I worked at a company where this was an issue at one point (granted this was one situation among a lot of employees). A manager was pretty much dismissive of everything anyone of a lower caste did / wouldn't communicate with them effectively.
HR absolutely struggled with the issue. The HR folks tasked with dealing with discrimination issues largely had spent their time constructing company wide emails and classes that revolved around white folks discriminating against others / concepts of privilege, absolutely froze when faced with a discrimination issue outside that stereotype.
Long story short legal eventually was the brave one and decided that yes it was discrimination and the manager in question was asked to move on. The folks he refused to work with were compensated and their status in the company (pay scale, etc) was corrected.
As one of my Indian college's observed about the manager in question "If he was white this would have been dealt with sooner."
Credit to my Indian coworkers who really pushed this issue with HR and made legal act in the end. They wanted nothing to do with this kind of behavior.
Most likely they struggled because the legal language in policies was ambiguous on how to handle the situation, therefore opening the room for the manager to pursue action against the company for consequences for their behavior.
It would have been dealt with sooner if the employee was white because (assuming they meant white as in western white skinned person) culturally there isn't an equivalent of caste that would make sense for a white person to act on, and they could have acted based on the other groups listed in the anti-discrimination language.
I think it's good they found a way to go forward with dealing with the manager and compensated the employees. In a visit to India a few years ago I saw a shopkeeper make someone leave the store because of caste, not sure if there are actual laws/regulations about this in place there to simplify the process of handling discrimination. The issue of discrimination is very easy to find anywhere, though, and most often presents in a subtle form of prejudice because many people feel a certain way toward others in another group. Anywhere there aren't enforced laws with legal language that protects a group there will be difficulty dealing with discriminatory practices against said group, because laws have to be specific in the way they are written to allow for their enforcement being simple/easy.
> culturally there isn't an equivalent of caste that would make sense for a white person to act on
Sure there is. People from English-speaking countries & Western Europeans vs "Eastern Europeans" and Latinos.
Ignoring for a moment that using the term "Eastern Europe" is itself hugely problematic, though usually because of ignorance not racism, I have worked in one and heard of several examples where there were huge discrepancies in salaries (much more than CoL-related), raises, promotions etc. between native English speakers and people from the CEE region.
There's absolutely a "caste" system among white people in tech. North Americans, UK, NZ, and AUS first, western Europe second, everyone else fifth.
> Most likely they struggled because the legal language in policies was ambiguous on how to handle the situation, therefore opening the room for the manager to pursue action against the company for consequences for their behavior.
How? Do you really think their language specified that discrimination could only happen from white people to minorities?
> If he was white this would have been dealt with sooner.
I think that if we more or less accurately map the situation into an analogous one involving the class system among whites in North America, then the "lower caste" white person would not even be working there.
> HR absolutely struggled with the issue. The HR folks tasked with dealing with discrimination issues largely had spent their time constructing company wide emails and classes that revolved around white folks discriminating against others / concepts of privilege, absolutely froze when faced with a discrimination issue outside that stereotype.
Cue the pro DEI (i honestly don’t know what it’s called anymore) people claiming this wasn’t “real DEI”.
Not sure what point you're trying to make here. Are you arguing that companies shouldn't have DEI initiatives because they didn't help sufficiently in this case? Do you interpret this as evidence that DEI is somehow bad?
I don’t think this is some sort of malicious conspiracy or evidence of anti whiteness or whatever. Processes are created for the common case and when there is an uncommon scenario, it is new territory for everyone involved and someone has to be responsible. In most corporate environments, nobody wants to be that person so inaction is generally the norm unless the course of action is straightforward or has precedent.
It’s a blind spot in DEI and intersectionality; the idea that an oppressed class can also be an oppressor class, and that it’s not an attribute of the perpetrator’s class at all, but in fact, situational and individual.
I'd imagine this type of situation could also be especially tricky since both sides of it have _some_ claim to minority/victim status.
Not that it isn't still fairly clear what needs to happen, but it's not hard to imagine how even doing the right thing in the right way for the right reasons could end up spun as if it's a squabble over a prayer room or something, like "clueless white HR department fires productive manager after disrespecting his cultural and religious background. When will they ever learn??"
True. This explains maybe the first 5 minutes of the issue. In practice, HR usually leans on Legal for these types of questions. It likely boiled down to “do we want to be sued by a whole team/department because of a bad manager doing unethical thing? Or do we want to get sued by that one manager?” They had to weigh the risk of each since it probably wasn’t clear either way which was the legal thing to do (much like the debates here). They chose wisely in terms of risk and that’s why it came off as “legal’s” choice.
From what I saw I don't think it was malicious at all either. I think the HR team really just sort of froze for a while and didn't know what to do when faced with something new to them.
The frustrating thing for everyone is that it was an obvious case of discrimination and HR stalled for a long time. I don't want to get into details but it played out more like HR had a playbook that was stupid simple and suddenly the role players weren't what they expected and they didn't act.
I'm a white dude, and had an incident a number of years ago in which a group of Indian contractors basically didn't want to work with me because I was a white dude. Used a number of slang racist terms in my direction. I didn't make a stink about it because I was a consultant just there on a short-term project, but it was memorable. As another commenter suggested, even the whole "white people" branding that happens in social media is comical, given centuries of one white group looking down on another white group. I'm glad to see this kind of social dialog about racism / classism in all of its forms and think it is very worthwhile to realize that it isn't just about the stereotype of white (males) hating on everyone else as is generally portrayed.
In the UK, class and ethnicity and accent intersect to create some similarly “invisible to HR” discrimination situations between people who would otherwise be lumped together as white.
I don't understand how you can be so dismissive of HR talking about discrimination while at the same time praising legal for firing someone for discrimination, and compensating people for being discriminated against.
What would you like HR to do about caste-based discrimination? Apparently not send emails, or mention it in classes? You just want them to go straight to firing?
A lot of people are frustrated because if you ask anyone who works in HR at a company with DEI policies, they would say that they are "committed to diversity and inclusion and helping the oppressed" and whatever else they were trained to say. But given what seems like a textbook example of oppressive discrimination, they throw their hands up and say "well, we don't know what to do because the law says we don't have to do anything." Are we really still supposed to believe they're "committed" to anything other than getting paid?
From parents comment I understand: the emails and classes were apparently only addressing white people who discriminate and did not address cast-based discrimination. HR did nothing about the cast-based discrimination. And so parent is dismissive of HR. Only legal took any action there.
The commenter was saying that the classes and emails were geared towards evil whites, not caste issues. That is, they had no idea of how to approach the topic because they (probably?) had no idea about what caste is.
ironic how discrimination classes kinda discriminated against other minorities by focusing mainly on white people. this has to be a The Office plot line
Curious, why did HR "struggled with the issue", and why it was a brave thing to decide that it was discrimination? I hope it's not the so-called multiculturalism.
Not sure why the question, an honest one, got down voted. My assumption was that discrimination is bad, no matter which culture it comes from. So, the HR should investigate or intervene per my assumption. And then per my experience with the western movement, people hesitate to judge other cultures because of the multiculturalism, hence my hope it's not that.
Out of curiosity, for Indians working in America, how hard is it to hide your caste or pretend to be of another caste altogether?
Is this something that comes up in conversation among Indians? Do names tend to correlate to you caste? And if so, do people change them as a way of hiding their family caste?
There are various caste markers that casteist people use to identify the caste of the other person. Some of them include food preferences, accents (yes Indian languages also have different accents). I have seen that people can be casteist on both ends of a spectrum and it’s really hard to tell what marker of yours will be noted by the other party. I’ve seen that most people these days don’t try to pretend about hiding their caste, especially due to the mainstream anti-casteism movements. I personally don’t give a damn about people guessing my caste based on my rural accent and dietary habits.
Edit: I must add that while I’ve seen discussions around caste privileges, but I’ve never been discriminated against based on my caste. The only discrimination I’ve faced is the standard discrimination against non-white peoples.
White americans do this too. Think ozarks. I know plenty of ridiculously smart people from this region, who if they talked about the food they ate or didn't work hard to extinguish their accents would probably not have jobs w/ coastal tech companies.
Name is the biggest marker of all. Last name can give away the case pretty accurately. There are certain parts of India that don't use the traditional family name but even in that case, certain first names are more common among certain groups. (I'm pretty sure I have received mild positive discrimination - more like favorable pre-judgement - based on my name.)
Names in some regions of India correlate strongly with caste. Physical appearance can also be somewhat suggestive. There are however regions in India that have given up the use of last names are adopted new last names as a counter to casteism. Diet also tends to be somewhat indicative - in regions without high prevalence of vegetarianism, castes with high ritual status tend to be vegetarian.
A barrier to casteism in the diaspora (and in higher class circles in cosmopolitan cities in India) is that an Indian from one region of India is unlikely to know the last names of Indians from other regions of India. Likewise with diet, many Brahmins from a vegetarian background adopt a non-vegetarian diet so it's really not a useful distinguisher.
FWIW, I haven't perceived any casteism in tech companies, or anyone trying to ask my caste, and I have an ambiguous last name and eat a meat-heavy diet. There's a decent chance my experiences would be different if I worked in less elite tech companies (e.g. Cisco) rather than top startups / FAANGs.
I'm not Indian American my origins are Caribbean but I have some Indian origins and can offer a few answers from my experience.
> Is this something that comes up in conversation among Indians?
It starts casually with "where are you from?" and the questions get more invasive.
> Do names tend to correlate to you caste?
In India, yes it does family name is derived from caste. I had some friends adopt English names to get from under their caste names. So quite a few Johnsons, Smiths, Matthews, Pauls out there.
> I had some friends adopt English names to get from under their caste names. So quite a few Johnsons, Smiths, Matthews, Pauls out there.
There is an interesting history behind this. When Christian missionaries first arrived in India to spread their religion (in the late 1700s/1800s) they were initially unable to make much progress, but then found success among lower caste Indians by promising them a life of equality. So the vast majority of Christian converts in India are from these castes.
NB: "where are you from?" is a question your HR training should already explicitly tell people not to ask candidates. I'm not in HR or management and I still make sure to mention it to new hires before doing my first interview alongside them. National origin is a protected class. Even within the US , "where are you from?" can proxy for a protected class. Race, mostly, or possibly religion.
It's also a question that's very easy to ask in good faith while making small talk, which makes it noticeably dangerous.
> It starts casually with "where are you from?" and the questions get more invasive.
Whenever I mention to a team member that I was interviewing somebody for a position on our team, they always ask: "are they in India?" I had never really wondered why before.
> In India, yes it does family name is derived from caste.
That is not always correct (but is true in most cases). There are caste-neutral names in India - especially Tamil Nadu. But that itself is a hint about the person's caste, since it is adopted mostly by people of the unprivileged caste.
In the Sikh way of life, first names are gender-neutral and everyone takes the surname Singh or Kaur (deleting the family last name) to specifically combat caste and gender discrimination. I'm speaking of the ideals of the faith here, I know in practice it's different - caste creeps back in, but the Sikh faith began in the late 1400's as a revolution against caste injustice and discrimination.
But isn’t caste still an issue in Sikhism? The very reason why Congress chose a lower caste Sikh chief ministerial candidate in the recent state elections?
Interestingly, I grew up in India but have no clue what my caste is. I could probably ask my parents and they'd know but it has never come up. Religion and sub ethnicity came up a lot more often while growing up. Funnily enough the only ones who have ever asked me about my caste were white people.
I had always assumed the caste system was a thing of the past but looking at how it's still present even at companies in other countries, I imagine I just grew up in a bubble.
Really not surprising considering the size and population of India, but I think the question of real importance is whether you where the one in the bubble or if there are just large bubbles in India were caste is still considered really important.
Not Indian, but a friend told me that most (if not all) of the names do correlate to caste. No idea if people change them, other than for the normal marriage changes.
As a mixed-race individual, I don't face that question by default in the US. There are enough mixed people in the US that I don't get asked "where are you from." But as soon as they realize I'm half-Indian, they will hunt me down and ask me questions. They'll try to ask me my parent's names etc. (names signify caste)
It's sad behavior. If it helps, here's a comment I wrote about my travels in India that might shed some light on the phenomena;
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My travels in India have been revealing.
Caste and class are inextricably linked, and a part of their daily vernacular. They're used as descriptors, "s/he's an X" (as if that means something to me!) And there's a huge coded language with inferences going on. It's a bit like saying, "s/he's jewish". Something that just doesn't happen in the US anymore (unless you're around rather unsavory folks)
It's such a deep part of the milieu that I'm not surprised when I hear stories about it being exported.
True story. I met this Indian woman while working out of the local hipster cafe. We had mutual friends. And ended up going out for lunch.
On the way back, she started asking questions about my background. They grew intensely personal. Until she was interrogating me on the sidewalk.
Unsatisfied with my responses, she just gave up & cut to the chase, "What's your mother's caste?"
Last I checked, she moved to the States and is a contractor for a FAANG.
She's hardly unique though. Indian people cannot stop asking questions. Where are you from? Where were you born? Why's your skin so pale? Where are your parents? What do they do? Where did you go to school? Why aren't you married?
What's worse is that the society is insular. Even in a big city, few people socialize outside of, in descending order of proximity, family > friends of the family > classmates from elementary school > people from their high school > college > (perhaps, sometimes) work.
I have met people who have gone through their entire life without ever meeting someone from a lower social class/caste. Casual greetings with people who clean their homes don't count.
There's a lack of je ne sais quoi. A certain lack of creative energy. A kind of absence of the meeting of free radicals that sparks interesting ideas and art. Culturally, it's as if, the society has submerged itself in halon, determined to not let the sparks of creativity and genius spark.
This problem is so acute that every free radical I've met has done their very best to move away as soon as humanly possible.
From what I understand, there's a huge ledger of names that is used to identify castes. I've seen great performers never get any promotion and the useless becoming senior managers because of their caste. Pretty vicious.
My dad once told me of how at his work (in the 1980s or early 1990s, I think), they had a team of two Indians assigned to a project. One turned out to be of a much "higher" caste than the other, and refused to work with the other, making him utterly useless to the project.
It's good that Apple, IBM and other tech companies are taking steps to prevent this sort of discrimination. It's a shame that Google seems be going in the opposite direction.
The real shame is that living in Delhi, I’ve seen caste come back very strongly in everyday discourse.
I’ve been here almost 20 years. This city used to be largely caste agnostic.
Now when I meet new people, especially outside the elite tech circles, they will casually mention their upper caste status (“As Brahmins, we don’t do xyz of course!”).
Even cars carrying caste stickers are more common.
I remember reading that it’s a big problem at Cisco. In your dad’s example what ended up happening? From your description the guy who refused to work in the higher caste should be fired imo.
It says in the article that Google (and Microsoft, Dell, Amazon + FB/Meta) aren't (yet?) implementing this, but I didn't see anything about them doing the opposite. Additionally I don't imagine they'd gain much from doing so, as a business. Is there any more info on this?
> Just a few months ago in June, Google, whose CEO Sundar Pichai has Indian roots, cancelled a talk on caste discrimination where Dalit rights activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan was supposed to give a presentation. The talk was organised by Google employee Tanuja Gupta.
It’s not the opposite but probably what GP was referring to.
Wouldn't lose much either. I'd argue they'd gain face in today's climate. "DEI best practices aren't just for white people anymore" is probably a good look.
Along with anyone who found this a difficult decision once the facts were clear.
People with these beliefs don't belong anywhere in society where they can oppress others. Just as white people who think blacks are beneath them do not belong in any setting where they can affect a black person.
This is a good step forward but wait until Apple realizes that Indians discriminate on many other factors including but not limited to skin color, state of origin, region of origin (North vs South vs NorthEast), mother tongue, religion (Hindu vs Muslim), Political beliefs (Left vs Right).
Political belief should not be a protected class. It's an opinion- everything else you listed, you're born with/can't change that classification (don't want to get into the weirdness of the religion part, but nearly all religious preference can be predicted by geography).
Both religion and national identity are changeable, they are 'just opinions', but both are key historical examples of protected class.
You can say that both are predicted by geography, but must conflicts happen in situations where populations of different identities are mixed in one geography. Then you can say it can be predicted by parents' opinions, but that is true for many other opinions, including political ones.
In some sense, protection of changeable characteristics is more important than protections of non-changeable characteristics, because bullying based on changeable characteristics can be effective to pressure conversions of victims.
And it is question how political opinion is just an expression of deep personal characteristics that are not much changeable and perhaps even partially given by genetics.
I think this is a reason why Leetcode style interviews are popular. They remove at least one type of bias of race - the ability to solve coding problems. If you can solve Online Assessment, Phone Assessment and Onsites, you keep moving on to the next round, regardless of your race or ethnicity. It is a way for companies to claim that there is no bias in hiring.
well, no.
First companies usually have separate interview for 'cultural fit'.
Second, the thing with discriminations, they can be quite hidden. The 'leetcode style tasks' can be performed very differently. If I as interviewer don't like you, I can do a lot to make sure you don't pass it. Starting from making question harder to understand and end with plain 'strong not hire' for vague reasons even if you did well.
In the end - many companies aren’t super rigorous about whether your code that was written passes a test suite and compiled correctly.
I’ve known a few (token) people who have said that they were able to just “talk their way out of having to do leetcode” when presented with the problems. In my personal experience - there’s no way to do that at FAANG and crew if you’re not part of a special group. You either solve all problems asked optimally while not being part of a group the person hates or you don’t pass.
It’s no coincidence that certain races consistently give me leetcode hards as I’m not in their specific group. It’s also no coincidence they still give me a no when I solve the problem optimally when others give me a yes. ;)
Yeah. “Cultural fit” is de facto discrimination, but you have absolutely no chance to prove it unless they haven’t been told by their lawyers not be stupid enough to put it in writing.
I don't think this is true at all. People who pass the leetcode can still be passed over for "cultural fit" or they may not even make it to the coding portion of the interview at all.
That's because we understand how the system works, and are competitive - it's ingrained in us from childhood how important it is to study and compete and understand the system because there are a billion+ of us and so few opportunities.
This just introduces another type of bias, the "did you just graduate from a top 30 CS school or are you able to spend 6-12 months teaching yourself DS/Algorithms while working full time" bias.
Lots of "Stockholm syndrome" surrounding Leetcode style interviewing practices.
I have this impression that casteism can commonly exist in people that are otherwise progressive and non-racist, is that true? I once had a pen-pal that worked for the UN that at some point told me that she viewed the caste system as a "useful way to organize society". I was rather taken aback since that viewpoint didn't seem to comport with my other impressions of her.
The same people at the forefront of social justice nowadays would likely be considered unforgivably bigoted had they been raised centuries ago. People end up believing a net sum of their cultural and social influences, even if those influences contradict. It's so easy to imbibe nicely packaged cultural trends that people rarely scrutinize the actual moral makeup of their worldview. This pen-pal likely gathered a progressive and non-racist attitude from the UN's human-rights centered hegemony, and a belief in caste systems from the cultural inertia those old practices still have on Indian society, but never put in the effort to ascertain how those two worldviews contradicted.
I find it endlessly impressive how people can hold two perfectly opposing viewpoints and never even notice any contradiction. Good reminder to do an occasional review of ideas one considers obvious.
I'm sure it happens all the time. I think people have blind spots based on their upbringing or ideology that can make them unaware of their own racism/sexism/casteism/whatever. Being progressive doesn't magically make you immune to this.
California treats ancestry as a protected class, and discrimination by ancestry is illegal. Not being a Desi, I struggle to see how this is not already covered.
>> California treats ancestry as a protected class, and discrimination by ancestry is illegal. Not being a Desi, I struggle to see how this is not already covered.
It is covered, but not enforced because evidence is difficult. Caste discrimination in Silicon Valley is usually about putting someone from a lower caste into an impossible project that is destined to fail, and boom...now you've got your PIP quota ready for the coming season.
The insane cases you hear are the egregious cases that are court-worthy.
> It is covered, but not enforced because evidence is difficult. Caste discrimination in Silicon Valley is usually about putting someone from a lower caste into an impossible project that is destined to fail, and boom...now you've got your PIP quota ready for the coming season.
When I hear about insidious things like this it boggles my mind how some people can be so clever in order to be so hurtful. Thanks for educating me.
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HR absolutely struggled with the issue. The HR folks tasked with dealing with discrimination issues largely had spent their time constructing company wide emails and classes that revolved around white folks discriminating against others / concepts of privilege, absolutely froze when faced with a discrimination issue outside that stereotype.
Long story short legal eventually was the brave one and decided that yes it was discrimination and the manager in question was asked to move on. The folks he refused to work with were compensated and their status in the company (pay scale, etc) was corrected.
As one of my Indian college's observed about the manager in question "If he was white this would have been dealt with sooner."
Credit to my Indian coworkers who really pushed this issue with HR and made legal act in the end. They wanted nothing to do with this kind of behavior.
It would have been dealt with sooner if the employee was white because (assuming they meant white as in western white skinned person) culturally there isn't an equivalent of caste that would make sense for a white person to act on, and they could have acted based on the other groups listed in the anti-discrimination language.
I think it's good they found a way to go forward with dealing with the manager and compensated the employees. In a visit to India a few years ago I saw a shopkeeper make someone leave the store because of caste, not sure if there are actual laws/regulations about this in place there to simplify the process of handling discrimination. The issue of discrimination is very easy to find anywhere, though, and most often presents in a subtle form of prejudice because many people feel a certain way toward others in another group. Anywhere there aren't enforced laws with legal language that protects a group there will be difficulty dealing with discriminatory practices against said group, because laws have to be specific in the way they are written to allow for their enforcement being simple/easy.
Sure there is. People from English-speaking countries & Western Europeans vs "Eastern Europeans" and Latinos.
Ignoring for a moment that using the term "Eastern Europe" is itself hugely problematic, though usually because of ignorance not racism, I have worked in one and heard of several examples where there were huge discrepancies in salaries (much more than CoL-related), raises, promotions etc. between native English speakers and people from the CEE region.
There's absolutely a "caste" system among white people in tech. North Americans, UK, NZ, and AUS first, western Europe second, everyone else fifth.
How? Do you really think their language specified that discrimination could only happen from white people to minorities?
I think that if we more or less accurately map the situation into an analogous one involving the class system among whites in North America, then the "lower caste" white person would not even be working there.
Cue the pro DEI (i honestly don’t know what it’s called anymore) people claiming this wasn’t “real DEI”.
Not that it isn't still fairly clear what needs to happen, but it's not hard to imagine how even doing the right thing in the right way for the right reasons could end up spun as if it's a squabble over a prayer room or something, like "clueless white HR department fires productive manager after disrespecting his cultural and religious background. When will they ever learn??"
The frustrating thing for everyone is that it was an obvious case of discrimination and HR stalled for a long time. I don't want to get into details but it played out more like HR had a playbook that was stupid simple and suddenly the role players weren't what they expected and they didn't act.
Meanwhile everyone knew it was discrimination.
What would you like HR to do about caste-based discrimination? Apparently not send emails, or mention it in classes? You just want them to go straight to firing?
Assuming it is clear cut discrimination, yes. Especially when it's a manager doing it.
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Is this something that comes up in conversation among Indians? Do names tend to correlate to you caste? And if so, do people change them as a way of hiding their family caste?
Edit: I must add that while I’ve seen discussions around caste privileges, but I’ve never been discriminated against based on my caste. The only discrimination I’ve faced is the standard discrimination against non-white peoples.
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A barrier to casteism in the diaspora (and in higher class circles in cosmopolitan cities in India) is that an Indian from one region of India is unlikely to know the last names of Indians from other regions of India. Likewise with diet, many Brahmins from a vegetarian background adopt a non-vegetarian diet so it's really not a useful distinguisher.
FWIW, I haven't perceived any casteism in tech companies, or anyone trying to ask my caste, and I have an ambiguous last name and eat a meat-heavy diet. There's a decent chance my experiences would be different if I worked in less elite tech companies (e.g. Cisco) rather than top startups / FAANGs.
That's not true afaik. It's usually to cover up cousin marriages.
> Is this something that comes up in conversation among Indians?
It starts casually with "where are you from?" and the questions get more invasive.
> Do names tend to correlate to you caste?
In India, yes it does family name is derived from caste. I had some friends adopt English names to get from under their caste names. So quite a few Johnsons, Smiths, Matthews, Pauls out there.
There is an interesting history behind this. When Christian missionaries first arrived in India to spread their religion (in the late 1700s/1800s) they were initially unable to make much progress, but then found success among lower caste Indians by promising them a life of equality. So the vast majority of Christian converts in India are from these castes.
It's also a question that's very easy to ask in good faith while making small talk, which makes it noticeably dangerous.
Whenever I mention to a team member that I was interviewing somebody for a position on our team, they always ask: "are they in India?" I had never really wondered why before.
That is not always correct (but is true in most cases). There are caste-neutral names in India - especially Tamil Nadu. But that itself is a hint about the person's caste, since it is adopted mostly by people of the unprivileged caste.
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I had always assumed the caste system was a thing of the past but looking at how it's still present even at companies in other countries, I imagine I just grew up in a bubble.
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Inter-caste marriages are also extremely rare.
It's sad behavior. If it helps, here's a comment I wrote about my travels in India that might shed some light on the phenomena;
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My travels in India have been revealing.
Caste and class are inextricably linked, and a part of their daily vernacular. They're used as descriptors, "s/he's an X" (as if that means something to me!) And there's a huge coded language with inferences going on. It's a bit like saying, "s/he's jewish". Something that just doesn't happen in the US anymore (unless you're around rather unsavory folks)
It's such a deep part of the milieu that I'm not surprised when I hear stories about it being exported.
True story. I met this Indian woman while working out of the local hipster cafe. We had mutual friends. And ended up going out for lunch.
On the way back, she started asking questions about my background. They grew intensely personal. Until she was interrogating me on the sidewalk.
Unsatisfied with my responses, she just gave up & cut to the chase, "What's your mother's caste?"
Last I checked, she moved to the States and is a contractor for a FAANG.
She's hardly unique though. Indian people cannot stop asking questions. Where are you from? Where were you born? Why's your skin so pale? Where are your parents? What do they do? Where did you go to school? Why aren't you married?
What's worse is that the society is insular. Even in a big city, few people socialize outside of, in descending order of proximity, family > friends of the family > classmates from elementary school > people from their high school > college > (perhaps, sometimes) work.
I have met people who have gone through their entire life without ever meeting someone from a lower social class/caste. Casual greetings with people who clean their homes don't count.
There's a lack of je ne sais quoi. A certain lack of creative energy. A kind of absence of the meeting of free radicals that sparks interesting ideas and art. Culturally, it's as if, the society has submerged itself in halon, determined to not let the sparks of creativity and genius spark.
This problem is so acute that every free radical I've met has done their very best to move away as soon as humanly possible.
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It's good that Apple, IBM and other tech companies are taking steps to prevent this sort of discrimination. It's a shame that Google seems be going in the opposite direction.
I’ve been here almost 20 years. This city used to be largely caste agnostic.
Now when I meet new people, especially outside the elite tech circles, they will casually mention their upper caste status (“As Brahmins, we don’t do xyz of course!”).
Even cars carrying caste stickers are more common.
> Just a few months ago in June, Google, whose CEO Sundar Pichai has Indian roots, cancelled a talk on caste discrimination where Dalit rights activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan was supposed to give a presentation. The talk was organised by Google employee Tanuja Gupta.
It’s not the opposite but probably what GP was referring to.
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People with these beliefs don't belong anywhere in society where they can oppress others. Just as white people who think blacks are beneath them do not belong in any setting where they can affect a black person.
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You can say that both are predicted by geography, but must conflicts happen in situations where populations of different identities are mixed in one geography. Then you can say it can be predicted by parents' opinions, but that is true for many other opinions, including political ones.
In some sense, protection of changeable characteristics is more important than protections of non-changeable characteristics, because bullying based on changeable characteristics can be effective to pressure conversions of victims.
And it is question how political opinion is just an expression of deep personal characteristics that are not much changeable and perhaps even partially given by genetics.
Also, political belief is highly predictable based on demographic information such as geography, race, religion, and sex.
In the end - many companies aren’t super rigorous about whether your code that was written passes a test suite and compiled correctly.
I’ve known a few (token) people who have said that they were able to just “talk their way out of having to do leetcode” when presented with the problems. In my personal experience - there’s no way to do that at FAANG and crew if you’re not part of a special group. You either solve all problems asked optimally while not being part of a group the person hates or you don’t pass.
It’s no coincidence that certain races consistently give me leetcode hards as I’m not in their specific group. It’s also no coincidence they still give me a no when I solve the problem optimally when others give me a yes. ;)
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Lots of "Stockholm syndrome" surrounding Leetcode style interviewing practices.
Racism has technically been banned in the United States wholesale since the Civil Rights act, yet we struggle with the effects still today.
This is a step in a right direction, but it should be seen as only as the beginning.
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There is a fair chance that even low caste members will be brought into a team ahead of non-Indians for managers so-disposed.
Gandhi also slept with his underage niece to test whether he can control his sexual desires after adopting celibacy.
It is covered, but not enforced because evidence is difficult. Caste discrimination in Silicon Valley is usually about putting someone from a lower caste into an impossible project that is destined to fail, and boom...now you've got your PIP quota ready for the coming season.
The insane cases you hear are the egregious cases that are court-worthy.
When I hear about insidious things like this it boggles my mind how some people can be so clever in order to be so hurtful. Thanks for educating me.