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I think the argument that "efforts to raise awareness of these issues in the United States would sow further division" isn't totally without merit. As an Ameri
by akavi 4y ago
I think the argument that "efforts to raise awareness of these issues in the United States would sow further division" isn't totally without merit.
As an America-born Indian-American, I honestly don't know what my caste is beyond knowing I'm not Brahmin (I didn't do the string ceremony some of my childhood family friends did), and have basically zero idea of how I'd identify someone else's caste. I imagine that that's not terribly uncommon among ABCDs.
Educating people like me about that would suddenly create the ability for them to identify a difference that they wouldn't have noticed before. This makes it unlike gender, racial, or age discrimination, where the categories are usually surface level obvious. That in turn could have a star-bellied sneetches effect, where people identify with the new categories that they wouldn't have considered before.
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- empressplay 4y agoUm, no. The only division it would sow would be when you notice your Indian-born manager is discriminating against your Indian-born co-worker. The only people who really want to stop awareness of this are people like that manager.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoFunny that you are literally discounting an Indian American, telling them how they will think and feel about the topic.
- uhuruity 4y agoI am also a foreign born person of Indian descent and agree with the person you’re replying to. I have never been aware of my cast, the cast of other Indians / Indian origin people I interact with, and think that’s a good thing. Could you elaborate on why you think the negative effect - that making previously oblivious people aware of castes could increase discrimination - doesn’t exist?
- chasil 4y agoA full video of a talk by Soundararajan in reaction to Google's cancelation was published to YouTube, link below. A few things that I found poignant in this talk: One in four people in the world live within a caste system. Soundararajan's father only admitted his dalit status to her in his late 70s. The reservation system in India is the earliest civil rights initiative, predating the movement in the U.S. The reservation system has expanded from its original role in university admissions to encompass reserved seats in parliament and corporate hiring. The final question in the talk was from a "closeted" dalit worker at Google who was terrified that she would be outed. As much as we hope that the caste system has no bearing in U.S. hiring, we must acknowledge that its effects are present. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2xykx777qZM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2xykx777qZM
- gomoboo 4y agoIsn’t this just relying on security through obscurity? The knowledge is already out there for anyone wishing to seek it. Why pretend it doesn’t exist? For what it’s worth, I am not of Indian descent.
- whack 4y agoTake a look at the brown-eye-blue-eye experiment that a teacher did with her students. Everyone already knew the color of their eye, but no one gave it much significance. But as soon as the teacher started talking about the socioeconomic-status associated with eye color, students immediately divided themselves and started fighting over eye color. Never underestimate people's ability to segregate themselves using whatever demographic markers society tells them is important to their identity. > The children with brown eyes were suddenly more confident — and condescending. They hurled nasty insults at the blue-eyed kids. The children with blue eyes made silly mistakes and became timid and despondent. The two groups stopped playing together. Fights broke out. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/karinabland/2017/11/17/blue-eyes-brown-eyes-jane-elliotts-exercise-race-50-years-later/860287001/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/karinabland/2017/...
- pmoriarty 4y ago"as soon as the teacher started talking about the socioeconomic-status associated with eye color, students immediately divided themselves and started fighting over eye color" It wasn't the teacher talking about socioeconomic-status associated with eye color, but explicitly telling the children that blue-eyed kids were better than brown-eyed kids. So it wasn't just consciousness of differences, but explicitly telling some of the children they were better than others. All that proves is that you can teach hatred. But you can also teach peaceful coexistence, where people are aware of ethnic/cultural/biological differences without looking down on those who differ from you. You can be taught to value and celebrate your differences. Same with people from other castes. There's no reason why one has to be looked at as inferior and the other as superior. It really reminds me of a Star Trek episode where there's a war between two alien species which are identical except that one is black on the left side of their body and white on the right side of their body, and their enemy is white on the left side of their body and black on the right side of their body: [1] A ridiculous and meaningless distinction, and yet they kill each other over it. It also reminds me of the religious wars among Christians over minutia like whether one should cross oneself from left to right or right to left. Sheer insanity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi7QQ5pO7_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi7QQ5pO7_A
- devnonymous 4y agoI've heard similar arguments being made about teaching CRT in school. Are you really saying ABCDs are so confused about their own identity that they'll cling on to n antiquated notion of a social hierarchy based on knowledge of the Vedas?
- akavi 4y agoI think it's pretty normal as a human to attach oneself to various identity groups (An anodyne example being local sports teams), and the more you salience an identity, the more likely and more strongly individuals are to attach themselves to that identity. It seems like that could in fact an issue with race-centric DEI training, at least per the one study I found at short notice[0]. But that needs to be weighed against the potential benefits and the fact that race relations are a significant issue across America society regardless of whether we address it explicitly or not. With caste discrimination, the issue currently exists within a very small slice of American society (immigrants born in India). So even a small negative effect across the rest of American society would wipe out even the most significant improvements in that slice. [0]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550618780728 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550618780728
- ajross 4y agoAs an America-born white hippie, though... I have a hard time seeing an argument like that and not equating it with attempts to suppress discussion of racial equality issues here at home[1]. The fact that you don't experience discrimination doesn't mean that no one does. And you should know if people do, and why. Nothing gets better if the skeletons stay in the closet, basically. It's no different for caste awareness than it is for teaching slavery and segregation. [1] Edit: and look what I did! "Here at home" clearly comes out making this seem like a "foreign" problem, but as you point out this is your home too! That's why we should all be hearing people speak out about it.
- CWuestefeld 4y agoBut I think the same argument can be applied here in the USA, too. Your point about "security through obscurity" makes sense; I wouldn't attempt to conceal the history and the current problems. But the strategy here today seems to be trying to force people to own a given racial identity: at least some people are demanding that white people should stand up to publicly renounce their privilege, etc. And I'm afraid that this strategy of forcing people to self-identify as "white" rather than just "person" plants a seed in some minds that germinates into them sprouting into white nationalists and so forth.
- ajross 4y agoFWIW: I think you're conflating things. Teaching kids about slavery and segregation, and teaching older kids the enduring effects thereof (which are quantifiable!) isn't the same thing as forcing them to pick a racial identity or renounce their privilege or whatever, even if some of the same people want to do both. You can oppose the latter without denying the former. From my perspective on the other side of this divide, I see a lot of people making arguments like yours as a way of shutting down discussion about inequality entirely. That's exactly what you claim not to support, right?
- tremon 4y agowhich are quantifiable Are they really? I mean, I understand we can quantify generational or class-based inequality, but can we really quantify how much of that difference is attributable to slavery and/or segregation? Or is the implicit default to attribute 50% to slavery and attribute the other 50% to segregation?
- chimeracoder 4y ago> As an America-born Indian-American, I honestly don't know what my caste is beyond knowing I'm not Brahmin (I didn't do the string ceremony some of my childhood family friends did) That's not actually sufficient information to infer anything, since people from any of the four savarna castes can participate in the ceremony. It varies a lot by region and community. It's not actually unheard-of for Dalits to have it, although that's rare.
- akavi 4y agoOh huh, TIL! Well, then I have no idea at all what my caste is.
- noduerme 4y ago>> Educating people like me about that would suddenly create the ability for them to identify a difference that they wouldn't have noticed before. This seemingly small insight goes miles toward explaining the current American obsession with racial and gender identity. Gender/racial/age discrimination are not surface-level obvious in America these days, which is why once people are told they're being victimized and discriminated against for X reason, everything starts to look to them like a microaggression against their identity group. They're essentially told you have no choice, you are this. This in turn creates an artificial political base where you're supposed to put your X identity ahead of all other considerations and fight for X people, and since X people only vote for Party A or Party B, you're supposed to vote that way. I can tell you why it's utter nonsense. Because these groupings are engineered, as you said, to make people identify a difference that they wouldn't have noticed before. The same people who claim racial identity is so central to one's "lived experience" and such a huge basis for discrimination are quick to tell me "well, you can choose not to be Jewish if you want." Caste is like a whole new frontier. Surely, they'll say, you've been subjected to terrible treatment and it's changed you... you just don't realize how unfair it's been, but we can show you! It is of course possible that other Indian-Americans can identify your caste, and have discriminated against you, without you realizing it. But if that's the case, you're lucky not to know, because the worst thing you can do is let a sense of victimization become a central part of your identity.
- vkou 4y agoI think the worst thing you can do is continue to be victimized, without raising a fuss. It is very convenient for <the people victimizing you/people made uncomfortable by you pointing this out> if you do just that, though.
- ZoomerCretin 4y ago> Racism isn't real anymore, except for being a manufactured socio-political construct to create (D) voters How sheltered are you that you believe this? EDIT: Because calling you sheltered for your ignorance of racism isn't enough: You're claiming that people who think they're experiencing racism are simply primed to view negative interactions as racism, raising their sensitivity and lowering their specificity of racist experiences (i.e. that they can't tell the difference between assholes or reasonable setbacks in life and racism). You're using this perception of minorities' racist experiences to prime yourself to dismiss every racist experience. Do you see how this is problematic?
- rootsudo 4y ago"Educating people like me about that would suddenly create the ability for them to identify a difference that they wouldn't have noticed before. This makes it unlike gender, racial, or age discrimination, where the categories are usually surface level obvious. That in turn could have a star-bellied sneetches effect, where" Putting your head in the sand doesn't solve problems. Awareness does.
- travisgriggs 4y ago50 points for reference to "star-bellied sneetches effect." I use it to describe the political/social duopoly in the US. We go round and round. Someone else makes money.
- kelnos 4y agoI'm a little surprised to see "promote ignorance" as a "solution" to a problem some people face. Certainly not every non-Brahmin of Indian descent in America experiences caste-based discrimination, and I expect there are some who, like you, don't even know much about it. But I don't think it's fair to those who have experienced this sort of discrimination to just say "we're not going to talk about it because it might be better for people who don't know about it to continue not knowing about it".