership, Sundar included, completely ignored the matter was weird. That spoke louder than anything else they could have said.
And what was the nuance of the Indian approach you saw? E.g. you can say "racism is bad and racial discrimination in employment and housing and services should be illegal" and you don't really need a whole lot of nuance. Is there something about Indian caste discrimination that requires nuance here, in the setting of the US?
White people were against caste discrimination.
From Indians I heard several responses, from against castes to indifferent. But I never heard someone defending it.
Eg: Some said it wasn't an issue, some said it was a big issue that hardly affect Indians in America. Some said India is too big and diverse and that castes only matter in the more undeveloped regions of India.
It's not that complicated. White people have been fighting this type of discrimination far more than any other ethnic group in the US. (I am Iranian, and this is completely evident to me).
Nearly every other ethnic group has its own weird culture of discrimination. As these ethnic groups take hold in the US, those forms of discrimination are not, and should not be tolerated.
One thing to consider is, many of the Indians that _are able to make it to the US_, are the ones who have benefited from the high class of their caste. Even if they're against it in theory, in practice that's going to take a much more nuanced PoV - so you're going to be seeing a lot of selection bias.
I'm white yet I don't feel "unfairly tarnished" by the banning of white supremacy.
Nevertheless, plenty of Americans (mostly but not exclusively white) do oppose legislative constraints on white supremacy and I think it's fair to say that they "feel tarnished" by them. My read is that this opposition comes from the same place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_in_the_United_Stat...
You can be an open racist or you can collect a paycheck but you can't do both.
> White supremacy is nothing but a threat
That's not what the supreme court seems to think.
I'm saying that I'm not threatened by the existing constraints on white supremacy: not limitations on speech, but the actual bans on discriminatory practices.
I figured you were referring to banning it even in the way that white supremacists currently exist (ie noisy bigots who would get in legal trouble if they actually discriminated in a meaningful way), which I think more people would oppose on principle.
> At one point, Sharma asked ChatGPT to define “caste,” and then pointed out the number of times that the word “Hindu” appeared in the computer’s response. “That’s not an accident,” Sharma later said in an interview. “It’s been seeded for such a long time. The word is a hate brand.”
I for one am hoping this argument technique doesn't catch on. Pattern matches like a fallacy, "argument from LLM" or some such.
Notable excerpts:
"Castes have been particularly prevalent in certain societies, notably in parts of South Asia, such as India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka." ... "It's important to note that caste systems are not limited to South Asia, as similar systems have existed in other parts of the world. The term "caste" may also be used more broadly to describe any system of social stratification based on hereditary or ascribed characteristics that assign people to different social roles and statuses."
I suppose they OpenAI could have patched ChatGPT between then and now, but I'd like to see the full prompt and conversation history she used.
Even in this very thread there are people going "But maybe it's nuanced!" No. It's not. Imagine thinking that someone having to flick water at you to purify you just because you got touched by an untouchable is a nuanced issue and not blatant idiocy.
(Before any of you start Reeeing, I'm Indian).
Nor does everyone have a religion. Looks like bigotry is back on the menu.
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, there are definitely some folks who discriminate, both here and in India. Growing up as an adult in an small India city (I'd say fairly Urban area), I can't remember an instance where someone asked me what my caste was or discussed about caste until the affirmative action phase came up (in India, the government enables people of certain castes, irrespective of their economic status, by providing them with easier access to top educational institutions, federal and state government employee roles, and sometimes even promotions). Some folks were salty about the fact that one of their fellow classmates got into a better institution/position than themselves despite scoring much less than them. That was pretty much it. (My personal take is that after 75 years of Indian independence and enforcing reservations on the basis of caste, it's time to move on to a criteria that's based on the family's economic status)
Of course, things are different in rural India. We often see instances of discrimination on the basis of caste, sometime with violent endings. And as immigrating to US becomes more and more common, you'll see people from all over India, with different backgrounds, move here. Some are casteist, some are misogynist, and some are racist - just like any other group.
My personal take has always been to stay away from folks who bring up the topic of caste, religion, race or language. That's just me, and I'd say I am slowly becoming the minority.
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.
This bill seems overdue to me.
Certainly if we end up with "people from Caste X are encouraged to apply" I can see that as offputting.
That's not true. Here is what EEOC says it includes:
race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability and genetic information (including family medical history).[1]
So it's not clear why caste discrimination doesn't already fall under religious discrimination and most of these groups are associated with diversity quotas. That's not a clearly defined concept but we all generally associate diversity quotas with race, gender identity, and ethnicity.
I generally think there is a big overlap between diversity quotas and protected classes. It's a clear logical link.
If caste were added to diversity quotas (or even protected status) I just think it would create perplexing situations where a totally foreign concept of caste is used to justify things in American law like protecting low caste voter rights despite no history of that ever being a problem or suing non-Hindus for caste discrimination under disparate impact legal concepts despite no animus. Or universities in the US tracking caste in DEI statements and admissions essays which they consider for adversity scores. Would that be fair to Americans? Is there even proof that low caste Indians are generally facing adversity in the US or is it only in specific situations with other Indians? What if they actually earn more than the average US income but get added to diversity quotas?
[1]: https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/small-business/3-who-protecte...
America's divisions are primarily race (and to an extent wealth), the British still have a strong sense of subconscious class, in that regard Indian society inherits fragments of both. Those of the SV Indian tech society who still propagate the system do it because they do not like seeing traditionally poor people from lower castes earning triple figure salaries in the US, and sometimes if you're extremely fortunate in India.
Note: This is me playing the devils advocate, I'm absolutely not in favour of the caste system
I don't want to give up my monopoly on power and privilege is what I was assuming it was. I was asking if there's some other aspect or argument that I'm missing that's not a toxic bigoted fallacy?
Source on this? I've heard people say the opposite.
Formal divisions between social classes would make it a lot harder to confuse the less wealthy when their interests aren't aligned with the more wealthy. In India for example, my understanding is that the 'shopkeeper' class used to be quite low in the hierarchy, but with the change in global economics, an awful lot of important institutions are now being run by 'shopkeepers', who I presume would have seen those opportunities in a collective way and helped each other capitalize on them, rather than see themselves as no different from the incumbent warrior or priest classes when they arose.
OTOH I dislike the idea of adding caste to protected status because that affects people who have nothing to do with this. The US has no history of caste discrimination and most people have no idea what that is. So I am opposed to equating American concepts of discrimination that were based in things like Jim Crow laws and slavery with caste discrimination. I am opposed to things like corporate DEI hiring practices and school admissions policies incorporating caste because this places an undue burden on the majority of Americans who are not involved with this.
If Indians want protections then I think the law should be more nuanced to prevent absurdities like arguing that caste should be included in things like American DEI policies. I draw the line at that point. I don't want the lack of nuance to cause caste to be equated with things like the history of racial discrimination in the US. There is nothing systemic in the US about caste discrimination so the US itself is not at fault and neither are most Americans.
Further, there is a history of Indian affirmative action policies which include quotas and I think Indians should not expect to have the same treatment under the law as there because quotas have been struck down in court.
> implications in the US that came from US history
Some categories do, some don't, most are generally universally applicable, so yeah the law should primarily focus on 'ancestry' with 'caste' just being a subset of that. Which is exactly what this law is doing if I understand it correctly.
There are more categories than just the ones you mentioned for a protected class. They also include race, gender identity, and ethnicity. I don't believe caste should be a protected group in the US. It opens the door to suing people, who are not even Hindu, arbitrarily for caste discrimination under legal concepts like disparate impact. It also opens the door to arguing that caste should be included in DEI efforts. I don't think it's a significant leap between these two things, it's inevitable even.
For example, I would find it silly if there were specific laws against stealing bread, stealing a doughnut, stealing a flower, etc.
Wait - these staffers are working in government but know so little about world history and culture that they’re clueless about caste? Maybe that’s part of the problem of getting progressive consensus on this bill.
Wait, what? Systemic racism in what's now the U.S. was literally codified as a caste system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta And we're still dealing with the legacy of that, many centuries since.
I think that Americans are very familiar with systematic discrimination based on race or skin color. The distinction that I think confuses people not from SE Asia is that caste discrimination is between different classes of people who appear to be the same race and ethnicity from the outside.
Perhaps discrimination against Irish and Italian immigrants would be analogous, though that faded so long ago that even my Irish NY grandparents knew that it happened but just kinda thought it was funny.
The US is still dealing with the consequences of its own sins. I don't think it inherited Spain's sins when it took the land.
The US had a literal race based “caste-like” system for much of its history. In the South this didn’t end until the 60s, and many people alive today were alive when it was still strictly enforced.
I don't think analogies to the caste clarify complex race issues in the US.
I mean, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Brahmin as one of many, many examples.
Good point, there’s no such thing as old money, or legacy admissions, or even good old-fashioned racism in America. We left that in the 20th century!
Of course being Irish/Catholic/Black etc. would've disqualified you but it's not quite the same thing.
How does caste discrimination differ from discrimination due to national origin (other than the fact that it obviously does not go away after multiple generations b/c inter-caste marriage is taboo)?
We define the word "motor vehicle" in most Codes of Law as well. The existence of the precise definition isn't for people totally ignorant to the existence of the automobile.
Maybe it was common knowledge for them, I don’t know, but it was a truly invisible distinction for me.
Even when we learned about the caste system in AP World History in the context of Hinduism and classical/post-classical India, I just figured it wasn’t a thing anymore. No one ever brought it up as still being a thing.
> In mid-July, about 250 people gathered at an events center in Fremont, an East Bay suburb in Wahab’s district, for “Caste Con,” a full day of programming against the bill… Fremont Mayor Lily Mei, who lost to Wahab in last year’s race for the local state Senate seat, was given a standing ovation when she was introduced.
It’s interesting to see politics swing side based on how it’s going to affect the votes they get.
In Newsom’s case I would think he wins on larger margins and does not have to worry about things like this.
For Lily, she has no choice, due to the demographic shift in the last 15 years for Fremont, it’s been primarily richer south East Asians. If she wants her reelection she has to support the Hindus.
From a legal perspective, is a new law even necessary? Isn't it legally redundant?
You cannot use a dismissed case as proof that existing laws are sufficient.
Basically, many Hindus feel this is a tort only Hindus can be liable for. For example, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam do not have caste systems--thus, the logic goes, you could never sue a Jew, Christian, or Muslim for this, yet you could sue a Hindu for it. Moreover, many Hindus view it as simply carrying the strong connotation that there is something uniquely wrong with Hinduism that must be legally "fixed" this way.
To use an argument nobody in the article or this thread has raised, but which seems to me like one of the strongest ones someone who opposes the law could actually muster, remember those laws in the South banning "Shari'a Law"? Those were clearly anti-Muslim publicity stunts; any practical danger posed by Shari'a Law is already handled by the American legal system. One could see a Hindu feeling that this is an analogous thing that is mainly about singling out Hindus because existing anti-discrimination law should be sufficient.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/caste-is-no...
(To be clear, I assume her motivations are genuinely altruistic, I'm just saying it seems like an obvious line of argument for someone who is opposed to the measure)
I also saw this during hiring when Brahmin managers would be rude and condescending to all other castes and non-Indians during interviews but fawning when it was other Brahmins. So it affects non-Hindus when a Brahmin is at the top.
The caste system not only impacts Hindus but also non-Hindus and should be banned and exterminated in a modern professional environment. It should kept to places of worship and personal homes and lives.
> Existing law, the Unruh Civil Rights Act, provides that all persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship, primary language, or immigration status are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
It should be obvious that caste is ancestry, and that the many incidents described are violations of the Unruh Act.
So, there's been a gross failure to enforce this long-existing law. Why? And why is no one involved asking the question?
[0] Caste Arrives In Silicon Valley. https://www.npr.org/2020/10/14/923736245/caste-arrives-in-si...
Ban it, make it politically incorrect. We have to start somewhere by saying it's wrong or each generation will just teach it to the next.
Yes governments should ban it, that protects people.
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/federalist...
Sadly, one way to achieve this is by looking down on other people.
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 explicitly have to know them. Referrals kind of help people get ahead of queue when HR is reviewing the application in the first phase.
(I gave up because it would cut to the chase and explain what the issue is)
The supreme court just ruled on my case (https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/students-for-fai...). aa is now illegal. doubt that's gonna stop anyone.
That's the only reason I see as to why some people are against the proposal: people will start talking more and more about caste in a country and a culture where this does not exist.
> Is there going to be people that now will openly admit they are low caste in an effort to be a protected class?
This is asinine. People who belong to lower castes should be protected from discrimination, whether or not they openly admit it. Do people point out that they belong to a protected class in order to fight cases of discrimination? Yes. That's why the law exists.
Class divide is not caste divide.
Imagine if you went to the market, and you touched someone, and immediately, their parents/people around them flicked drops of water at them to purify them because they got touched by an untouchable. Do you experience THAT in the US? Do you know how humiliating that is?
You're being absurd at equating the two.
I'm just trying to understood how do you think that could work (besides from abolishing capitalism).
This is only partially sarcasm, I do certainly thing that growing inequality is one of the biggest issues today.
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.
Certainly writing things down can make it easier for concepts to stick around, but I don't think the dynamics are the same for something written down to call out that it's bad. And holy texts are a totally different ballgame.
> holy texts are a totally different ballgame.
They are not. Historically, written concepts endure longer than unwritten concepts. Again, this is commonly considered self-evident.
> I also don't think that speaking directly about a belief makes it stronger, particularly for discrimination
It may be worth it, but the hyperbole of denying the effect:
eg "How would it extend longevity?"
is the dissonance that I have pointed out.
Religious writings’ sole purpose is to establish & promote a belief system, based on subjective values.
Anti-discrimination laws’ sole purpose is to dissolve the practice of belief systems that objectively cause interpersonal harm.
These are conceptual opposites in many ways. But if I generalize the concept “writing makes ideas immortal”, then I am able to conflate the two.
You call it a "general concept", I saw it's a common understanding of reality. Hyperbole is used to poison further discussion.
eg I generalize the concept “writing makes ideas immortal”
Within your own post, there is misattributed hyperbole (sometimes called uncharitable discussion). Someone asked a question, I answered and all kinds of random assumptions were made about it. Good luck with whatever.
Note, I support the idea of adding castes to common discrimination clauses. That is incidental to the issue of codification, which I am interested in.
Shoplifting is shoplifting. No one is going to “forget” you can steal things so you need explicit laws forbidding it in perpetuity.
I find that when people defend something as self-evident it often isn’t.
That's true. It's also true that there are plenty of professional contexts where people have to work together regardless of their personal feelings toward each other. Sometimes lives depend on it.
This is not an argument I recall people making much in other ban discussions across the political spectrum such as (a) banning discrimination on sexuality, (b) banning abortions, (c) banning guns, (d) banning censorship, so I'm very skeptical without historical examples? Generally those have been hotly-fought battles where the "no action" course would not have resulted in it simply going away - see also the 100 years after the civil war and racial discrimination in the US persisting - so the claim of "ignore it and it'll be ok real soon now, promise" doesn't appear to have much merit.
>Vivek is coming
Vivek ain't gonna go nowhere.
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Is that a rhetorical question? because I have no idea what it's supposed to mean.
I am curious if those people represent specific caste?..
I bursted out laughing. Imagine comparing major world leaders with some right-wing techbro troll.
Vivek isn't likely to win the primary.
Where's the oppression?