4 ms·

Aren’t castes like micro races? Brahmins at least seem to look different to me, and I believe Brahmins discriminating against non Brahmins is the main issue (in

Aren’t castes like micro races? Brahmins at least seem to look different to me, and I believe Brahmins discriminating against non Brahmins is the main issue (in Silicon Valley at least). If that’s the case isn’t this already technically illegal as racial discrimination? It’s not like “Indian” is a race really, there is a lot of variation inside of it.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> Aren’t castes like micro races? In that they are groups socially constructed inherited ascribed identities to which social status and significance are attached, yes, they are “like” races. > If that’s the case isn’t this already technically illegal as racial discrimination? There are arguments that the various forms of caste discrimination are or necessarily involve ancestry, racial, ethnic, nationality, and/or religious discrimination as defined in law prior to this, but it's an extra hurdle to make people separately prove that the particular discrimination fits into what is established as one or more of those categories, rather than having “perceived position in a system of social stratification on the basis of inherited status” explicitly included in the definition of “ancestry”, which removes the need for each individual subject to sucb discrimination to make the case that it is in one of the prohibited categories rather than something somewhat similar but not included.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  > In that they are groups socially constructed inherited ascribed identities to which social status and significance are attached, yes, they are “like” races. It would be more historically correct here to say that the whole notion as found in the Americas of 'race' as a system of pervasive discrimination and unequal status was explicitly designed to be "like" caste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    Sure, if we were talking about history of the terms/concepts and not application of existing (before the explicit prohibition of caste discrimination) law applicable in California, that would be a more relevant (though not any more accurate) description.
Groxx 3y ago
In concept, in a lot of ways: yeah, it fits. Or it's extremely similar in goals and mentality anyway. In legal terms: it's massively different because non-Brahmin isn't legally recognized as a protected minority race, so there are essentially no explicit guards or support in place. Pretty much only the legal use of any of this is relevant for a legal blocker on discrimination, so it can get oddly pedantic at times. The goal is to stop widely-known and well-documented discrimination, but the terms are whatever will achieve that in a legal environment.
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
  > protected minority race Is this a legal concept in the USA? I thought it just left it at “race” and everything legally was symmetric across all “races” (though perhaps not always in practice).
  - Groxx 3y ago
    Essentially. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group For this case, you'll need to get X to be legally recognized as a distinct race from Y (that has not happened in this case), and minority races have MUCH more protection than ones that are seen as a majority. It also tends to be sensitive to employment statistics broadly and in an area, and "Indian" is often not "under-represented" even if some sub-races are being massively oppressed. It's more of a "yes, race is a protected characteristic. that doesn't mean it matches your definition of race" thing. You could probably successfully sue on it and get it effectively recognized via that precedent, but it'll be a substantial legal battle to get there and many cases do not establish legal precedent.
kurthr 3y ago
Actually, one of the issues I saw in a company with a large Indian population ~20% was that some brahmin would discriminate (and talk smack) about other brahmin (by name/family) who didn't dilligetly follow (eg dietary) rules. I've occasionally seen catholics, baptists, jews, and muslims do sumilar things. A-holes gonna a-hole.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > some brahmin would discriminate (and talk smack) about other brahmin (by name/family) who didn't dilligetly follow (eg dietary) rules At the workplace, this is plain-vanilla religious discrimination: discriminating against someone based on how they practice their faith.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Aren’t castes like micro races? Yes. A combination of prohibitions on inter-caste marriage and the propensity for the upper castes—the ruling classes—to interbreed with India’s rotating cast of West Eurasian conquerors has lead to genetic differentiation between its castes [1]. That said, clarifying this statutorily is cleaner than punting to the judiciary. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC311057/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC311057/
viciousvoxel 3y ago
IANAL but I think you're basically right, however judges and lawyers are human and may not be aware of these finer granularity "micro-races". I'd like to think this bill is a case of "explicit is better than implicit"
- singleshot_ 3y ago
  I’m much more interested to see how a law like this could be applied to a bunch of, say, white or Hispanic farmers in the Central Valley once some extremely creative lawyers get some time to think about it.
hiatus 3y ago
Isn't caste a hierarchical social system? Are races hierarchical?
- hef19898 3y ago
  Just ask the lobsters.
- msla 3y ago
  > Are races hierarchical? They are among people who want to discriminate on the basis of race.
- danans 3y ago
  The complex interactions between the many migrations of humans into South Asia over millenia and the social patterns, restrictions, and norms that emerged with those resulted in caste being both a racial and social construct at once. A more historically recent but analogous scenario is the social and racial structure of Latin America, wherein those with more white European ancestry tend to have higher social status compared to those with more indigenous ancestry. Most people have some of both, but in the logic of such systems, proportions of ancestry matter, and phenotypical visual appearance is used as a proxy to gauge this, whether in South Asia or Latin America. Also, the connection between South Asia and Latin America's rationalization of their social systems is not coincidental. The term "caste" itself is derived from the Portuguese word "casta" used by traders in South Asia to describe the prevalent social structure they encountered. They (and the Spanish) quite deliberately imported this model to their colonies in the Americas.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- RedNifre 3y ago
  Yes? Wasn't that the entire point of racism in the first place?
  - hiatus 3y ago

dragonwriter 3y ago

> Aren’t castes like micro races? In that they are groups socially constructed inherited ascribed identities to which social status and significance are attached, yes, they are “like” races. > If that’s the case isn’t this already technically illegal as racial discrimination? There are arguments that the various forms of caste discrimination are or necessarily involve ancestry, racial, ethnic, nationality, and/or religious discrimination as defined in law prior to this, but it's an extra hurdle to make people separately prove that the particular discrimination fits into what is established as one or more of those categories, rather than having “perceived position in a system of social stratification on the basis of inherited status” explicitly included in the definition of “ancestry”, which removes the need for each individual subject to sucb discrimination to make the case that it is in one of the prohibited categories rather than something somewhat similar but not included.

zozbot234 3y ago
> In that they are groups socially constructed inherited ascribed identities to which social status and significance are attached, yes, they are “like” races. It would be more historically correct here to say that the whole notion as found in the Americas of 'race' as a system of pervasive discrimination and unequal status was explicitly designed to be "like" caste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  Sure, if we were talking about history of the terms/concepts and not application of existing (before the explicit prohibition of caste discrimination) law applicable in California, that would be a more relevant (though not any more accurate) description.

Groxx 3y ago

In concept, in a lot of ways: yeah, it fits. Or it's extremely similar in goals and mentality anyway. In legal terms: it's massively different because non-Brahmin isn't legally recognized as a protected minority race, so there are essentially no explicit guards or support in place. Pretty much only the legal use of any of this is relevant for a legal blocker on discrimination, so it can get oddly pedantic at times. The goal is to stop widely-known and well-documented discrimination, but the terms are whatever will achieve that in a legal environment.

pfannkuchen 3y ago
> protected minority race Is this a legal concept in the USA? I thought it just left it at “race” and everything legally was symmetric across all “races” (though perhaps not always in practice).
- Groxx 3y ago
  Essentially. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group For this case, you'll need to get X to be legally recognized as a distinct race from Y (that has not happened in this case), and minority races have MUCH more protection than ones that are seen as a majority. It also tends to be sensitive to employment statistics broadly and in an area, and "Indian" is often not "under-represented" even if some sub-races are being massively oppressed. It's more of a "yes, race is a protected characteristic. that doesn't mean it matches your definition of race" thing. You could probably successfully sue on it and get it effectively recognized via that precedent, but it'll be a substantial legal battle to get there and many cases do not establish legal precedent.

kurthr 3y ago

Actually, one of the issues I saw in a company with a large Indian population ~20% was that some brahmin would discriminate (and talk smack) about other brahmin (by name/family) who didn't dilligetly follow (eg dietary) rules. I've occasionally seen catholics, baptists, jews, and muslims do sumilar things. A-holes gonna a-hole.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> some brahmin would discriminate (and talk smack) about other brahmin (by name/family) who didn't dilligetly follow (eg dietary) rules At the workplace, this is plain-vanilla religious discrimination: discriminating against someone based on how they practice their faith.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Aren’t castes like micro races? Yes. A combination of prohibitions on inter-caste marriage and the propensity for the upper castes—the ruling classes—to interbreed with India’s rotating cast of West Eurasian conquerors has lead to genetic differentiation between its castes [1]. That said, clarifying this statutorily is cleaner than punting to the judiciary. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC311057/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC311057/

viciousvoxel 3y ago

IANAL but I think you're basically right, however judges and lawyers are human and may not be aware of these finer granularity "micro-races". I'd like to think this bill is a case of "explicit is better than implicit"

singleshot_ 3y ago
I’m much more interested to see how a law like this could be applied to a bunch of, say, white or Hispanic farmers in the Central Valley once some extremely creative lawyers get some time to think about it.

hiatus 3y ago

Isn't caste a hierarchical social system? Are races hierarchical?

hef19898 3y ago
Just ask the lobsters.
msla 3y ago
> Are races hierarchical? They are among people who want to discriminate on the basis of race.
danans 3y ago
The complex interactions between the many migrations of humans into South Asia over millenia and the social patterns, restrictions, and norms that emerged with those resulted in caste being both a racial and social construct at once. A more historically recent but analogous scenario is the social and racial structure of Latin America, wherein those with more white European ancestry tend to have higher social status compared to those with more indigenous ancestry. Most people have some of both, but in the logic of such systems, proportions of ancestry matter, and phenotypical visual appearance is used as a proxy to gauge this, whether in South Asia or Latin America. Also, the connection between South Asia and Latin America's rationalization of their social systems is not coincidental. The term "caste" itself is derived from the Portuguese word "casta" used by traders in South Asia to describe the prevalent social structure they encountered. They (and the Spanish) quite deliberately imported this model to their colonies in the Americas.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
RedNifre 3y ago
Yes? Wasn't that the entire point of racism in the first place?
- hiatus 3y ago