Caste discrimination is real and is definitely hurting people and companies. Few of my coworkers say it exists in the US and then as example tell story about managers, executives, etc.
The tricky problem is that caste system is part of Vedas based religions - but caste system even predates Vedas (did not research it - only from friends).
This is patently incorrect & whomever told you that didn't know what they were talking about. 'Varnas' i.e.. caste were method of social categorization & they are definitely much younger than Vedas. these were not intended to be genealogical distinctions but over long time ended up evolving into one. Also, there is No requirement to follow varna if you become a hindu.
ps: I am actually one of the middle caste hindu & my wife is upper caste. Inter caste marriages are not as uncommon as you think or what british media likes to portray, especially after the internet based 'discovery' came into scene.
I was wondering if caste was more like class than race. If a baby born to Dalit parents was adopted by a Brahmin family, as an adult, would they be considered Dalit, Brahmin, or not quite either?
But i suppose class and race are intertwined anyway. If you peer closely at panel B here:
You can see that the 'priestly' castes have, on average, more "steppe pastoralist" heritage. If i understand correctly, this is a fossil record of Indo-Europeans moving into India and taking over thousands of years ago. Perhaps a bit like how people with Norman ancestors are still a bit better off than those with Saxon ancestors in England today:
It is taboo to talk about it, but it does exist. Some people won't acknowledge it.
Go to any latino company and you will find that there is a racial hierarchy among employees, where race is also a predictor of how far you can be promoted.
You can also see it in advertisement, marketing, TV hosts, and all the dumb drama shows on Netflix, and the leadership of fake "latinx" institutions (if you say "latinx" you likely grew up in a mansion).
If you created an unlabeled dataset with the faces of every employee in a latino company, with the same background and dressed in the same way, and then created a ML model to predict their seniority in a company, the most accurate model would be the one that used race and last name as a factor.
What’s interesting is that the Wikipedia page you linked to indicates that it’s unclear that this is a formalized caste system and indicates things have been more fluid:
> Often called the sistema de castas or the sociedad de castas, there was, in fact, no fixed system of classification for individuals, as careful archival research has shown. There was considerable fluidity in society, with the same individuals being identified by different categories simultaneously or over time. Individuals self-identified by particular terms, often to shift their status from one category to another to their advantage. For example, both mestizos and Spaniards were exempt from tribute obligations, but were both equally subject to the Inquisition. Indios, on the other hand, paid tribute yet were exempt from the Inquisition. In certain cases, a mestizo might try to "pass" as an indio to escape the Inquisition. An indio might try to pass as a Mestizo to escape tribute obligations.[18]
> Casta paintings produced largely in 18th-century Mexico have influenced modern understandings of race in Spanish America, a concept which began infiltrating Bourbon Spain from France and Northern Europe during this time. They purport to show a fixed "system" of racial hierarchy which has been disputed by modern academia. These paintings should be evaluated as the production by elites in New Spain for an elite viewership in both Spanish territories and abroad portrayals of mixtures of Spaniards with other ethnicities, some of which have been interpreted as being pejorative in nature or seeking social outrage. They are thus useful for understanding elites and their attitudes toward non-elites, and quite valuable as illustrations of aspects of material culture in the late colonial era.
Not saying it’s impossible as I’m not familiar with the Latino community. And skin color discrimination appears not just in Latino communities. But caste systems pop up everywhere (e.g. America institutionalized it quite well into the socioeconomic structure).
“Casta” seems to be pretty standard Europe-colonized-Americas (no matter which colonial power) racial discrimination; calling it “caste discrimination”, even if the Spanish name literally means “caste”, doesn’t really seem to be helpful, especially in a context that suggests that it is somehow similar to Hindu caste-discrimination and the way that is not covered by generally-existing US anti-discrimination law requiring additional law if it is to be addressed.
Nobody uses it in Latin America. It's as latino as Taco Bell chalupa supreme.
It's just another term from the keep-people-angry industrial complex. No latino I have ever known donates to the "latinx" organizations. So they don't represent the "latinx" voice but rather whoever is funding them.
As silly as Latinx is, I don’t think that’s a valid argument. Nobody uses the term “Italian American” in Italy either. It’s quite specific to Latin-American populations in the USA
As I was saying, it's terminology used by people who had little to no connection to Latin America. People over there hate it and think it is the purest form of cringe.
If you go to an authentic restaurant in the US with latinos in them and call them latinx they will probably either laugh at you or tell you that nobody uses that term, and that they would never identify themselves as latinx.
Latinx is a term used by imperialists to tell their subject population how they should identify themselves. If you use it, you are implicitly identifying yourself as pro-imperialist. Don't be surprised when people react badly to that.
I think we need to be wary about caste based discrimination entering the U.S.
However, I tried to dig into the actual sources in the article, and the only non-anecdotal source in the article was a 2018 survey by a non neutral group. Which could be fine as a starting point, but literally the first substantive content in the report is the following quote:
“If Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Caste would become a world problem”
Can you imagine any publication treating a report that begins with a quote like that about another group seriously? For example, basing an article on a report that starts with “If Muslims migrate to other parts of the world, sharia law would become a world problem”.
Then I tried to look at the sources quoted in the interview. We start with the “Cisco situation”, where the linked Washington Post article is about the discrimination investigation being voluntarily dismissed by the Civil Rights department (after an apparent 3 year investigation). There are a couple of other “situations” mentioned, with no backing link. We then get a link to the “Google situation”, which involves Google canceling a Dalit speaker after complaints from employees. From just a cursory reading it seems like a bad decision by Google. But, we’re in the middle of a huge multi year argument about “cancel culture”. It would seem to me this has a lot more to do with that than casteism. Either way, 1 instance of a canceled speaker seems thin gruel to suggest that casteism is rife within CA, while we have hundreds of non Dalit speakers being “canceled” for years.
I am of the opinion that adding caste as a protected category doesn’t seem like a bad idea at all. But this article, at least, provides little support to the idea that caste based exclusion is a problem beyond a couple of isolated incidents.
How about other types of discrimination? I’ve witnessed several other types that happen all the time, no one discuss or even finding it normal, on top of this is the accent discrimination, having a “non normal” one will get you excluded from “big clients” meetings, not allowed to or encouraged to have a company wide seminars etc., other type is cultural discrimination, regardless of the race, sometime just not having the same “local culture” is enough to be subject to that, other type of discrimination is political one, either being left or right, when a company is actively pushing for either side, or clients who won’t work with you because they don’t like your political views or some of it.
This is already illegal in any decent country. It's certainly illegal in at least the US, Canada, UK, and Germany. Assuming the person can actually communicate well enough for the job, discriminating on the basis of their accent or how they talk amounts to discrimination on the basis of racial, ethnic, or national origin.
It's often one of the textbook examples of what not to do.
> sometime just not having the same “local culture” is enough to be subject to that [...] other type of discrimination is political one
People can, and do, choose their politics. And a person's political opinions can say a great deal about their character. If someone believes some particularly evil or regressive thing, I don't want to employ them or work with them. Yes, it's discriminatory. But not all discrimination is necessarily wrong.
With a lot more caveats (since "poor cultural fit" is often code for "not the right race") the same thing can even apply to culture. I'd like to think I'm pretty open-minded, but if you employed someone from a completely different culture, with no previous experience in the culture of their new workplace, and no willingness to try to learn and adopt to local norms, it's just going to be an ongoing mess of confusion and misunderstanding for everyone involved.
> It's certainly illegal in at least the US, Canada
Are you sure about that? In the US, I’ve read anecdotal reports about people with Southern accents facing discrimination.
In Canada, the Maritime provinces have a distinct accent and there has been a culture of joking about “newfies”[0] (perhaps that has subsided recently).
Are there laws that apply to these situations? Laws can also exist on paper but almost never see enforcement.
Any human rights tribunal in Canada would agree. The law in every province is the same. It goes the same way in a lot of places beyond Canada. A person cannot fully control their accent, and the way they speak is closely tied to their ethnicity, background, nationality, disability, etc., and stigma and prejudice about accent is not permissible. If the employee can communicate effectively, then discrimination on the basis of them sounding slightly weird, is illegal.
Whether the law corresponds with reality is a different question. Such discrimination is widespread in practice and hard to enforce.
What about it? Same as any other whataboutism derailment:
Yes, that is also bad, but right now we’re discussing X. Solving X doesn’t mean your issue isn’t important, it just means we’re not discussing it right now. Now please stop trying to change the topic.
...but only caste-based discrimination against Dalits, of course. This will have no effect against those of you experiencing discrimination because you're "asian" or "white". California's well-entrenched race-based caste discrimination will remain firmly in place and everyone in the room will hum real fucking loud if you bring it up.
There are many federal laws dating back to the 60s prohibiting race based discrimination. There is nothing preventing someone taking a case to court who is asian or white.
There's currently a case pending before the SCOTUS involving discrmination against asians in universities, but the point of the matter being that this won't change anything. You don't end discrimination with laws that nobody follows.
Are you able to distinguish caste (at least somewhat reliably) by looking at someone?
Not just physical characteristics - but style of dress, mannerisms, speech patterns, etc?
In America, it is often easy to tell Democrats and Republicans (at least, the very-strongly entrenched ones) apart based on dress and/or the way they talk.
After living in East Asia for a decade - when traveling through Asian airports I am often able to tell Chinese, Korean and Japanese people apart from a distance based on a variety of indicators (I'll guess where they are from and then hear their language as they approach - often I'm right).
Are castes like this? If you saw someone walking 50 meters away, would you (more often than not, at least) be able to correctly guess what caste they belong to?
Not authoritatively (in India, not here in USA) but you can get a sense. one clue might be the way they speak language (or dialect) but it could also be a false positive for wealth. same with mannerism.
you could tell by their last names if they came from same geographical region as you grew up in (or quite familiar with).
> If you saw someone walking 50 meters away, would you ...
The Guardian will never let a good divide and rule story pass by. As someone said recently they more and more seem to see themselves as our self appointed 'guardian' nannies
The same is often claimed by children, obviously mostly when not yet true.
The reality of the matter is determined by observable outcomes, not by self-declarations.
If, as in this case, the objective outcome is not indicative of successfull self-determination, a nanny is in order.
If you go to a movie theatre playing a South Indian movie on day 1 in US, the fans you see going crazy are usually fans belonging to the same caste as the hero of the movie. You can sometimes see the caste names in some of the posters they put up
Quite a few of the south asian coworkers I've talked to about caste discrimination say it doesn't exist in the US, but then also go on to say they come from a "good caste", seems too frequent to be a coincidence. Is this related to the discrimination the article talks about? Some kind of dog whistle that "discrimination doesn't exist as long as you're part of the in group"?
Which company this at?
Is this discussion of castes among other Indian coworkers? They gain nothing from Caste signalling to you.
We should name and shame if a company doesn't act against discriminatory dog whistles.
I drink, eat meat, eat beef and do not bear any caste specific signifiers on my person. No other Indian expat has tried to enquire about my caste or treated me differently because it's ambiguous.
99% of Indian immigrants are Upper or Middle castes. The reason for this has not been studied. But a few causal factors can be.
- Wealth
India is a poor country. Most Indians upper or Lower caste are poor by first world standards. But the few Indians who are rich tend to be more upper caste (Scholarly, Mercantile or Landowning castes).
But this is also a bad explanation since most Indians who come to US for higher studies do so on a loan.
- Culture
Upper caste families even when dirt poor may have a higher emphasis on education which means they are overrepresented in employment based skilled immigration.
Edit: Vegetarianism often gets bandied around as an upper caste but most Urban Indians eat meat regardless of caste. So, except for a few cases caste is very much ambiguous since a caste that's upper caste in Western UP may be lower caste in Eastern UP.
>> I can now ignore anything you say about caste since it shows you don't know anything about it.
Basically, your mind is not capable of tolerating anything that goes against your worldview. The Telugu coworker will know about their fellow Telugu coworker's caste and can easily inform the Punjabi.
That still doesn't solve the issue of surnames being an imperfect signal of caste. Many surnames are shared between castes.
Plus there is no common naming system in India. In the same region within the same caste you can have
- Surnames based on ancestral village
- patronymic surname (Take name of father as your surname)
- "Normal" surnames
You have folks from my caste that follow each of these. How will you now find their caste from their Father's name in Delhi or Mumbai?
It is not easy to narrow down on the caste of the person unless it's a common surname like Iyer, Iyengar, Agarwal, etc. And India has a hell lot of surnames across multiple regions.
Even if I tried, I would fail to recognise the caste of a majority of my neighbours from my hometown.
Forget my coworkers who come from all over the country.
It would only work for families that have lived in the same village for multiple generations.
I agree in terms of discrimination but what you wrote sounds more extreme than that and I don’t know that I’d agree. I think American society has a lot to learn from the strong social bonds of “third world”* countries. For example, families and friends are very tight knit and, for example, raise children as a community. I was listening to a podcast where, for example, in Israel if a man sees a child by themselves crying it’s socially acceptable to pick them up and try to comfort them and help them find their parents. The same behavior in the West can get you jailed (heck - letting your kids play outside by themselves can get you into legal hot water)
* BTW originally just meant unaligned in the Cold War (the Soviet Union-allied being “second world” countries). It transformed socially to “other” and look down on countries with a different way of life just because those countries didn’t manage to industrialize and advance as rapidly as first-world countries (but neither did second-world countries).
Just because there is some mobility between "classes" (here somehow imagined to be fundamentally different than castes) doesn't make discrimination go away.
Unemployed are heavily discriminated against and generally, people seem to love condoning off their respective social habitats at every opportunity.
Is hostillity diguised as competition with some weird "survival of the fittest" ideology actually producing better outcomes than friendly cooperation would?
Or are people just bad at nuance and distinguishing friend from foe?
I think class and caste are very different. Caste is ascribed at birth and can't be changed. Class is related to wealth and behaviors, and can certainly change in either direction over the course of someone's life. If you were born into a rich family, you may start "upper class," but then later in life find yourself farther down. Or the reverse.
It's usually not easy to change class though and certain indicators like speech patterns are difficult to get rid of.
People discriminate based on whatever they can discern.
My point is, class and caste are both fundamentally the same as they are both rooted in culturally accepted/tolerated discrimination and prejudice.
>>My point is, class and caste are both fundamentally the same as they are both rooted in culturally accepted/tolerated discrimination and prejudice.
It's okay for us to disagree on this point, but I do want to make mine clear:
MY point is that class and caste are both fundamentally different, since one can change and the other can't, despite both being rooted in culturally accepted/tolerated discrimination and prejudice.
Next we need a bill on discrimination against bald men. And then we need a bill discrimination against short men. Once we deal with that, we need a bill against discrimination against short, bald, white men.
The ability to discriminate is built into our DNA. It is hard to resist the urge for many who brought up with the knowledge of cast discrimination.
Unfortunately, the caste is ascribed with no fault of the individual and can't be changed.
A bill aimed at preventing discrimination against any group is likely to be passed without much opposition in California. It is always better to take preventive measures to reduce the number of victims of discrimination, even if the discrimination is not yet widespread.
When the bill is passed, it is unclear whether it will have a retroactive application.
The tricky problem is that caste system is part of Vedas based religions - but caste system even predates Vedas (did not research it - only from friends).