8 ms·

If I have to count the number of times someone senior to me or some colleague has judged me or severed ties with me because of my caste, it will be 8-10. All in

If I have to count the number of times someone senior to me or some colleague has judged me or severed ties with me because of my caste, it will be 8-10. All in the United States. If anything it’s far worse here than when I grew up in India. I’m not of the “lowest caste” as it’s perceived but by looks I am often mistaken to be a Brahmin, one of the highest ones. So my fellow Brahmins get offended when I’m not strictly vegetarian, and get more so to learn that I’m not Brahmin or that I believe India should remain secular. I’d advise anyone not fully informed to not give too much credence to people opposing this legislation; I spend a lot of time weeding and working around them and can assure you this is a real thing and should be codified just to remind them what America should stand for.

eklavya 3y ago
I am sorry you have had such a bad luck with your company. All the education in the world can't teach basic human decency. You can probably take some solace in the fact that I have not seen any such behaviour in the Indian tech scene so far. Maybe give it a shot and come here (trade a different set of problems). It must be an absolutely horrible of a mix in the US for this to be 8:10.
- ramraj07 3y ago
  Half of it came during my academic phase though!
  - eklavya 3y ago
    Do you mean in India? If you don't mind can you tell me what years those were? I just want to see if I happen to live in a bubble or it was a different time (as in, sufficiently long ago for me to not see it).
    - ramraj07 3y ago
      The academic phase was during my PhD between 2009 and 2017 in Texas. Upper Caste Hindu professors (2) and fellow grad students and postdocs (2). The professors thankfully weren’t my advisors, but made it their business to pester every Indian student during poster presentations if they found they were not upper caste or weren’t behaving as one (by eating or dating habits).
      - catgary 3y ago
        You can absolutely still report them, if you’re no longer in the university they don’t have much power to influence your career anymore.
        ramraj07 3y ago
        I think you might have too much faith in the HR departments of Texas universities :) UT Southwestern is quite famous for protecting its image at all costs.
  - catgary 3y ago
    Yeah a professor’s blog post was shared recently that he only felt safe to disclose his caste once he had achieved tenure, and that basically every CS professor of South Asian descent in North America is from the higher castes (as in, the number who aren’t is in the single digits).
- lannisterstark 3y ago
  > It must be an absolutely horrible of a mix in the US for this to be 8:10. The US is quite large so this is a YMMV thing. I solve this issue by just not associating very much with my ex-countrymen. I get enough of them when I go to visit my parents, I don't need to constantly mingle with more Indians. I have a solid set of diverse friends (one or two are Indian). It helps that in my workplace I tend not to think of anyone as a 'friend' and just keep my interactions professional.
  - eklavya 3y ago
    I don't understand how educated people behave this way. I have seen this in illiterates but modern educated people behaving this way is absolutely mind boggling.
    - ScoobleDoodle 3y ago
      What do you mean by “behave this way”? I have no idea what in particular you’re referring to. It could be parent. Or something in grand parent and you’re supporting parent.
      - Philpax 3y ago
        Pretty sure they're referring to the act of caste discrimination.
      - eklavya 3y ago
        If you think the comment was made in good faith with good intentions ;) and you read my reply above, it should be pretty obvious that I am talking about educated people discriminating on the basis of caste.
        hef19898 3y ago
        You now the bit about Nazis, you can be two of either a) a nice person b) an intelligent person c) a Nazi. I guess the works for all kinds of cases of discrimination.
- nabakin 3y ago
  Stop downvoting this person, you will make their comment disappear and it's not warranted. They are simply sharing their personal experience and are looking to understand the person they are replying to. And because I know people will wonder: no, I am not Indian and know very little about caste so you can rest assured this isn't a biased response.
- numpad0 3y ago
  It's not like "these people" haven't heard of that idea of basic human decency, more like they think whatever the books they carry has a priority over someone else's ethics and laws. But teaching them what's correct to a free man is a bit weird and it's also a rather steep slippery slope towards Chinese Uighur camp situation, so these problems are starting to grow and compound everywhere in developed worlds.
  - catlover76 3y ago
    > But teaching them what's correct to a free man is a bit weird and it's also a rather steep slippery slope towards Chinese Uighur camp situation You think teaching them that it's wrong to discriminate based on caste is a step on "a rather steep slippery slope towards" genocide??
- WeylandYutani 3y ago
  People take their culture with them. When I was a child there were a lot of scandals about girls disappearing from school because they were married off to a cousin back in Morocco.
whatsup7123 3y ago
The new law that is being passed will not solve your personal issues with socializing. The law is designed to protect you from unfair discrimination by your employer, i.e. being fired due to your caste.
- ramraj07 3y ago
  Analogy here would be, I’m saying I almost got robbed, robbery is real. You’re coming and saying, “this new law won’t solve your issue, it’s for actual robbery only.”
  - whatsup7123 3y ago
    Sorry, maybe I misunderstood. Can you describe a specific incident in your employment history where you were fired from a job or denied a promotion due to your caste or ancestry? You should be able to sue for this right now (even before SB403) with this law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unruh_Civil_Rights_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unruh_Civil_Rights_Act
    - slg 3y ago
      >Can you describe a specific incident in your employment history where you were fired from a job or denied a promotion due to your caste or ancestry? Just clarifying that discrimination doesn't have to result in being fired or passed over for a promotion to count as discrimination.
      - pas 3y ago
        Can you give an example please?
        slg 3y ago
        IANAL, but basically anything that negatively impacts a protected class and doesn't have a clear business purpose can be argued as discrimination. "Reasonable accommodations" without "undue hardship" are key phrases you will commonly hear as being the expectations for employers. Those accommodations can include stuff like installing ramps for an employee in a wheelchair or granting a new mother time to pump. The employee doesn't have to be fired or denied a promotion, simply making their job or life more difficult is often enough to be considered discrimination.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
FreshStart 3y ago
It's the classic melting pot dissolving identities, making those depending on it for self worth super zealous.
bandyaboot 3y ago
I don’t know a lot about this subject and am definitely open to my perception being wrong, but reading about the opposition to this makes we wonder whether it’s akin to the south during the civil war—“we want to secede because of injustices against us, totally not because we want to keep slavery”.
- mkoubaa 3y ago
  That's more retroactive. The confederates didn't have any shame about their motivations when they seceded.
  - chargingmarmot 3y ago
    I'm not sure what you're arguing, but I don't think its true that the claim "we want to secede because of injustices against us" was retroactive. see: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati... "The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union." I think there's a tendency for discussions about the south's position in the civil war to end up with slavery poisoning the well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well
    - bandyaboot 3y ago
      It wasn’t necessarily retroactive, but it was always pretense. edit: see Texas’ declaration of secession for what it looked like when they weren’t shy about saying the quiet part out loud.
      - chargingmarmot 3y ago
        This one is called a circumstantial ad hominem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Circumstantial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Circumstantial
yumraj 3y ago
Did you ever analyze if this was purely due to your caste or if it was due to you being perceived (real or not I don’t know) as someone who is from the reserved category and hence benefited from reservation in college admission. I don’t give a shit about caste, never have, and for most part can’t tell based on last names, but I’ll be honest that even after decades I still feel a little raw about reservation. And therein lies the rub, as in will it or not, these legislations lead to people being unfairly sued for caste discrimination upon not getting a job due to lack of capability.
- ramraj07 3y ago
  As mentioned, I’m only slightly lower than the uppermost caste, so I’m not in any extreme reservation category. And I didn’t use reservation either. None of that matters since many of these incidents happen within 15 minutes of the first meeting. Roughly around when they start to realize and ask, “oh, you’re not Brahmin?” Importantly, this question sounds more like trying to find a reason why casteism is justified tbh.
  - yumraj 3y ago
    > Importantly, this question sounds more like trying to find a reason why casteism is justified tbh. No of course it’s not justified, and not sure why you thought I was trying to do that. I apologize if my comment came across like that. I have never been in your shoes, so was trying to understand.
catgary 3y ago
I can’t find the article now, but a Canadian doctor with Dalit ancestry (I think he grew up here) was in the news for firing a medical receptionist on the spot after she made a comment about lower castes. It kind of sucks that South Asians apparently need to be singled out like this, but it seems like a pretty cut-and-dried civil rights issue.

eklavya 3y ago

I am sorry you have had such a bad luck with your company. All the education in the world can't teach basic human decency. You can probably take some solace in the fact that I have not seen any such behaviour in the Indian tech scene so far. Maybe give it a shot and come here (trade a different set of problems). It must be an absolutely horrible of a mix in the US for this to be 8:10.

ramraj07 3y ago
Half of it came during my academic phase though!
- eklavya 3y ago
  Do you mean in India? If you don't mind can you tell me what years those were? I just want to see if I happen to live in a bubble or it was a different time (as in, sufficiently long ago for me to not see it).
  - ramraj07 3y ago
    The academic phase was during my PhD between 2009 and 2017 in Texas. Upper Caste Hindu professors (2) and fellow grad students and postdocs (2). The professors thankfully weren’t my advisors, but made it their business to pester every Indian student during poster presentations if they found they were not upper caste or weren’t behaving as one (by eating or dating habits).
    - catgary 3y ago
      You can absolutely still report them, if you’re no longer in the university they don’t have much power to influence your career anymore.
      - ramraj07 3y ago
        I think you might have too much faith in the HR departments of Texas universities :) UT Southwestern is quite famous for protecting its image at all costs.
- catgary 3y ago
  Yeah a professor’s blog post was shared recently that he only felt safe to disclose his caste once he had achieved tenure, and that basically every CS professor of South Asian descent in North America is from the higher castes (as in, the number who aren’t is in the single digits).
lannisterstark 3y ago
> It must be an absolutely horrible of a mix in the US for this to be 8:10. The US is quite large so this is a YMMV thing. I solve this issue by just not associating very much with my ex-countrymen. I get enough of them when I go to visit my parents, I don't need to constantly mingle with more Indians. I have a solid set of diverse friends (one or two are Indian). It helps that in my workplace I tend not to think of anyone as a 'friend' and just keep my interactions professional.
- eklavya 3y ago
  I don't understand how educated people behave this way. I have seen this in illiterates but modern educated people behaving this way is absolutely mind boggling.
  - ScoobleDoodle 3y ago
    What do you mean by “behave this way”? I have no idea what in particular you’re referring to. It could be parent. Or something in grand parent and you’re supporting parent.
    - Philpax 3y ago
      Pretty sure they're referring to the act of caste discrimination.
    - eklavya 3y ago
      If you think the comment was made in good faith with good intentions ;) and you read my reply above, it should be pretty obvious that I am talking about educated people discriminating on the basis of caste.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        You now the bit about Nazis, you can be two of either a) a nice person b) an intelligent person c) a Nazi. I guess the works for all kinds of cases of discrimination.
nabakin 3y ago
Stop downvoting this person, you will make their comment disappear and it's not warranted. They are simply sharing their personal experience and are looking to understand the person they are replying to. And because I know people will wonder: no, I am not Indian and know very little about caste so you can rest assured this isn't a biased response.
numpad0 3y ago
It's not like "these people" haven't heard of that idea of basic human decency, more like they think whatever the books they carry has a priority over someone else's ethics and laws. But teaching them what's correct to a free man is a bit weird and it's also a rather steep slippery slope towards Chinese Uighur camp situation, so these problems are starting to grow and compound everywhere in developed worlds.
- catlover76 3y ago
  > But teaching them what's correct to a free man is a bit weird and it's also a rather steep slippery slope towards Chinese Uighur camp situation You think teaching them that it's wrong to discriminate based on caste is a step on "a rather steep slippery slope towards" genocide??
WeylandYutani 3y ago
People take their culture with them. When I was a child there were a lot of scandals about girls disappearing from school because they were married off to a cousin back in Morocco.

whatsup7123 3y ago

The new law that is being passed will not solve your personal issues with socializing. The law is designed to protect you from unfair discrimination by your employer, i.e. being fired due to your caste.

ramraj07 3y ago
Analogy here would be, I’m saying I almost got robbed, robbery is real. You’re coming and saying, “this new law won’t solve your issue, it’s for actual robbery only.”
- whatsup7123 3y ago
  Sorry, maybe I misunderstood. Can you describe a specific incident in your employment history where you were fired from a job or denied a promotion due to your caste or ancestry? You should be able to sue for this right now (even before SB403) with this law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unruh_Civil_Rights_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unruh_Civil_Rights_Act
  - slg 3y ago
    >Can you describe a specific incident in your employment history where you were fired from a job or denied a promotion due to your caste or ancestry? Just clarifying that discrimination doesn't have to result in being fired or passed over for a promotion to count as discrimination.
    - pas 3y ago
      Can you give an example please?
      - slg 3y ago
        IANAL, but basically anything that negatively impacts a protected class and doesn't have a clear business purpose can be argued as discrimination. "Reasonable accommodations" without "undue hardship" are key phrases you will commonly hear as being the expectations for employers. Those accommodations can include stuff like installing ramps for an employee in a wheelchair or granting a new mother time to pump. The employee doesn't have to be fired or denied a promotion, simply making their job or life more difficult is often enough to be considered discrimination.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

FreshStart 3y ago

It's the classic melting pot dissolving identities, making those depending on it for self worth super zealous.

bandyaboot 3y ago

I don’t know a lot about this subject and am definitely open to my perception being wrong, but reading about the opposition to this makes we wonder whether it’s akin to the south during the civil war—“we want to secede because of injustices against us, totally not because we want to keep slavery”.

mkoubaa 3y ago
That's more retroactive. The confederates didn't have any shame about their motivations when they seceded.
- chargingmarmot 3y ago
  I'm not sure what you're arguing, but I don't think its true that the claim "we want to secede because of injustices against us" was retroactive. see: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati... "The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union." I think there's a tendency for discussions about the south's position in the civil war to end up with slavery poisoning the well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well
  - bandyaboot 3y ago
    It wasn’t necessarily retroactive, but it was always pretense. edit: see Texas’ declaration of secession for what it looked like when they weren’t shy about saying the quiet part out loud.
    - chargingmarmot 3y ago
      This one is called a circumstantial ad hominem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Circumstantial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Circumstantial

yumraj 3y ago

Did you ever analyze if this was purely due to your caste or if it was due to you being perceived (real or not I don’t know) as someone who is from the reserved category and hence benefited from reservation in college admission. I don’t give a shit about caste, never have, and for most part can’t tell based on last names, but I’ll be honest that even after decades I still feel a little raw about reservation. And therein lies the rub, as in will it or not, these legislations lead to people being unfairly sued for caste discrimination upon not getting a job due to lack of capability.

ramraj07 3y ago
As mentioned, I’m only slightly lower than the uppermost caste, so I’m not in any extreme reservation category. And I didn’t use reservation either. None of that matters since many of these incidents happen within 15 minutes of the first meeting. Roughly around when they start to realize and ask, “oh, you’re not Brahmin?” Importantly, this question sounds more like trying to find a reason why casteism is justified tbh.
- yumraj 3y ago
  > Importantly, this question sounds more like trying to find a reason why casteism is justified tbh. No of course it’s not justified, and not sure why you thought I was trying to do that. I apologize if my comment came across like that. I have never been in your shoes, so was trying to understand.

catgary 3y ago

I can’t find the article now, but a Canadian doctor with Dalit ancestry (I think he grew up here) was in the news for firing a medical receptionist on the spot after she made a comment about lower castes. It kind of sucks that South Asians apparently need to be singled out like this, but it seems like a pretty cut-and-dried civil rights issue.