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> I am an Indian and clearly reservation system is a spectacular failure. The reservation system actively creates a divide among castes. I will not be surprised

> I am an Indian and clearly reservation system is a spectacular failure. The reservation system actively creates a divide among castes. I will not be surprised if some these upper caste people who are fed up of reservation in India discriminate when they go to USA. These upper caste people are not discriminating due to fact that they believe that one caste is superior to another, they are doing it because they are able to sympathise with the plight of other unreserved Indians in India. Replace: - reservation system -> affirmative action - upper caste -> middle class "true" Americans / white Americans / people born well-off / etc and this reads exactly like rich white conservatism in America, and falls into the exact same pitfalls of "well I worked hard so obviously I deserve it". Systemic oppression is not erased by hard and honest work of the descendants of oppressors, it must be actively fixed. I don't mean to say this as a way to call out India specifically as the US obviously has done quite badly here. The point is that it's quite wild to see the direct parallels of systemic classist oppression and the same story playing out here. When you have unjust power and things are equalized, psychologically it feels like you are losing something. It's not an illogical response to dig in your heels into "but I earned it" and "but reverse discrimination", but people must fight that basic instinct to understand beyond their own perspective. Preemptively, I want to state this: the more mild form of this argument goes "yes there's discrimination we need to solve, but let's not let the pendulum swing past the point of equilibrium and hurt us in any way". This is effectively stating that you value never facing actual oppression over the solving of a long faced oppression of others in a timely manner. It's an inherent devaluing of the oppressed while acknowledging they are, indeed, oppressed. For what it's worth, among many times asking for this, I have yet to encounter a historical example of a time the "pendulum" actually swung too far. This is more or less the story of civil rights in America over the centuries. Every time is a step towards equilibrium, stunted and delayed by many sympathetic oppressors cutting actions short.

legolas2412 6y ago
> Systemic oppression is not erased by hard and honest work of the descendants of oppressors, it must be actively fixed. But it looks like these measures do not solve where the systemic oppression exists. Systemic oppression exists mostly in wealth inequalities, and somewhat in society that restricts access to education for those who are oppressed. Given that is the problem, the solution should be to provide high quality universal primary and secondary education. Taking number of STEM engineers by race/caste and trying to force universities to discriminate in admissions does not solve the poor quality of public school education
- adjkant 6y ago
  I'm all for better restorative justice, but that's not required to, you know, not discriminate against people in the US, as the person I responded to argued for by sympathizing/rationalizing the discrimination. I'm frankly immediately suspicious of the good faith of any comment/post that focuses on rationalizing the oppressor versus fixing an obvious injustice as the post did.
  - legolas2412 6y ago
    Fair enough. I read that post again, and it clearly is indefensible. I was trying to address a different point.
perl4ever 6y ago
>and this reads exactly like rich white conservatism in America You are interpreting the parent comment as a moral defense of caste discrimination. I guess it is, but I think it says something valid about the causal roots of the situation, which needs to be understood even assuming you think it's bad and needs to be changed. How can it be changed otherwise? If certain castes are subject to affirmative action in India, and not elsewhere, then they are inevitably going to go where things are relatively easier. The justice of that affirmative action doesn't change the incentives. Anywhere you try to squeeze people, they will respond, creating a new "problem". What is the ultimate solution going to be? I don't believe in free markets uber alles but I do believe in regulatory failure. Talking about people "digging in their heels" makes for a picture of a world where everyone would "just be reasonable" that's tantalizingly close to reality. But people are never going to just give up on choosing the best available opportunity they have, at least on average.
- adjkant 6y ago
  You're right, affirmative action here seems to fail in this way since high caste Indian citizens can simply move to America, and I'm not going to pretend I have an answer there off the cuff. Admittedly this is not a problem I think about specifically often. What is 100% not okay and fixable even without changing anything about the reservation system is the treatment of those abroad that are in lower castes, which is directly argued against by the OP here: > These upper caste people are not discriminating due to fact that they believe that one caste is superior to another, they are doing it because they are able to sympathise with the plight of other unreserved Indians in India. Describing the reservation system as a "plight" on upper castes while not sympathizing with the issues the lower castes deal with is literal classism at work within US tech companies that is clear by reading links to and direct comments containing many first hand accounts. Affirmative is far from perfect when it comes to restorative justice approaches, but an imperfection does not mean all other ethical statements and stances need not apply. Let the upper castes run from India to avoid dealing with the reservation system, sure, that can't be avoided. However, we as a society should absolutely stop the caste system from continuing here. I don't think this is the best idea, but theoretically US/world tech could also take an affirmative action type stance when it comes to castes and H1B visas in the US. That'd be an interesting theoretical patch solution, but then that just means more Indians would focus somewhere that didn't take this stance. And the end of the day, this needs to be a cultural change within Indians abroad and in India. But this issue being brought to a larger stage in the US is a great start.
higerordermap 6y ago
> and this reads exactly like rich white conservatism in America In India, caste doesn't really map well to wealth.

legolas2412 6y ago

> Systemic oppression is not erased by hard and honest work of the descendants of oppressors, it must be actively fixed. But it looks like these measures do not solve where the systemic oppression exists. Systemic oppression exists mostly in wealth inequalities, and somewhat in society that restricts access to education for those who are oppressed. Given that is the problem, the solution should be to provide high quality universal primary and secondary education. Taking number of STEM engineers by race/caste and trying to force universities to discriminate in admissions does not solve the poor quality of public school education

adjkant 6y ago
I'm all for better restorative justice, but that's not required to, you know, not discriminate against people in the US, as the person I responded to argued for by sympathizing/rationalizing the discrimination. I'm frankly immediately suspicious of the good faith of any comment/post that focuses on rationalizing the oppressor versus fixing an obvious injustice as the post did.
- legolas2412 6y ago
  Fair enough. I read that post again, and it clearly is indefensible. I was trying to address a different point.

perl4ever 6y ago

>and this reads exactly like rich white conservatism in America You are interpreting the parent comment as a moral defense of caste discrimination. I guess it is, but I think it says something valid about the causal roots of the situation, which needs to be understood even assuming you think it's bad and needs to be changed. How can it be changed otherwise? If certain castes are subject to affirmative action in India, and not elsewhere, then they are inevitably going to go where things are relatively easier. The justice of that affirmative action doesn't change the incentives. Anywhere you try to squeeze people, they will respond, creating a new "problem". What is the ultimate solution going to be? I don't believe in free markets uber alles but I do believe in regulatory failure. Talking about people "digging in their heels" makes for a picture of a world where everyone would "just be reasonable" that's tantalizingly close to reality. But people are never going to just give up on choosing the best available opportunity they have, at least on average.

adjkant 6y ago
You're right, affirmative action here seems to fail in this way since high caste Indian citizens can simply move to America, and I'm not going to pretend I have an answer there off the cuff. Admittedly this is not a problem I think about specifically often. What is 100% not okay and fixable even without changing anything about the reservation system is the treatment of those abroad that are in lower castes, which is directly argued against by the OP here: > These upper caste people are not discriminating due to fact that they believe that one caste is superior to another, they are doing it because they are able to sympathise with the plight of other unreserved Indians in India. Describing the reservation system as a "plight" on upper castes while not sympathizing with the issues the lower castes deal with is literal classism at work within US tech companies that is clear by reading links to and direct comments containing many first hand accounts. Affirmative is far from perfect when it comes to restorative justice approaches, but an imperfection does not mean all other ethical statements and stances need not apply. Let the upper castes run from India to avoid dealing with the reservation system, sure, that can't be avoided. However, we as a society should absolutely stop the caste system from continuing here. I don't think this is the best idea, but theoretically US/world tech could also take an affirmative action type stance when it comes to castes and H1B visas in the US. That'd be an interesting theoretical patch solution, but then that just means more Indians would focus somewhere that didn't take this stance. And the end of the day, this needs to be a cultural change within Indians abroad and in India. But this issue being brought to a larger stage in the US is a great start.

higerordermap 6y ago

> and this reads exactly like rich white conservatism in America In India, caste doesn't really map well to wealth.