Here in California, state senator Aisha Wahab has introduced a bill to add caste to the list of groups protected from discrimination. It was subsequently watered down thanks to efforts from two members of the Assembly, Evan Low and Alex Lee. All three represent Silicon Valley, where nearly every immigrant Indian hails from one of the upper castes—mostly Brahmin or Kshatriya:
The affair has had repercussions for Wahab in her heavily South Asian district. It’s become a bitter lesson in the pitfalls of wading into nuanced cultural issues in an ever-more diverse nation.
....Lee’s office, which typically logs about 10 constituents providing a stance on a bill, received over 600 messages on SB 403. Just 26 were in support, according to a spokesperson. Low said that the ratio of opposition to support was “99 to 1.”
Oh please. Fuck your nuance. Everybody knows how this works:
Indians will not ask outright what caste you are, as it’s seen as overly discriminatory, but they use more subtle methods to identify your place in the caste structure. “Sometimes they ask, ‘Are you vegetarian?’ If you say yes, they ask are you vegetarian by birth or by choice, before getting into which village you come from, because sometimes the village gives up your caste,” Sam said.
The result is just what you think it would be for lower caste engineers like Benjamin Kaila:
In more than 100 job interviews for contract work over the past 20 years, Kaila said he got only one job offer when another Indian interviewed him in person. When members of the interview panel have been Indian, Kaila says, he has faced personal questions that seem to be used to suss out whether he’s a member of an upper caste, like most of the Indians working in the tech industry.
As for the 99 to 1 opposition to Wahab's bill, I imagine you could have gotten something similar for a civil rights bill in Alabama in 1960. It doesn't mean the bill is bad. It means that caste bigotry is almost universal in Silicon Valley.
This has been known for years. Indians are bigots here as in their home country. Not like we've any shortage, we know the behavior well.
"...I imagine you could have gotten something similar for a civil rights bill in Alabama in 1960. It doesn't mean the bill is bad. ..."
It means the bill may alienate part of the Democratic coalition. Like civil rights bills and Southern whites.
I don’t know; the Indians that settled in my New England town seemed to boost the R vote, judging by lawn signs …
I'm pretty sure the California Democrats can afford to take the hit on this one.
At least one or three California Democrats have national ambitions. All politics may be local, but those same politics are nationally visible.
Prejudice is prejudice. Jump to the conclusion that your reflexive assumption about someone is valid, then look for evidence to confirm and defend your assumption, and ignore conflicting evidence.
John Lennon described it well:
He's as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Isn't he a bit like you and me?
You mean when people come to the United States they do not leave their prejudices behind? ...
If they work in Seattle they had better leave their prejudices behind. Seattle includes caste in the list of categories protected against discrimination.
The caste system serves no purpose except to give unearned and undeserved privileges to some people at the expense of others. It is morally indefensible, and obviously so. Tech companies should tell their employees in no uncertain terms that caste bigotry has no place in America and should treat caste discrimination as a firing offense.
Unless of course Hinduism is correct and people in the upper castes were more virtuous in previous lives and have earned preference in this life! (I think that is how this works) Then NOT discriminating would be violating the cosmic order...
I do not agree with Hinduism, and think the caste system is a load of nonsense, but if they are sincerely Hindu...
Freedom of religion does not give a believer the right to be a bigot.
So being an upper caste Hindu is like being a rich Republican. In both cases they have earned this preference in life from god, vishnu, or just the universe in general. Not that you have to have personally earned this preference, if you ancestors earned it that is good enough, you can continue coasting on what they earned.
Not sure I understand your comment. Are you saying people should not be able to pass on wealth or other benefits to their descendants?
'Just asking questions' TM.
??
Let's turn your pathetically obvious troll question into an honest one:
"Are you saying people should not be able to pass on unearned wealth or other unearned benefits to their descendants?"
For me, the answer answer is an unequivocal yes, saying people should not be able to pass on unearned wealth or other .unearned benefits to their descendants.
Given the way you initially phrased the question, I'm guessing you think otherwise. Which, again, makes you my moral inferior. Most people here have that exact same assessment of you, you know.
Funny that you call me a troll. Never been a clearer example of the pot calling the kettle black.
Kevin, can you please implement a block feature?
Yep, you want people to be able to pass on unearned wealth and privileges to their descendendants all right.
Can I call 'em, folks, or can I call 'em?
Of course. If it's your assets you can pass it on to whomever you want. Are you really saying the government should just take people's assets when they die? (Not sure why it matters if they "unearned" in your opinion or how that is defined.) I assume that's not what you're really saying.
Just another example of why religion needs to go. Their sincere belief is just the social hierarchy wrapped up in "God's" word.
Tell us about people's 'sincere' beliefs on abortion again, 'tango'.
Oh goody, I got my own little heckler. What a sad and hateful life you must lead to go stalking me.
Just pointing out you're not as quarter as clever as you think you are; you're supporting these bigots in the hopes that someone will concede that your argument is not entirely without merit; at which point you'll say something about people who really truly no foolin' sincerely believe that abortion is murder.
As you say: pathetic. No one's pickin' up what you're layin' down so fuck off back to Jeebus land.
Hah! On this very comment page, someone else posted a similar comment to mine. And someone else identified you as a troll. And have you noticed that you write more on these things than anyone else? And they are usually not substantive comments... they are typically nasty little rebukes, profane little put-downs, and ham-fisted attempts to bully? I have noticed. You are a cancer on Drum's comment page. You seem to think that you are some bold uncompromising force of the truth. But you really are just a jerk who probably needs to find a better outlet. Or maybe you just need to grow up and act like an adult.
I also find your assumption that I am some right wing troll amusing. I am not, I am a liberal dem who merely wishes to pose questions that make people look at their beliefs a little more critically.
In the future, I am not going to respond to your provocations in any way. Go crazy buddy! I will not feed you. Good bye.
(But I am SURE that you will answer this back with some nonsense about your prowess or moral superiority or something because guys like you never will let anyone else have the last word...)
So you're going to drop the "sincerely believe abortion is murder" bit? Woo hoo, good times! I'll hold you to that.
Oh, and 'guys'?
This was a statewide vote, right? And the CA assembly represents all of CA, right?
I'm not saying there's no caste bigotry in SiValley, but the state is a lot bigger than that, and it seems thoroughly smitten with caste bigotry.
But it would already be illegal. Discriminatory acts include religion and birth in California.
What is "birth discrimination"? Not being snarky. Just hadn't heard that concept before and not sure what it's applicable to.
Why the hell are HR departments allowing interviewers to ask “are you vegetarian?” in a job interview? I’ve been on interview panels before and there’s no way we would’ve been allowed to ask such a question without the interview being paused, the interviewee being asked to wait in the hallway and the HR rep asking the person who posed the question to rescind it or get the hell out of the room. Generally, the panels I’ve been on require the same list of questions to be asked of everybody…
Like these companies are operating in blue America right? Where the fuck is HR? You can’t ask questions about people’s personal lives that have zero relevance to the job at hand, which means unless the person is interviewing for a restaurant job, their food preferences are irrelevant at best and a thinly veiled attempt to get at religion/political beliefs at worst.
It sounds like these lower caste Indians need to start suing for wrongful discrimination. Asking “are you vegetarian by birth” and then “what village are you from” are automatically suspect for discrimination by origin of birth if nothing else, which is already banned in the US.
Why the hell are HR departments allowing interviewers to ask “are you vegetarian?”
I'd imagine it happens without the permission or knowledge of HR? Also, quite often interviewers and interviewees will engage in a bit of pre interview banter/small talk, before the serious questions start.
This is all news to me. I had no idea caste had made it to the New World. I did spend some time this summer in S.V. Even did a "friend and family" tour of Meta's headquarters in Menlo Park. It was fun! I did notice people of South Asian heritage seem to be doing well. My friend told me whites are predominate at Instagram, Chinese at Facebook, and Indians at Whatsapp (yes, she was obviously painting with broad brush strokes; she herself is an immigrant, and so lacks the fine-tuned antennae for avoiding non-woke language or opinions that most educated Americans seem to possess).
I'd like to think, even beyond the law, that folks of South Asian heritage in the US can successfully obfuscate their caste background. The whole thing is reprehensible.
A more likely possibility is that all the South Asians you saw are of higher caste. Despite quotas etc it is still relatively difficult for a lower caste Indian to get a top flight IT/Engineering education in India.
Where I work, when interviewing was on-site, it was customary to take the candidate to lunch… so while asking the at birth bit would be out of bounds, asking if they were vegetarian would not.
I don't think HR is sitting on on most interviews like they apparently are at your company. I've interviewed dozens of people over the years and the majority of the time it's just me. Depending on the position there might be another manager or two but there's never been an HR rep present. We are encouraged to ask the same questions of each applicant but it's not an actual policy or monitored.
"It means that caste bigotry is almost universal in Silicon Valley."
It can't be universal if most of Silicon Valley has no clue as to what caste is.
This situation is fascinating for reasons that Kevin doesn’t even explicitly mention:
"It means that caste bigotry is almost universal in Silicon Valley."
I’m going to ask if it’s possible to look at this issue from the perspective of a cultural anthropologist rather than that of an American progressive. If so, all kinds of interesting and disturbing observations and questions pop up.
Just try to imagine a cultural perspective where caste is mostly if not entirely accepted as the normal order of things. Yes, I realize that modern India’s laws (and/or constitution) outlaw caste; but, why did that promotion of human rights never really stick in practice? A typical westerner might say that an obvious reason is bigotry. Sure, it’s possible. But, again, what if we try and look at it through Indian eyes? Maybe the prohibition against caste didn’t stick because they see it as a foreign (western influenced) imposition on the proper order of the world (as understood by most Indians).
It’s almost impossible to wrap our heads around, let alone acknowledge any validity for, cultural values that are different from our own. Nevertheless, cultural relativism is, in my opinion, an important concept to keep in mind.
Why? Because issues like these are going to dominate America’s future. Liberals and progressives love to trumpet minorities, immigrants, and, above and beyond all else, the unquestionable and unassailable North Star of DIVERSITY! Down with the oppressive melting pot! Long live the patchwork quilt (or whatever metaphor may currently be in vogue).
And it’s fairly common to bash Conservatives mercilessly any time they raise doubts about what might actually be happening to our own American culture and our own American values in the face of so much diversity. Just condemn the conservatives as bigots, maybe cancel them for good measure, and repeat ad nauseum that diversity is our strength!
But, in fact, Kevin’s post is, perhaps inadvertently, revealing the often overlooked but entirely legitimate rationale behind the concerns of many conservatives. No, I’m not talking about Tucker Carlson and replacement theory. I’m talking about reality.
Because the truth of the matter is that some cultures, and Indian culture is a prime example, really do hold values that are utterly at odds with just about everything American. There will of course be exceptions, but in general terms we could stipulate that, in an average Asian household, the young are held in low esteem if they seek independence or express their own opinions. Elders are prized for their wisdom and obeyed without question. Initiative and innovation are signs of poor character. Obedience and conformity are signs of maturity. And children aren’t raised to complete a process of individuation, they are trained to be extensions of their parents.
Fine, so what do we care about what Indians are doing on the other side of the world? Well, maybe we do and maybe we don’t, but what about when they come here? And what about a thousand other divergent cultures that also come to America? What happens to our own national identity then?
To be clear, I’m not judging India or Indians. In fact, that’s more or less my whole point. Just as we might be inclined to reject their focus on conformity, many of them would likely find our emphasis on innovation to be insane. But the question is: what happens in a place like America where massive numbers of these almost incomprehensibly diverse groups try to live together?
Kevin describes one relatively minor controversy in Silicon Valley. But our future is almost certainly going to be full of a million such conflicts. How will they be resolved? Is a place like America actually possible? At what point do we finally have to acknowledge that maybe there really are problems with so much diversity? And what do we do then?
Do we have to adopt every social norm of immigrants? Pretty sure that's not what immigration to the U.S. has ever meant.
As best I can tell, you may be promoting the “melting pot” perspective I reference above.
But who is the “we” that you are talking about? You seem to be taking a stable culture or national identity for granted. Yet that’s exactly the kind of thing that I’m asking us to recognize as inherently fragile.
Because I think it’s worthwhile to consider what happens when we reach a level of diversity where a stable culture and national identity can no longer be taken for granted. And the situation in Silicon Valley may be a small preview of that kind of future.
Has a ‘stable culture’ ever existed in human history? Cuisine is an important component of a culture, but think: Italians couldn’t make tomato sauce, nor Germans potato salad, nor the English fish and chips; nor could any European drink coffee, before the early 16th century.
Was it fragile when Germans and Irish were immigrating in the 1800's? When both were considered the "other"? How about the Italians in the early 20th century? All these groups managed to adapt to our "national identity". Or does that only work for white people?
How about we all act like human beings. If you're treating another human being like you are no better than them, and they are no better than you, then you are acting like a human being, and otherwise acting more like a chimpanzee. People that treat each other as equals are able to resolve their interpersonal conflicts.
The problem with what is referred to as "conservative" these days is the idea that "we" are better than "them," and "they" are a threat that needs to be neutralized. People that think this way think of themselves as religious, or conservative, or progressive, or scientific, but they are none of the above. Instead, they have forgotten what being human means, and they're acting like chimps trying to establish themselves in a dominance hierarchy.
If it can be said that Indians "hold values that are utterly at odds with just about everything American," then it can also be said that far too many Americans hold values that are utterly at odds with just about everything American. It can certainly be said of pretty much everyone that I'm aware of that holds a position of power in today's Republican Party.
From your comment:
"How about we all act like human beings. If you're treating another human being like you are no better than them, and they are no better than you, then you are acting like a human being, and otherwise acting more like a chimpanzee."
I agree entirely with your sentiments, but you seem to have completely missed my point (and, perhaps, the problems implied by Kevin's blog post).
There are cultures all over the world that, in fact, disagree with your sentiments. On what grounds does anyone declare those cultures to be "wrong"? And how does a democratic republic like the USA peacefully accommodate so much cultural difference?
Responding negatively to anyone who raises these questions isn't constructive; it's just part of the problem.
You could have written the exact same nonsense 100 years ago, or 200 years ago. Just because we look at White Americans today as pretty homogenous, that does not mean they were at all culturally similar when they arrived in the US, or even for several generations after. And there were significant prejudices among European ethnic groups, which have massively tempered over time.
Today it is hard to imagine the Lager Beer Riots, but at the time people were convinced that German immigrants would just never fit in, and Nativist politicians targeted them. Just a few years later those same German and Irish immigrants were fighting in the Union army in the Civil War.
Conservatives are always screaming "there is too much diversity!." And then 50 years later the grandkids of the "too diverse" immigrants are claiming that the next crop of immigrants is too diverse.
Caste is an issue in hiring today, but it will temper over time (laws against it will also help). There just aren't enough high-caste Indians committed to it for it to get permanently entrenched here.
This is exactly the kind of knee-jerk response and ad hominem posturing that I argue against:
"Conservatives are always screaming "there is too much diversity!." And then 50 years later the grandkids of the "too diverse" immigrants are claiming that the next crop of immigrants is too diverse."
An opinion or insight isn't automatically wrong because it comes from Conservatives; sorry, but you are offering a low form of discourse here.
And I think it's important for the Left to examine its own blind spots and to humbly admit if and when conservatives might have a point. There may, in fact, very well be political and electoral reasons for doing so.
Because raising questions about national identity is not the default position of bigots: it is, rather, an entirely rational response to exactly the kind of issue that Kevin brings up regarding Silicon Valley. And attempting to portray anyone who raises such issues as inherently backwards is an excellent way for the Left to self-destruct.
This liberal imperative to support migration to the US (of all sorts) is going to backfire. We saw this recently when Arab communities made common cause with republicans to harass gay folks. It’s only going to get worse.
The caste issue goes much, much deeper than just Indian culture. The change from agricultural to warrior societies drove humans from being egalitarian to being protectionist. With that, comes hierarchy. With hierarchy, you have caste. Ability to escape your birth caste is and always will be the promise of America.
The luck of not having the right parents shouldn't condemn anyone to a lesser life, I don't care how "traditional" it is. If you gotta change your name and invent a background, so be it. If you want out, you find a way out.
I'd say it's all about core American values being specificially against hereditary privilege. You don't want to accept American values, don't come to America.
@ScentOfViolets: Regarding this:
"You don't want to accept American values, don't come to America."
Fine, but here's more or less the essence of my earlier question:
What happens when immigrants reject American values but they come to America anyway?
And then they attempt, in various ways, to inject their un-American values into American life. Are laws and norms enough to stop them? I doubt it. As Kevin's blog post makes abundantly clear, there are ways to circumvent the letter of most laws if one is determined to do so.
So, at what point do Democrats need to tone down the diversity talk (preferably before they lose an election to Trump)? Or at the very least acknowledge some of the inherent and obvious problems in what may be our unprecedented situation?
Of course. People from India suck. And mostly republicans like Vivek smarmy
So, just to be clear, you're responding to a post critical of East Indian immigrants because they are prejudiced against East Indian immigrants and "me too" is your response?
Justin weighs in here when not otherwise occupied yelling at clouds.
They are all welcome here in the USA. The Republican Party is happy to have them. Is it ok for me to say republicans suck? Because they do. And so people from India do too.
It's also already illegal. This is a case of a law looking where one already exists.
The interaction between Haley, assumed to be a Dalit, and Ramaswamy, assumed to be a Brahmin, is one of the more interesting aspects of the Republican presidential field. I would like to know if Ramaswamy performs any ritual cleaning after he speaks with Haley.
If you look at the usual freaks and losers posting on this topic, you'll notice they have a lot in common with these Brahmin bigots as well, namely, they not only want to enjoy their perks and perquisites, they want to pass them down with absolutely no penalties attached to their offspring as well. IOW, they're all about enforcing and maintaining hereditary privilege. Will Mr. Guillotine come to the courtesy desk, pleae.
Imagine if there was a country where people who move here are expected to set aside all the ancient bigotries that their forebears took for granted -- let's say, for example, deeply rooted anti-Semitism. Or anti-Irish bias. Or ancient hatreds based on religious belief
Imagine if there was a country that preached this philosophy as a matter of its founding pride -- in principle if not always in practice!
I don't think it's too much to ask those who immigrate here to at least comply with laws that reflect that philosophy. So, yes, fuck your nuance!