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Comment by whats_a_quasar | Hacker News Reader

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 Asian, I'd appreciate it!

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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.

Most of the people I have talked to in person about this with are opposed because they still like the caste discrimination, they just don’t like being forced to openly admit it. Nonsense about social order and the way things are and whatnot.

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.

> 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.

For sure, which to me says that the targeting issue wasn't actually the real problem, which of course it wasn't.

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.

The bill is opposed by the Hindu American Foundation. They give their rationale for opposing the bill in:

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.

( from https://www.hinduamerican.org/press-statements )

So, the problem is also the fact the whole concept of caste, not just discrimination based on it, risks being painted in a bad light.

I am reading between the lines so. Would be a stretch to speculate about the caste make-up of said association?

Some information about the caste according to the Hindu American Foundation a few years back:

>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.

> 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.

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.

I don't disagree. It's just something the people who benefit from getting to discriminate focused on to try to get to keep discriminating.

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.

I thought Indians are South Asian?

Whoops, I, mindlessly copied the post I was replying to.

Maybe caste discrimination in the US is primarily a SE-Asian phenomenon, but there's plenty examples of caste systems in African nations as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_systems_in_Africa?useski...

Question: Is social discrimination based on wealth via witchcraft banned? In Africa those who are entrapaneurial and socially stick out, get hammered in by traditional witchcraft religions..

From what I read, it is rather "witches" that get hammered down, quite literally, instead of dpimg the hammering of poor entrepreneurs.

Not just Africa, plenty of other places.

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.

I can confirm people are singled out everywhere in the tech industry from not being SE Asian. And when they are the caste then will prevent them from moving forward on any front. SE Asians like to hire SE Asians only its pretty horrific and unchecked.

> 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 :(

Discrimination can be such an umbrella issue. Anything added to that, for example ancestry, has the potential to do more harm than good. What is ancestry? How to prove it? Could a southerner born in Alabama say they were discriminated against colleagues in New York City for his southern ancestry?

Nitpick, it's South Asia, which is euphemism for India/Pakistan. Southeast is regions culturally more connected to China than India.

I do kind of get the argument that this creates a category of crime that only indians can be convicted (or even accused) of.

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 get that argument but have no sympathy for it whatsoever

Does 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?

Of course; but that’s a pretty big leap. It is very unlikely that some non-Indian bigot decides to study up on castes and begin discriminating on their basis. On the other hand, it is a very short leap that someone who is Indian might. Thus, in reality Indians are much more likely to break this law.

1. There are plenty of laws that, in practice, only affect certain groups. There are plenty of laws around reproductive rights and sexual assault that are written in a way that they effectively target only one gender. Certain professions such as doctors and lawyers have regulations around what they can and cannot do because of their professions. Certain taxes effectively target only certain socio-economic classes.

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.

To be clear, I agree with you. I just disagree with the idea that it doesn't target a specific group / help a specific group. It does. I also don't see anything wrong with that.

You could absolutely accuse or convict a non-Indian of caste discrimination. It might be unlikely, but not impossible. For example, I doubt most non-Indian Americans could competently discriminate on the basis of caste, but there is moderately compelling evidence that quite a few Californian companies do so.

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.

I wonder if they’re going to challenge it based on freedom of religion (similar to Christianity and discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation).

That would certainly be interesting.

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

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.

I'm of South Asian Muslim heritage, and that's just not been my experience at all. Literally nobody I know, ranging from relatives to friends (thus spanning several ethnic groups and a range of wealth/social status) has a concept of this.

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 (?)

> 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".

Japan used to have a caste system.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34615972

Japan has generally moved on with heavy government crackdown.

If as a right-handed person I discriminate against left-handed persons, I also both create yet another silly criteria for discrimination and a crime ex nihilo, and I am the only one to blame for that - not the cop that arrests me, nor the judge that correctly finds me guilty, nor the law itself as it follows the principles the universal declaration of human rights (which was both voted by the US and India, BTW). The argument is fallacious.

Banning discrimination based on ancestry, ethnicity, and religion should ban the type of thing caste discrimination is.

Large portions of the US and the courts believe we live in a post-racial society where similar protections are affronts to society and them personally. Even teaching about historical slavery and discrimination is opposed.

Not sure why south Asians in general would be any more enlightened.

There’s a glaring absence of any polling on the matter in this article. Instead we get a count of the number of protesters (hundreds!) and descriptions of lines spilling out the door.

I get the feeling the author is heavily pro-caste and is carefully selecting data to fit their narrative.

Agreed. Shame on the editor

> confused about the strength of opposition to the measure

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.

I think there is a case to be made against it. What is the difference between this and people allying up against any other perceived outsider? Which is something that I would say is wrong, but isn't something I believe should be illegal.

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.

I am an Indian who oppose this bill, because of multiple reasons. A good amount of Indian population here in America is form a Hindu background. And the majority of that population doesn't really believe in a caste system. I have never ever ill intentionally asked anyone their caste. But the way the bill is worded, It implies that anyone in my lineage can be sued based on my perceived caste (based on allegations of course) that is inherited to me against my will. That's is literally discriminatory law. The bill defines caste as: “Caste” means an individual’s perceived position in a system of social stratification on the basis of inherited status. My son who never ever knew the term caste, can be sued when he grows up if in his 40s he becomes a manager and promoted someone which not promoting someone else. Right or wrong aside, my son did nothing wrong to be automatically finding himself in a category of a "perceived caste" that can be sued for caste discrimination. Mankind should work against such categorizations including religions.

"But the way the bill is worded, It implies that anyone in my lineage can be sued based on my perceived caste (based on allegations of course) that is inherited to me against my will."

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.

It's not just about legal system being abused. I would like to see casteism dissolved from the world. Grew up in India and I was taught to be caste agnostic. I have seen my parents being friends with and working with people of all castes. I grew up pretty liberal. This bill is trying to attack on a problem that does not exist on the same scale as any of the other discriminatory issues that we ever talk about here in America. We are creating a problem out of our imagination. The kind of arguments that I see from people on internet including this forum are hilarious. People say that The people of highcast would say vegetarians only for the room advertisement or someone can be denied of a marriage proposal based on their caste. That's all really stupid talk. Being a vegetarianism is a global phenomena. Just because I'm a Hindu doesn't mean I am trying to discriminate against someone who eats non vegetarian because they are low caste and I'm not a low caste (again in perception only). For a matter like marriage, it is extremely personal and people are allowed to decline on proposals based on their personal choice.

the bill is trying to attack on a problem that does not exist on the same scale as any of the other discriminatory issues

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.

With that logic, the fact that I can find people who were raised in liberal environments and taught not to discriminate at all is sufficient grounds to get rid of anti-discrimination laws altogether.

That's absurd. The laws aren't for people who wouldn't discriminate. They're for the people who demonstrably do.

More like "now under this bill, I cannot discriminate anymore based on my, and others, heritage that was opposed on us against their will, obviously this is against nature / the will of the gods..."

Bhai, I've never discriminated against anybody ever or even thought about it. I'm an extremely liberal person who support all the liberal policies in America. People need to open their eyes and realize that this bill is meant for split and division, not unity. This is definitely a larger political game than me and you.

Ah, pardon? In case caste based discrimination isn't a thing, this bill won't make a difference. And it wont devide anyone.

The title was, that it hit a nerve, that bill. It seems that truely is the case...

The problem with that argument is that it's the same one used to justify not having laws against racial discrimination or gender discrimination.

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?

They have been literally infinite issues related to gender and race discrimination before such protections were in the law. Regarding the caste-based issue, there is literally just one case that was in the courts. And the case was pulled back (not settled). There is Zero evidence of any caste-based discrimination across the Americas in workplace today.

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.

> There is Zero evidence of any caste-based discrimination across the Americas in workplace today.

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.

I think you have some misunderstanding about how anti-discrimination laws actually work.

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.

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