> Caste has repeatedly been used as beating stick to keep Indians(especially Hindus) in line
Can you show one example of this actually happening? While you do that, I'll show you how caste has been used as a beating stick by the upper castes upon the lower castes.
Seriously. Back up your claim. I'm struggling to see how anti-caste discrimination can hurt anyone in a way that's unique and can't be easily achieved by other means (you can levy false allegations of anything, so that doesn't count). So now you have one more possible false allegation to join the hundreds, but Dalits are now protected by law, and you see this as a net negative? To me, that speaks volumes.
I still don’t see how making caste a protected class is a bad thing.
> Opposition to anti-caste discrimination policies, including the pending bill in California, has been loud among Hindu Americans who say the bill is “racist” and unlawfully targets south Asians.
This seems to be the same as “race as a protected class is racist towards white people” and “gender as a protected class is sexist towards men”. It’s true that sometimes these protections are used by bad actors who use their race or gender to threaten to sue people and avoid discipline. But unless I’m mistaken, actual lawsuits are rare and success rarer, because the burden of proof is on them to prove they’re discriminated; being a protected class isn’t a free pass to avoid hash treatment, even when it’s unfair, unless there’s evidence that it’s unfair because of said class.
If I type “caste” into Aloglia HN search, I can find that it pops up in quite a few articles with a lot of comments.
Part of me wonders about your comment saying the issue “has no presence” in the United States. It seems a bit odd to say it’s not a thing when it’s been discussed extensively on this US-focused website.
tbh I suspect it's either performative denial (to continue enforcing the caste system) or not noticing it in their workplace (which may have already managed to exclude the lower castes).
There's room for both on any given individual of course, but the constant brigading on every mention makes it pretty clearly an intentional attack as a whole.
> Suhag Shukla, the executive director of advocacy group Hindu American Foundation, said that the bill would give California businesses a “license to discriminate against South Asians”. The group has lobbied against the bill, saying its passage would trigger a rise in Hinduphobia.
Indian (northern states) : Hindu (Brahman) name, from Sanskrit šukla ‘white’, ‘bright’, ‘pure’. A shukla Brahman was supposed to take up only shuklavritti ‘pure employment’, i.e. maintenance derived from serving or begging from Brahmans only.
There's a survey done by Equality labs which is fundamental to this law and the one in Seattle city. Other scholars have argued[0] that this survey is flawed in many ways.
There was a case against Cisco systems for alleged caste-based discrimination, which also was often mentioned in such coverage in the past. It is noteworthy that the case was dropped. More details with legalese is here[1] and a piece by Hindu America Foundation (that opposes such bills) is here[2].
Not to say that caste is not an issue among Indians (in India), however using this survey as the ultimate truth and a source for creating laws does not seem wise.
There is nothing uniquely different about caste discrimination than Shia/Sunni divide among Muslims or Han Chinese/non. If you goto Africa, similar fault lines are there. It is social evil which is at verge of extinction in a generation or two, unless provided oxygen by these laws. There isn't a widespread precedence for a law which uniquely targets Indians and them asked to prove their non-caste behaviour. Current anti discrimination laws are good. Still these laws keep getting passed. This is witch hunting.
>There is nothing uniquely different about caste discrimination than Shia/Sunni divide among Muslims or Han Chinese/non
Shia/Sunni discriminating against each other is religious discrimination, which is banned in the US. Han Chinese discriminating against non-Han is racial discrimination, which is banned in the US. Indians discriminating against other Indians based on cast is not banned, if they share the same race and religion. The new law aims to remedy this gap.
> It is social evil which is at verge of extinction in a generation or two
Historically this sort of discrimination is incredibly sticky whenever it appears. People teach their kids and their kids teach their kids and so on. Then their neighbors, media, etc... reinforce the stereotypes with stories about said groups. It's incredibly difficult to stamp out because it is so self-reinforcing.
It is social evil which is at verge of extinction in a generation or two, unless provided oxygen by these laws.
I see no reasonable way that a law saying caste-discrimination isn't ok will cause people to start discriminating by caste. I think that's utter nonsense and you're going to have to provide some kind of evidence for such an outlandish assertion.
I can't see any negative outcomes from legally preventing discrimination by caste.
Either it doesn't happen/doesn't happen enough for a law so this is most effectively virtue signalling without any negative outcomes.
Or it does happen and this can help take steps against it.
There is no situation that allowing discrimination by caste to continue is a benefit to anyone other than those that are at the top of the caste system. That is inherently against western social views and anthema to equality.
> There is no situation that allowing discrimination by caste to continue is a benefit to anyone other than those that are at the top of the caste system. That is inherently against western social views and anthema to equality.
This. The US is not here for you to reproduce your oppressive hierarchy from the old country, no matter what hierarchy it was or what country it was from.
An admirable sentiment but essentially useless in solving a problem which is actually more complicated and nuanced than a superficial reading might lead one to believe.
>I can't see any negative outcomes from legally preventing discrimination by caste.
From the article;
Suhag Shukla, the executive director of advocacy group Hindu American Foundation, said that the bill would give California businesses a “license to discriminate against South Asians”. The group has lobbied against the bill, saying its passage would trigger a rise in Hinduphobia.
There have been many articles submitted previously on this subject. You might want to study the reports done by Carnegie Endowment on Indian-Americans listed in my previous comment here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37333418
> very nuanced problem fanned by vested interests and hence passing a blanket bill without understanding the issues involved can actually do more harm than good
I'm very interested to understand the "more harm than good" part, but the firstpost article you linked doesn't touch on them at all. The article seems to be focused on how the special interests groups are pushing their special interests.
Huh? The article explicitly states certain problems from which further inferences can be made. Some excerpts below;
There is a concern that Hindu and Indian employees will now be looked at with suspicion because employers simply won’t want to deal with frivolous lawsuits.
From the get-go, CoHNA made it clear that they abhor caste discrimination. Dalits and “lower” caste members of CoHNA were vocal that this law would institutionalize the very thing Equality Labs claimed to be fighting.
CoHNA made the strong case that although the language of the ordinance identifies caste among many religions and ethnicities, Hindus are most closely associated with caste. It very clearly paints a target on the backs of Hindu Americans and Indians and creates a presumption of guilt. There are no clear ways to identify caste or implement anti-caste discrimination laws in America.
Sara Nelson voted “No”. She asked whether the Seattle City Council had any data to support Equality Labs and Sawant’s claims of “widespread and systemic” caste discrimination. She also made the point that without ways to identify caste, there would be no way to implement it properly.
How exactly do you determine who is an “upper” caste and who is a “lower caste”? And if you can’t determine what caste someone belongs to, how do you litigate that case?
Even if you could identify someone’s caste, what would the city do if someone from a “lower caste” attempted to sue someone from another “lower caste”?
If someone chooses not to identify with a caste and someone accuses them of caste discrimination, will the city of Seattle force a caste upon them?
Thankfully, we can reference a rigorous study from the Carnegie Endowment which largely disagrees with Equality Labs’ findings.
Instead, they found that there is very little caste identification among Indian Americans, especially in those born in America and that there is even less discrimination actually experienced. It is very far from widespread and systemic.
This study acknowledges Equality Labs and criticizes the findings and methodology, most notably that Equality Labs simply removed responses where people did not identify with a caste at all.
Without guidelines on how it will be implemented, it has the opportunity for great misuse. Hindu children will now be looked at with suspicion in college admissions if they choose not to identify as caste because Equality Labs says that this is a mark of privilege and indicates “higher caste” or “oppressor caste”. Hindu and Indian employees will now be looked at with suspicion because employers simply won’t want to deal with frivolous lawsuits,
And finally, it paints the entire Hindu religion in the way Equality Labs would like – as irredeemable and worthy of dismantling as Soundararajan has stated in multiple interviews and tweets.
You’re asking us to surf all of your supporting links instead of making a case on your own and then referencing these links, so I feel I’m just reading “No it isn’t” pleas rather than arguments. It was common for American whites to claim that laws against racial discrimination missed the nuances, with lots of knowing nods in the audience. You could search this yourself.
>You’re asking us to surf all of your supporting links instead of making a case on your own and then referencing these links
Yes and for a very good reason; i don't want to bias your understanding of the matter with my own take/words. Given the amount of misinformation/insinuations/malicious agendas/emotional manipulations involved over this subject it is imperative that people read up on both the objective (Carnegie endowment article) and subjective (both pro and con articles) before trying to discuss/understand the issues. Hence i have provided a very small number of relevant links which can easily be read in a few minutes for personal edification.
Many similar arguments were made against laws protecting race and other classes we now legally protect. The supposed future actions of a bigoted few is not an argument that stands against refusing to protect another group or stand up against a wrong.
Fundamentally cultural incomparability is not racist. Your arguments for, and tolerance of caste discrimination, are not compatible with western ideals.
You may keep your views and culture and live how you like. I wish you and others no ill will. I will advocate for others around me to respect you while disagreeing with what you say or how you act in this case.
Caste Discrimination is wrong and is not welcome in the society were currently discussing legally. If you require that ability, or the toleration of that, then you are not welcome in said society.
Your comment is a very good example of what is wrong with the discussions on "Caste Discrimination" in the US; which is a lack of knowledge and nuance involved.
Discrimination in any form (both explicit and implicit) is already illegal in the US and laws exist for its redressal. Workplaces can make it very explicit in their policies as needed. Hence any caste discrimination problem can be treated on a case-by-case basis rather than by a blanket bill which will paint a big target on the backs of a whole community for no fault of their own i.e. presumption of guilt will be instituted. This is even more important when you realize that there are malicious/vested interests involved which are at work to fracture and damage a hardworking and upstanding community who are in a upward trajectory in the US.
Note that Google did not allow Equality Labs (and others) to do their rabble-rousing in the company due to these very reasons i.e. they would deal with it on a case-by-case basis if it happened. Last i checked, the Cisco case has also been dismissed as not involving caste discrimination. All evidence points to caste discrimination NOT being "widespread and systemic" in the Indian-American community. Pushing through laws/bills based on sentiment/insinuations is the very definition of Wokeism/sjw gone wrong.
> The supposed future actions of a bigoted few is not an argument that stands against refusing to protect another group or stand up against a wrong.
"Caste" is quite different from Racism etc. Most educated Indians in the US (and in urban India) do not identify with caste at all and as pointed out above it is not the problem that it is being painted to be in the US by vested interests. One should not institute make-believe fairness which may make matters worse when there is not much evidence of unfairness in the first place.
> Your arguments for, and tolerance of caste discrimination, are not compatible with western ideals.
You either have a severe lack of English comprehension skills or are deliberately insinuating things which i have not said at all (you owe me an apology). I have never argued for nor advocated tolerance for caste discrimination but am pointing out the lack of evidence on the ground for the same in the US. Your above line is the very reason why Indian-Americans are fighting against these sort of bills i.e. ignorance coupled with wokeism making decisions with no clue of what the consequences might turn out to be.
Caste Discrimination is like any other form of discrimination. It's wrong.
Pretending being opposed to it is racist is hilarious. I've read your shallow arguments.
There is no case by case basis needed for any segment we see as a protected class now, and caste fits perfectly in there.
While there may not be a large amount of abuse I have personally witnessed caste discrimination and work in an environment where it happens regularly enough I see the value of these laws and regulations filling in where companies are too scared to step up and address it on their own as many are.
There was a lot of backlash against anti racism laws too. That doesn't justify it.
What? There are real consequences to stupid laws/regulations as has been shown again and again. You might want to checkout Consequences Matter: Thomas Sowell on “Social Justice Fallacies” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn2gda_phAA
> Caste Discrimination is like any other form of discrimination. It's wrong.
This is NOT what is being argued (it is a given). The issue is whether it is prevalent enough in the US to warrant laws/regulations.
> Pretending being opposed to it is racist is hilarious. I've read your shallow arguments.
You attacked me explicitly and got called out on that so don't hide behind glib and flippant statements. As pointed out above, from your comments it is clear that you have not even understood the issue being discussed. I have given you links to all sorts of data and arguments while you have given me nothing in support of your arguments.
> I have personally witnessed caste discrimination and work in an environment where it happens regularly enough
Where is the evidence/proof (even the Cisco case has been dismissed)? Making such claims anonymously on a internet forum is the very definition of agenda-driven Hinduphobia. Anonymous accusations have zero credibility. If you really were concerned about the issue you would call out the companies/individuals involved under your own name. But seeing that you are not doing so leads one to the inescapable conclusion that you are being untruthful (to put it mildly)
.
Aren’t castes like micro races? Brahmins at least seem to look different to me, and I believe Brahmins discriminating against non Brahmins is the main issue (in Silicon Valley at least). If that’s the case isn’t this already technically illegal as racial discrimination? It’s not like “Indian” is a race really, there is a lot of variation inside of it.
In that they are groups socially constructed inherited ascribed identities to which social status and significance are attached, yes, they are “like” races.
> If that’s the case isn’t this already technically illegal as racial discrimination?
There are arguments that the various forms of caste discrimination are or necessarily involve ancestry, racial, ethnic, nationality, and/or religious discrimination as defined in law prior to this, but it's an extra hurdle to make people separately prove that the particular discrimination fits into what is established as one or more of those categories, rather than having “perceived position in a system of social stratification on the basis of inherited status” explicitly included in the definition of “ancestry”, which removes the need for each individual subject to sucb discrimination to make the case that it is in one of the prohibited categories rather than something somewhat similar but not included.
> In that they are groups socially constructed inherited ascribed identities to which social status and significance are attached, yes, they are “like” races.
It would be more historically correct here to say that the whole notion as found in the Americas of 'race' as a system of pervasive discrimination and unequal status was explicitly designed to be "like" caste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta
Sure, if we were talking about history of the terms/concepts and not application of existing (before the explicit prohibition of caste discrimination) law applicable in California, that would be a more relevant (though not any more accurate) description.
In concept, in a lot of ways: yeah, it fits. Or it's extremely similar in goals and mentality anyway.
In legal terms: it's massively different because non-Brahmin isn't legally recognized as a protected minority race, so there are essentially no explicit guards or support in place.
Pretty much only the legal use of any of this is relevant for a legal blocker on discrimination, so it can get oddly pedantic at times. The goal is to stop widely-known and well-documented discrimination, but the terms are whatever will achieve that in a legal environment.
Is this a legal concept in the USA? I thought it just left it at “race” and everything legally was symmetric across all “races” (though perhaps not always in practice).
For this case, you'll need to get X to be legally recognized as a distinct race from Y (that has not happened in this case), and minority races have MUCH more protection than ones that are seen as a majority. It also tends to be sensitive to employment statistics broadly and in an area, and "Indian" is often not "under-represented" even if some sub-races are being massively oppressed.
It's more of a "yes, race is a protected characteristic. that doesn't mean it matches your definition of race" thing. You could probably successfully sue on it and get it effectively recognized via that precedent, but it'll be a substantial legal battle to get there and many cases do not establish legal precedent.
Actually, one of the issues I saw in a company with a large Indian population ~20% was that some brahmin would discriminate (and talk smack) about other brahmin (by name/family) who didn't dilligetly follow (eg dietary) rules. I've occasionally seen catholics, baptists, jews, and muslims do sumilar things. A-holes gonna a-hole.
Yes. A combination of prohibitions on inter-caste marriage and the propensity for the upper castes—the ruling classes—to interbreed with India’s rotating cast of West Eurasian conquerors has lead to genetic differentiation between its castes [1].
That said, clarifying this statutorily is cleaner than punting to the judiciary.
IANAL but I think you're basically right, however judges and lawyers are human and may not be aware of these finer granularity "micro-races". I'd like to think this bill is a case of "explicit is better than implicit"
I’m much more interested to see how a law like this could be applied to a bunch of, say, white or Hispanic farmers in the Central Valley once some extremely creative lawyers get some time to think about it.
The complex interactions between the many migrations of humans into South Asia over millenia and the social patterns, restrictions, and norms that emerged with those resulted in caste being both a racial and social construct at once.
A more historically recent but analogous scenario is the social and racial structure of Latin America, wherein those with more white European ancestry tend to have higher social status compared to those with more indigenous ancestry. Most people have some of both, but in the logic of such systems, proportions of ancestry matter, and phenotypical visual appearance is used as a proxy to gauge this, whether in South Asia or Latin America.
Also, the connection between South Asia and Latin America's rationalization of their social systems is not coincidental. The term "caste" itself is derived from the Portuguese word "casta" used by traders in South Asia to describe the prevalent social structure they encountered. They (and the Spanish) quite deliberately imported this model to their colonies in the Americas.
Perhaps a naive idea, but: wouldn't it be better and simpler to simply state that you can only discriminate on factors of actual relevance? Ancestry or sexuality would not be relevant to a rental contract, but both could be relevant to a medical study. Level of income would not be relevant to your right to take a taxi (as long as you can pay the bill), but could be relevant for a rental contract.
Trying to list all possible factors is a never-ending task. Caste? Gender? Income? Eye color? Medical history? Height? Favorite color? Any or all of those could be relevant in some circumstances, and not in others.
Discrimination just means "making a choice" and it's not a bad thing. The problem is "unfair discrimination", where you take factors into consideration that aren't relevant.
If you were to ban all discrimination, then you couldn't choose who you hire for a job - after all, you couldn't discriminate against people without relevant experience, or skills, or abilities, could you?
Relevant discrimination is not only okay, it's essential! So the problem then becomes trying to define laws in such a way as to disallow the unfair discrimination while also allowing reasonable discrimination. People who are determined to be, eg, racist or homophobic will try and use the very edges of the anti-unfair-discrimination laws to get away with unfair discrimination that is obviously unfair but _technically legal_.
And that's how you end up with complex laws and lists of protected characteristics.
I was just trying to explain why "just ban all discrimination" isn't a viable strategy, but I guess it's easier to just ignore complexity and pretend that these complex social issues are left to exist because of... people are just dumber than you?
>Level of income would not be relevant to your right to take a taxi (as long as you can pay the bill), but could be relevant for a rental contract
How do you define relevant? If statistically ethnicity was shown to strongly predict the chance of someone not paying their rent, would that count as "relevant"? Statistically race is predictive of many things, but in the west people have decided that racial discrimination is inherently bad because it punishes individuals for things they have no control over (their race), so the discrimination is not allowed even when justified in a statistical sense.
The problem is that it assumes everybody is being reasonable, but if that were the case these laws wouldn't be necessary in the first place. They have to be fully spelled out because otherwise the assholes that these laws were written for would try to claim that they shouldn't apply for any number of reasons.
"Oh no we couldn't hire a woman as an advertising executive, we hold one of our conferences in a men only resort."
We're certainly heading into a digital caste system where anything about you can be used to discriminate against you in everyday transactions where they have no place.
it’s a nice thought but it is indeed so naive an idea that, for example, it took less than a year for the explicit enumeration of certain rights to be amended into the Constitution. (originally it was hoped that much of the bill of rights would be implicitly understood from the original text; turns out, it was not).
Like it or not we do seem to need a (known to be non-exhaustive) list of categories to point at and occasionally update and say “these are things about persons that you cannot use against them”.
You could well argue that caste is implicit in either religion or race, but it’s a lot simpler to just enumerate it again and be clear at the cost of a little redundancy, especially when we know that these words are going to be sliced and diced as carefully as possible by adversarially-minded legal experts to their advantage.
Just because there are infinitely many categories does not mean there are infinitely many ways people are discriminated against, this is a silly argument. There is a concrete and long established form of discrimination here, we don’t need to generalize the principle.
Broadly speaking, it seems society is best served by these laws being bright lines both in terms of category of the aggrieved and category of participation in society. Otherwise, we leave much open to court and enforcement interpretation.
In this example, I'm reluctant to hand either the executive or the court as much leeway as "actual relevance" would hand them.
Trying to list all possible factors is a never-ending task, but these are issues society itself tends to be contentious on; given that people don't fully agree on the underlying philosophy of why we pass these laws, and the laws carry the threat of government force with them, it's probably wise to make them clear.
> Perhaps a naive idea, but: wouldn't it be better and simpler to simply state that you can only discriminate on factors of actual relevance?
No, that would be much more complicated, because it would make literally every decision in the subject domain presumptively invalid, because every decision discriminates on some grounds. And relevance is highly subjective, where its applicable as an exception to laws otherwise liniting discrimination on particular bases, the relevance analysis is the complicated part of applying the law, the identified categories which narrow where that even needs to be done are the simple part.
Note that for government discrimination, it kind of works that way, but different bases of discrimination have different relevance tests.
Better to forbid discrimination based on factors the individual did not choose. Anything they were taught before they became a legally able to make their own choices (religion), physical characteristics like genetics, historical characteristics like heritage or caste, etc.
> Pariyar moved to the US about a decade ago, expecting to be free of caste discrimination but encountering it first-hand after one of his professors invited him to speak about his experience of Nepal during class. He said other Indian students’ attitudes toward him shifted after he revealed he was Dalit, and that they distanced themselves and excluded him from social events.
That is absolutely terrible. I worry that such attitudes will take more than legislation like this to fix.
They almost certainly will, but legislation does have the value of drawing a nice, bright "Not. Here." line in the sand.
The Equal Rights Act was passed in 1972, and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974 first legally mandated women be allowed to open independent bank and credit accounts. It took about a generation for women to be in the workforce at ratios approaching men (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/FT_18...), and yet the ratios moved.
Legislation doesn't fix attitudes, it (with sufficient public support and commitment) provides a framework for minimizing and remedying material harms until the attitudes get fixed.
I've seen firsthand, as a non-Indian, what caste discrimination does in a corporate environment. Qualified and hard working lower caste co-workers never get promoted but got all the work to support weak higher caste managers and their promotions. They were used and disposed and if they didn't like it, they were moved on.
What is rarely ever pointed out is that as Brahmins reach higher and higher levels of management, they surround themselves with other Brahmins exclusively; they only hire or promote other Brahmins for higher management posts. Non-Brahmins AND non-Indians are pushed aside to make way.
If you think this caste issue doesn't affect you, it already does or it will in the future.
91 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 405 ms ] threadCan you show one example of this actually happening? While you do that, I'll show you how caste has been used as a beating stick by the upper castes upon the lower castes.
https://apnews.com/article/india-business-religion-599de5789...
Seriously. Back up your claim. I'm struggling to see how anti-caste discrimination can hurt anyone in a way that's unique and can't be easily achieved by other means (you can levy false allegations of anything, so that doesn't count). So now you have one more possible false allegation to join the hundreds, but Dalits are now protected by law, and you see this as a net negative? To me, that speaks volumes.
Far from all Indians are like that, but as usual those who are, are very, very outspoken. Like pseudo-victimized nationalist.
> Opposition to anti-caste discrimination policies, including the pending bill in California, has been loud among Hindu Americans who say the bill is “racist” and unlawfully targets south Asians.
This seems to be the same as “race as a protected class is racist towards white people” and “gender as a protected class is sexist towards men”. It’s true that sometimes these protections are used by bad actors who use their race or gender to threaten to sue people and avoid discipline. But unless I’m mistaken, actual lawsuits are rare and success rarer, because the burden of proof is on them to prove they’re discriminated; being a protected class isn’t a free pass to avoid hash treatment, even when it’s unfair, unless there’s evidence that it’s unfair because of said class.
Part of me wonders about your comment saying the issue “has no presence” in the United States. It seems a bit odd to say it’s not a thing when it’s been discussed extensively on this US-focused website.
There's room for both on any given individual of course, but the constant brigading on every mention makes it pretty clearly an intentional attack as a whole.
https://www.familyeducation.com/baby-names/name-meaning/shuk...
Indian (northern states) : Hindu (Brahman) name, from Sanskrit šukla ‘white’, ‘bright’, ‘pure’. A shukla Brahman was supposed to take up only shuklavritti ‘pure employment’, i.e. maintenance derived from serving or begging from Brahmans only.
You would appear to be correct.
It reminds me of the adage "When someone is accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression".
There was a case against Cisco systems for alleged caste-based discrimination, which also was often mentioned in such coverage in the past. It is noteworthy that the case was dropped. More details with legalese is here[1] and a piece by Hindu America Foundation (that opposes such bills) is here[2].
Not to say that caste is not an issue among Indians (in India), however using this survey as the ultimate truth and a source for creating laws does not seem wise.
[0] https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/06/09/social-realities-of...
[1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u0jxQY_cLti2XP3nEw0d9OBa...
[2] https://theprint.in/opinion/dismissal-of-cisco-case-proves-e...
https://www.hinduamerican.org/all-about-caste
Shia/Sunni discriminating against each other is religious discrimination, which is banned in the US. Han Chinese discriminating against non-Han is racial discrimination, which is banned in the US. Indians discriminating against other Indians based on cast is not banned, if they share the same race and religion. The new law aims to remedy this gap.
Historically this sort of discrimination is incredibly sticky whenever it appears. People teach their kids and their kids teach their kids and so on. Then their neighbors, media, etc... reinforce the stereotypes with stories about said groups. It's incredibly difficult to stamp out because it is so self-reinforcing.
I see no reasonable way that a law saying caste-discrimination isn't ok will cause people to start discriminating by caste. I think that's utter nonsense and you're going to have to provide some kind of evidence for such an outlandish assertion.
Either it doesn't happen/doesn't happen enough for a law so this is most effectively virtue signalling without any negative outcomes.
Or it does happen and this can help take steps against it.
There is no situation that allowing discrimination by caste to continue is a benefit to anyone other than those that are at the top of the caste system. That is inherently against western social views and anthema to equality.
This. The US is not here for you to reproduce your oppressive hierarchy from the old country, no matter what hierarchy it was or what country it was from.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37692617
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37691774
From the article;
Suhag Shukla, the executive director of advocacy group Hindu American Foundation, said that the bill would give California businesses a “license to discriminate against South Asians”. The group has lobbied against the bill, saying its passage would trigger a rise in Hinduphobia.
It is a very nuanced problem fanned by vested interests and hence passing a blanket bill without understanding the issues involved can actually do more harm than good. See https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/a-discriminatory-affair-ho...
There have been many articles submitted previously on this subject. You might want to study the reports done by Carnegie Endowment on Indian-Americans listed in my previous comment here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37333418
How?
I'm very interested to understand the "more harm than good" part, but the firstpost article you linked doesn't touch on them at all. The article seems to be focused on how the special interests groups are pushing their special interests.
There is a concern that Hindu and Indian employees will now be looked at with suspicion because employers simply won’t want to deal with frivolous lawsuits.
From the get-go, CoHNA made it clear that they abhor caste discrimination. Dalits and “lower” caste members of CoHNA were vocal that this law would institutionalize the very thing Equality Labs claimed to be fighting.
CoHNA made the strong case that although the language of the ordinance identifies caste among many religions and ethnicities, Hindus are most closely associated with caste. It very clearly paints a target on the backs of Hindu Americans and Indians and creates a presumption of guilt. There are no clear ways to identify caste or implement anti-caste discrimination laws in America.
Sara Nelson voted “No”. She asked whether the Seattle City Council had any data to support Equality Labs and Sawant’s claims of “widespread and systemic” caste discrimination. She also made the point that without ways to identify caste, there would be no way to implement it properly.
How exactly do you determine who is an “upper” caste and who is a “lower caste”? And if you can’t determine what caste someone belongs to, how do you litigate that case?
Even if you could identify someone’s caste, what would the city do if someone from a “lower caste” attempted to sue someone from another “lower caste”?
If someone chooses not to identify with a caste and someone accuses them of caste discrimination, will the city of Seattle force a caste upon them?
Thankfully, we can reference a rigorous study from the Carnegie Endowment which largely disagrees with Equality Labs’ findings.
Instead, they found that there is very little caste identification among Indian Americans, especially in those born in America and that there is even less discrimination actually experienced. It is very far from widespread and systemic.
This study acknowledges Equality Labs and criticizes the findings and methodology, most notably that Equality Labs simply removed responses where people did not identify with a caste at all.
Without guidelines on how it will be implemented, it has the opportunity for great misuse. Hindu children will now be looked at with suspicion in college admissions if they choose not to identify as caste because Equality Labs says that this is a mark of privilege and indicates “higher caste” or “oppressor caste”. Hindu and Indian employees will now be looked at with suspicion because employers simply won’t want to deal with frivolous lawsuits,
And finally, it paints the entire Hindu religion in the way Equality Labs would like – as irredeemable and worthy of dismantling as Soundararajan has stated in multiple interviews and tweets.
Yes and for a very good reason; i don't want to bias your understanding of the matter with my own take/words. Given the amount of misinformation/insinuations/malicious agendas/emotional manipulations involved over this subject it is imperative that people read up on both the objective (Carnegie endowment article) and subjective (both pro and con articles) before trying to discuss/understand the issues. Hence i have provided a very small number of relevant links which can easily be read in a few minutes for personal edification.
See also : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37701727
Fundamentally cultural incomparability is not racist. Your arguments for, and tolerance of caste discrimination, are not compatible with western ideals.
You may keep your views and culture and live how you like. I wish you and others no ill will. I will advocate for others around me to respect you while disagreeing with what you say or how you act in this case.
Caste Discrimination is wrong and is not welcome in the society were currently discussing legally. If you require that ability, or the toleration of that, then you are not welcome in said society.
Discrimination in any form (both explicit and implicit) is already illegal in the US and laws exist for its redressal. Workplaces can make it very explicit in their policies as needed. Hence any caste discrimination problem can be treated on a case-by-case basis rather than by a blanket bill which will paint a big target on the backs of a whole community for no fault of their own i.e. presumption of guilt will be instituted. This is even more important when you realize that there are malicious/vested interests involved which are at work to fracture and damage a hardworking and upstanding community who are in a upward trajectory in the US.
Note that Google did not allow Equality Labs (and others) to do their rabble-rousing in the company due to these very reasons i.e. they would deal with it on a case-by-case basis if it happened. Last i checked, the Cisco case has also been dismissed as not involving caste discrimination. All evidence points to caste discrimination NOT being "widespread and systemic" in the Indian-American community. Pushing through laws/bills based on sentiment/insinuations is the very definition of Wokeism/sjw gone wrong.
> The supposed future actions of a bigoted few is not an argument that stands against refusing to protect another group or stand up against a wrong.
"Caste" is quite different from Racism etc. Most educated Indians in the US (and in urban India) do not identify with caste at all and as pointed out above it is not the problem that it is being painted to be in the US by vested interests. One should not institute make-believe fairness which may make matters worse when there is not much evidence of unfairness in the first place.
I must again ask you to read and understand the points raised in my other comment here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37701727
> Your arguments for, and tolerance of caste discrimination, are not compatible with western ideals.
You either have a severe lack of English comprehension skills or are deliberately insinuating things which i have not said at all (you owe me an apology). I have never argued for nor advocated tolerance for caste discrimination but am pointing out the lack of evidence on the ground for the same in the US. Your above line is the very reason why Indian-Americans are fighting against these sort of bills i.e. ignorance coupled with wokeism making decisions with no clue of what the consequences might turn out to be.
Caste Discrimination is like any other form of discrimination. It's wrong.
Pretending being opposed to it is racist is hilarious. I've read your shallow arguments.
There is no case by case basis needed for any segment we see as a protected class now, and caste fits perfectly in there.
While there may not be a large amount of abuse I have personally witnessed caste discrimination and work in an environment where it happens regularly enough I see the value of these laws and regulations filling in where companies are too scared to step up and address it on their own as many are.
There was a lot of backlash against anti racism laws too. That doesn't justify it.
What? There are real consequences to stupid laws/regulations as has been shown again and again. You might want to checkout Consequences Matter: Thomas Sowell on “Social Justice Fallacies” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn2gda_phAA
> Caste Discrimination is like any other form of discrimination. It's wrong.
This is NOT what is being argued (it is a given). The issue is whether it is prevalent enough in the US to warrant laws/regulations.
> Pretending being opposed to it is racist is hilarious. I've read your shallow arguments.
You attacked me explicitly and got called out on that so don't hide behind glib and flippant statements. As pointed out above, from your comments it is clear that you have not even understood the issue being discussed. I have given you links to all sorts of data and arguments while you have given me nothing in support of your arguments.
> I have personally witnessed caste discrimination and work in an environment where it happens regularly enough
Where is the evidence/proof (even the Cisco case has been dismissed)? Making such claims anonymously on a internet forum is the very definition of agenda-driven Hinduphobia. Anonymous accusations have zero credibility. If you really were concerned about the issue you would call out the companies/individuals involved under your own name. But seeing that you are not doing so leads one to the inescapable conclusion that you are being untruthful (to put it mildly) .
California governor Gavin Newsom vetoes Hinduphobic bill (SB-403) - https://swarajyamag.com/politics/big-win-for-us-hindu-commun...
Governor's veto message here (pdf) - https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/SB-403-Vet...
>There has been no ruling yet on whether any form of caste-based discrimination or harassment had in fact occurred.
The listed links to articles give the actual data which helps one to make an informed decision if one would but read them.
In that they are groups socially constructed inherited ascribed identities to which social status and significance are attached, yes, they are “like” races.
> If that’s the case isn’t this already technically illegal as racial discrimination?
There are arguments that the various forms of caste discrimination are or necessarily involve ancestry, racial, ethnic, nationality, and/or religious discrimination as defined in law prior to this, but it's an extra hurdle to make people separately prove that the particular discrimination fits into what is established as one or more of those categories, rather than having “perceived position in a system of social stratification on the basis of inherited status” explicitly included in the definition of “ancestry”, which removes the need for each individual subject to sucb discrimination to make the case that it is in one of the prohibited categories rather than something somewhat similar but not included.
It would be more historically correct here to say that the whole notion as found in the Americas of 'race' as a system of pervasive discrimination and unequal status was explicitly designed to be "like" caste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta
In legal terms: it's massively different because non-Brahmin isn't legally recognized as a protected minority race, so there are essentially no explicit guards or support in place.
Pretty much only the legal use of any of this is relevant for a legal blocker on discrimination, so it can get oddly pedantic at times. The goal is to stop widely-known and well-documented discrimination, but the terms are whatever will achieve that in a legal environment.
Is this a legal concept in the USA? I thought it just left it at “race” and everything legally was symmetric across all “races” (though perhaps not always in practice).
For this case, you'll need to get X to be legally recognized as a distinct race from Y (that has not happened in this case), and minority races have MUCH more protection than ones that are seen as a majority. It also tends to be sensitive to employment statistics broadly and in an area, and "Indian" is often not "under-represented" even if some sub-races are being massively oppressed.
It's more of a "yes, race is a protected characteristic. that doesn't mean it matches your definition of race" thing. You could probably successfully sue on it and get it effectively recognized via that precedent, but it'll be a substantial legal battle to get there and many cases do not establish legal precedent.
At the workplace, this is plain-vanilla religious discrimination: discriminating against someone based on how they practice their faith.
Yes. A combination of prohibitions on inter-caste marriage and the propensity for the upper castes—the ruling classes—to interbreed with India’s rotating cast of West Eurasian conquerors has lead to genetic differentiation between its castes [1].
That said, clarifying this statutorily is cleaner than punting to the judiciary.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC311057/
They are among people who want to discriminate on the basis of race.
A more historically recent but analogous scenario is the social and racial structure of Latin America, wherein those with more white European ancestry tend to have higher social status compared to those with more indigenous ancestry. Most people have some of both, but in the logic of such systems, proportions of ancestry matter, and phenotypical visual appearance is used as a proxy to gauge this, whether in South Asia or Latin America.
Also, the connection between South Asia and Latin America's rationalization of their social systems is not coincidental. The term "caste" itself is derived from the Portuguese word "casta" used by traders in South Asia to describe the prevalent social structure they encountered. They (and the Spanish) quite deliberately imported this model to their colonies in the Americas.
Trying to list all possible factors is a never-ending task. Caste? Gender? Income? Eye color? Medical history? Height? Favorite color? Any or all of those could be relevant in some circumstances, and not in others.
There is certain subset of HN users so, that seems to be very fine with discrimination.
Edit: Come to think of it, aren't Indians totally fine with arranged marriages?
If you were to ban all discrimination, then you couldn't choose who you hire for a job - after all, you couldn't discriminate against people without relevant experience, or skills, or abilities, could you?
Relevant discrimination is not only okay, it's essential! So the problem then becomes trying to define laws in such a way as to disallow the unfair discrimination while also allowing reasonable discrimination. People who are determined to be, eg, racist or homophobic will try and use the very edges of the anti-unfair-discrimination laws to get away with unfair discrimination that is obviously unfair but _technically legal_.
And that's how you end up with complex laws and lists of protected characteristics.
How do you define relevant? If statistically ethnicity was shown to strongly predict the chance of someone not paying their rent, would that count as "relevant"? Statistically race is predictive of many things, but in the west people have decided that racial discrimination is inherently bad because it punishes individuals for things they have no control over (their race), so the discrimination is not allowed even when justified in a statistical sense.
"Oh no we couldn't hire a woman as an advertising executive, we hold one of our conferences in a men only resort."
Like it or not we do seem to need a (known to be non-exhaustive) list of categories to point at and occasionally update and say “these are things about persons that you cannot use against them”.
In the context of modern discrimination law, these are called “protected classes”, and it seems wise to add caste to the list: https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/small-business/3-who-protecte...
You could well argue that caste is implicit in either religion or race, but it’s a lot simpler to just enumerate it again and be clear at the cost of a little redundancy, especially when we know that these words are going to be sliced and diced as carefully as possible by adversarially-minded legal experts to their advantage.
In this example, I'm reluctant to hand either the executive or the court as much leeway as "actual relevance" would hand them.
Trying to list all possible factors is a never-ending task, but these are issues society itself tends to be contentious on; given that people don't fully agree on the underlying philosophy of why we pass these laws, and the laws carry the threat of government force with them, it's probably wise to make them clear.
No, that would be much more complicated, because it would make literally every decision in the subject domain presumptively invalid, because every decision discriminates on some grounds. And relevance is highly subjective, where its applicable as an exception to laws otherwise liniting discrimination on particular bases, the relevance analysis is the complicated part of applying the law, the identified categories which narrow where that even needs to be done are the simple part.
Note that for government discrimination, it kind of works that way, but different bases of discrimination have different relevance tests.
That is absolutely terrible. I worry that such attitudes will take more than legislation like this to fix.
The Equal Rights Act was passed in 1972, and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974 first legally mandated women be allowed to open independent bank and credit accounts. It took about a generation for women to be in the workforce at ratios approaching men (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/FT_18...), and yet the ratios moved.
What is rarely ever pointed out is that as Brahmins reach higher and higher levels of management, they surround themselves with other Brahmins exclusively; they only hire or promote other Brahmins for higher management posts. Non-Brahmins AND non-Indians are pushed aside to make way.
If you think this caste issue doesn't affect you, it already does or it will in the future.