7 ms·

I'm torn between thinking it's dumb to give talks on caste at work and thinking Google is weak for giving in to people who were complaining about this talk for

I'm torn between thinking it's dumb to give talks on caste at work and thinking Google is weak for giving in to people who were complaining about this talk for whatever reason. I suppose I hold both opinions.

colinmhayes 4y ago
We get talks about discrimination based off race and gender at work. Caste discrimination is even more deserving because it's much less obvious to non-indians.
- ALittleLight 4y ago
  Seems like a very fraught topic to me. If I'm part of an interview loop for an Indian person, and one more or of my peers are Indian, how am I supposed to know if my peers are being caste-prejudiced? I would not be able to tell if the candidate was the good caste or the bad caste and asking "What caste is this guy?" seems highly inappropriate. If my peers support the candidate - is that because they like his caste? If they oppose the candidate - do they dislike it?
  - honkler 4y ago
    how does it work with gender/race? If your white co-worker likes a candidate, it is because of his gender, race or actual competence?
    - ALittleLight 4y ago
      I have been a part of something like 150 interview loops. In that time I think I've interviewed exactly 1 white woman. In her case, everyone but a single person was in favor of hiring, and that one holdout was adamantly opposed (and eventually won). The person against hiring never said "I hate her because she's a white woman" but instead had reasonable sounding issues. Given that "white woman" is such a rare category to interview, and, I assume, Dalit is pretty rare as well, AND I don't even regularly interview with the same set of people - how could I possibly tell when another interviewer is motivated by prejudice? Unless the interviewer says they are motivated by prejudice I'm either going to have to give them the benefit of the doubt or make a heckuva leap to accuse them of something.
    - Avicebron 4y ago
      I think in part because there is direct legislature that makes certain hiring practices illegal and cause for retaliation (obviously this is fraught with problems in proving intent like everything, but if I'm from a particular ethnicity and I have a track record of dismissing candidates that are able to be isolated down to a protected trait rather than ability to do the job, then I can see that as being relatively obvious.) but Like i said it's fraught with external factors, but as far as I know a caste isn't considered a protected class (probably because it doesn't have strict parallels in the West).
    - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
      I'm familiar with the broader social context of gender and race in the US. So when I see, for example, a coworker who consistently argues that female candidates are too aggressive, I can gently prod the discussion towards focusing on his technical feedback and deferring to the other interviewers for soft skills. With caste discrimination, I have absolutely no idea what the equivalent would be, and it'd surely be inappropriate to corner one of my Indian coworkers in the break room and ask her to teach me all the common Dalit stereotypes.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    That's exactlty why suxh a talk would have been a good idea...
    - ALittleLight 4y ago
      If that is what the subject of the talk was then I completely agree it would have been appropriate and rescind whatever negative thought I expressed in the parent. (And by "that" I mean "A practical guide to detecting caste-based prejudice and what to do about it.")
    - splintercell 4y ago
      - hef19898 4y ago
        Care to elaborate?
        splintercell 4y ago
        It's this naive idea that somehow same tactics which have clearly failed in regards to white/black race relations, would work on a totally different culture. And yes, I know you may think that this woman giving this talk would be someone who knows a thing or two about the Indian culture, but you would be wrong. All she knows is how to sell an offering which western executives would pay for. Lemme put it this way, if the solution required to fix the problem could be one of the following, which one do you think you would go for: 1. Performing caste cleansing rituals throughout all teams 2. Hiring a caste system expert to give a talk in the company 3. Identifying the troublesome castes by their surnames and making special reports on managers with that caste names regarding any issues of caste discrimination. Which one of these options would you go for? Even if the effectiveness of the option 2 is the least, it still would be the most preferred option by all companies because it's the best bang for their buck. In fact, even if these talks were actually toxic for the morale of the company among the Indian diaspora in your company, this gives the most 'color' of action by the company (and when companies like Google resist as in this case, they look bad). End result: When you need a quick and expedient action to be performed in case of dealing with an issue you have no real understanding of, you are bound to hire scammers whose main job is to give you a totally fake service with no outcome being achieved.
  - toofy 4y ago
    all of your questions are precisely why this needs to be discussed—interviewers clearly need a better grasp on the subject.
hef19898 4y ago
Caste is apparently as much a reason for discrimination as sex, sexual orientation, race or religion. Those topics need to be addressed at workplaces. Refusing to so is actually part of the problem.
- koheripbal 4y ago
  I am so tired of talking about race and gender in the workplace. I am there to do work. I really do not respect people who obsess about race and gender in the workplace.
  - hfhdbsnsnc 4y ago
    Not trying to make it ad-hominem, but are you from a race/gender that is the majority in your workplace? I think many people feel like you...the problem is that some races / gender receive discrimination that the majority might not see. If we take it to gender, a male might have never received any sexual harassment in his entire life and so might think it's a waste of time to talk about this in the workplace (spoiler: it's not). If a minority of the people in the office are women, maybe a majority of people will feel talking about sexual harassment is a waste of time.
s5300 4y ago
Caste discrimination is more relevant than most other forms of discrimination we quabble about here in the US. For those it affects, that is.
munk-a 4y ago
While caste systems might seem far off and irrelevant in the modern world there is actually a rather extreme amount of caste based discrimination in work places. It's an issue we need to talk about and resolve. I can't talk to this particular activist's positions, but Dalit Activism is a very relevant and worthy cause - it causes pretty significant discrimination even in the US.
- ALittleLight 4y ago
  How do you come to know someone's caste?
  - floren 4y ago
    Often, the surname is enough.
  - lin83 4y ago
    Surnames are a direct indication and to a lesser extent place of birth I believe.
    - barry-cotter 4y ago
      India is far too large for place of birth to be a reliable indicator of caste seeing as all cases are everywhere in Hindu majority areas and many areas they’re a minority. Surname, yes.
  - _dain_ 4y ago
    An Indian lecturing white people about discrimination is almost certainly a Brahmin.
  - bergenty 4y ago
    Surnames.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Brahmins will tell you a talk about caste discrimination is anti-hindu.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pj_mukh 4y ago
This was a talk to be given to the Google News team vis a vis their editorial choices w.r.t caste in India. Can’t think of a more important talk to be given to them tbh.
kromem 4y ago
Why would you think it's dumb? It makes as much sense as a talk on racial discrimination or gender identity discrimination to me, so I'm curious what's perceptively different about it to others.
discordance 4y ago
Google often gets bogged down with culture wars. The internal discussion threads are sometimes productive, but often rife with this stuff and it’s a massive time sink for many googlers.

colinmhayes 4y ago

We get talks about discrimination based off race and gender at work. Caste discrimination is even more deserving because it's much less obvious to non-indians.

ALittleLight 4y ago
Seems like a very fraught topic to me. If I'm part of an interview loop for an Indian person, and one more or of my peers are Indian, how am I supposed to know if my peers are being caste-prejudiced? I would not be able to tell if the candidate was the good caste or the bad caste and asking "What caste is this guy?" seems highly inappropriate. If my peers support the candidate - is that because they like his caste? If they oppose the candidate - do they dislike it?
- honkler 4y ago
  how does it work with gender/race? If your white co-worker likes a candidate, it is because of his gender, race or actual competence?
  - ALittleLight 4y ago
    I have been a part of something like 150 interview loops. In that time I think I've interviewed exactly 1 white woman. In her case, everyone but a single person was in favor of hiring, and that one holdout was adamantly opposed (and eventually won). The person against hiring never said "I hate her because she's a white woman" but instead had reasonable sounding issues. Given that "white woman" is such a rare category to interview, and, I assume, Dalit is pretty rare as well, AND I don't even regularly interview with the same set of people - how could I possibly tell when another interviewer is motivated by prejudice? Unless the interviewer says they are motivated by prejudice I'm either going to have to give them the benefit of the doubt or make a heckuva leap to accuse them of something.
  - Avicebron 4y ago
    I think in part because there is direct legislature that makes certain hiring practices illegal and cause for retaliation (obviously this is fraught with problems in proving intent like everything, but if I'm from a particular ethnicity and I have a track record of dismissing candidates that are able to be isolated down to a protected trait rather than ability to do the job, then I can see that as being relatively obvious.) but Like i said it's fraught with external factors, but as far as I know a caste isn't considered a protected class (probably because it doesn't have strict parallels in the West).
  - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
    I'm familiar with the broader social context of gender and race in the US. So when I see, for example, a coworker who consistently argues that female candidates are too aggressive, I can gently prod the discussion towards focusing on his technical feedback and deferring to the other interviewers for soft skills. With caste discrimination, I have absolutely no idea what the equivalent would be, and it'd surely be inappropriate to corner one of my Indian coworkers in the break room and ask her to teach me all the common Dalit stereotypes.
- hef19898 4y ago
  That's exactlty why suxh a talk would have been a good idea...
  - ALittleLight 4y ago
    If that is what the subject of the talk was then I completely agree it would have been appropriate and rescind whatever negative thought I expressed in the parent. (And by "that" I mean "A practical guide to detecting caste-based prejudice and what to do about it.")
  - splintercell 4y ago
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Care to elaborate?
      - splintercell 4y ago
        It's this naive idea that somehow same tactics which have clearly failed in regards to white/black race relations, would work on a totally different culture. And yes, I know you may think that this woman giving this talk would be someone who knows a thing or two about the Indian culture, but you would be wrong. All she knows is how to sell an offering which western executives would pay for. Lemme put it this way, if the solution required to fix the problem could be one of the following, which one do you think you would go for: 1. Performing caste cleansing rituals throughout all teams 2. Hiring a caste system expert to give a talk in the company 3. Identifying the troublesome castes by their surnames and making special reports on managers with that caste names regarding any issues of caste discrimination. Which one of these options would you go for? Even if the effectiveness of the option 2 is the least, it still would be the most preferred option by all companies because it's the best bang for their buck. In fact, even if these talks were actually toxic for the morale of the company among the Indian diaspora in your company, this gives the most 'color' of action by the company (and when companies like Google resist as in this case, they look bad). End result: When you need a quick and expedient action to be performed in case of dealing with an issue you have no real understanding of, you are bound to hire scammers whose main job is to give you a totally fake service with no outcome being achieved.
- toofy 4y ago
  all of your questions are precisely why this needs to be discussed—interviewers clearly need a better grasp on the subject.

hef19898 4y ago

Caste is apparently as much a reason for discrimination as sex, sexual orientation, race or religion. Those topics need to be addressed at workplaces. Refusing to so is actually part of the problem.

koheripbal 4y ago
I am so tired of talking about race and gender in the workplace. I am there to do work. I really do not respect people who obsess about race and gender in the workplace.
- hfhdbsnsnc 4y ago
  Not trying to make it ad-hominem, but are you from a race/gender that is the majority in your workplace? I think many people feel like you...the problem is that some races / gender receive discrimination that the majority might not see. If we take it to gender, a male might have never received any sexual harassment in his entire life and so might think it's a waste of time to talk about this in the workplace (spoiler: it's not). If a minority of the people in the office are women, maybe a majority of people will feel talking about sexual harassment is a waste of time.

s5300 4y ago

Caste discrimination is more relevant than most other forms of discrimination we quabble about here in the US. For those it affects, that is.

munk-a 4y ago

While caste systems might seem far off and irrelevant in the modern world there is actually a rather extreme amount of caste based discrimination in work places. It's an issue we need to talk about and resolve. I can't talk to this particular activist's positions, but Dalit Activism is a very relevant and worthy cause - it causes pretty significant discrimination even in the US.

ALittleLight 4y ago
How do you come to know someone's caste?
- floren 4y ago
  Often, the surname is enough.
- lin83 4y ago
  Surnames are a direct indication and to a lesser extent place of birth I believe.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    India is far too large for place of birth to be a reliable indicator of caste seeing as all cases are everywhere in Hindu majority areas and many areas they’re a minority. Surname, yes.
- _dain_ 4y ago
  An Indian lecturing white people about discrimination is almost certainly a Brahmin.
- bergenty 4y ago
  Surnames.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Brahmins will tell you a talk about caste discrimination is anti-hindu.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pj_mukh 4y ago

This was a talk to be given to the Google News team vis a vis their editorial choices w.r.t caste in India. Can’t think of a more important talk to be given to them tbh.

kromem 4y ago

Why would you think it's dumb? It makes as much sense as a talk on racial discrimination or gender identity discrimination to me, so I'm curious what's perceptively different about it to others.

discordance 4y ago

Google often gets bogged down with culture wars. The internal discussion threads are sometimes productive, but often rife with this stuff and it’s a massive time sink for many googlers.