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.
Yeah yea, tell that to the people who "ching chong" me whenever I leave the liberal coasts.
Incredible how you people paint one of America's greatest strengths, one that few other countries possess - the willingness to speak about racial problems and create a real _home_ for talented immigrants - as a bad thing. There's a reason people like Jenson Huang and Satya Nadella are not in France, for example.
The "American obsession with racial and gender identity" is a symptom of our desire for a better society and country, unlike the unobsessed French, 22.7% of whom are unwilling to live next to non-white neighbors[1].
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15...
Numbers like that tell you little more than how blunt the French are, and what's considered acceptable to tell a pollster over the phone.
The real data is in the ground truth of ethnic divides.
I'm pretty sure the US's "white flight" phenomenon and its self-segregated inner cities are more pronounced than anything happening in France.
https://www.thelocal.fr/20171020/more-than-570-slums-house-1...
Is it upsetting sometimes? Sure. But it only shows certain people's ignorance. It's not my identity.
Let me try to show my perspective. I come from a culture that is painfully aware of its minority status and a long history of extreme violence directed against it. I believe that the story of our persecution is valuable insofar as it makes us tolerant of others. But I have always believed that the factions in my own ethnic group who use victimhood to explain failures or to bolster their personal identity are committing what might be called "stolen valor". And that it in fact not only reflects negatively on the group, but is deeply corrosive to an individual over time, to frame one's understanding of interactions with the other groups in that way.
In short, even if it's absolutely true, it's a crutch. And when you want to see it everywhere, you can.
There's a blessing in being born different, or in a minority. It makes it easier to separate good people from assholes.
The discussion of racist history and racial integration is extremely important in America. But it's ill served by allowing race to be a marker for our individual identity, or to project an assumption of identity on other people. My people came here to get away from that and, even with discrimination, even being hated by some, to succeed on their personal hard work and their individual merits. Let the haters hate. Be bigger and don't let them define you.
We literally had a mass shooting within the last month that specifically targeted black people.
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?
> 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.
But this really takes the cake. I'm not sure what bizarre leap of logic has led you to believe that the only options are "rank ignorance" and "extremist crusader".
It is very convenient for <the people victimizing you/people made uncomfortable by you pointing this out> if you do just that, though.
For what it’s worth, I am not of Indian descent.
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/...
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.
This is not true, because caste is an (evil) artificial construct which only has ever had one purpose to begin with: To discriminate against people of a lower caste.
Caste is not an ethnic/cultural/biological difference, and it explicitly is about saying some people are better than others. You can't celebrate the differences between castes any more than you can between jailers and prisoners, or masters and slaves. Caste is codified generational inequality.
Computer simulations have proven that completely arbitrary distinctions are still useful genetic indicators of fitness in evolution.
Amazingly, the teacher had done the exact opposite and told the brown-eyed students that they were the smarter group. Now, is that your bias showing?
Rather famously, the point is that the teacher did both.
> But this time, something was different. Elliott noticed that the blue-eyed kids were not as condescending, not as mean, as the brown-eyed kids had been. She asked why.
I think you've also taken the wrong lesson from this: the teacher's point here was that most (all?) forms of identity-based discrimination are learned behaviors. And if a behavior can be learned, it can be unlearned.
At least with vaccines there was a cause/effect behind it. But then yeah, the usual bullshit starts.
Artificial divisions between people only exist as long as people pay attention to them. If you're unable to categorize yourself or others it's really going to be quite hard to have tribal opinions about those divisions.
Eventually "support" for equality among division simply reenforces those divisions. The best way to rid yourselves of the remaining small minority of people sticking to hatred around those divisions is to forget about them and the next generation simply won't understand what they're upset about. Forgetting the division is the last step, not every division is in that phase yet, but many are approaching that territory.
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.
The Portland white woke spiel goes like this: Latinos are non-white, therefore they're being discriminated against, this therefore shapes their lived experience, therefore they must support progressive economics and want to vote Democrat.
Except people don't want to spend their life feeling discriminated against; they want to move up in society. They don't want to base their identity on your exoticized idea of their group suffering.
So sure: Introduce new ways that people can feel like they've been discriminated against. That's the way it's done! More and more identity groups! Caste, why not? Hey, we can even celebrate it.
This white guilt has done nothing but create more and more disharmony and disunity in a country that was founded on being a melting pot and where civil rights and equal rights were fought for, and won.
But this isn't "new" and isn't a "feeling". Caste-based discrimination is real among Indians. This is not even remotely new. And it's not a "feeling". It happens, and it's widespread.
> This white guilt
If you feel guilty, then maybe you should sit down and think about why. I'm a white dude. I don't feel guilty. I feel disappointed, though. Often outraged. But I personally haven't done anything to feel guilty about; I don't think that I am responsible for slavery in the US and hundreds of years of oppression, for example. But if I do do something to feel guilty about, I do my best to acknowledge my fault, and resolve to do better. I'm not sitting around all day wallowing in guilt over my privilege. That serves no one, and is just kinda stupid.
> where civil rights and equal rights were fought for, and won.
That's just not true. Civil rights and equal rights have been fought for over the span of centuries, certainly, but we're not done yet. That particular war is far from being over, and far from being won.
So... how do you square that with preventing a caste bias activist from speaking at Google? What Soundararajan does is quite literally speaking up against people who don't treat others equally.
> So sure: Introduce new ways that people can feel like they've been discriminated against. That's the way it's done! More and more identity groups! Caste, why not? Hey, we can even celebrate it.
That sounded pretty unconditionally dismissive of the issue under discussion. I'm happy you've moderated your tone.
I dunno, man. I just think that, y'know, sometimes discrimination really does happen and I'd like to know when it does. That way I can try and fix it. Not everything is a cult. Most of us are trying to help.
> equal rights were fought for, and won.
Some of them were won, to some extent, leaving plenty of gaps. We've reached civil equality about as well as the USSR reached 'true communism'.
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.
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?
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?
[1]: here's a link to household wealth by race, but they also have many other metrics. pick any one at random, they all show the same story https://www.stlouisfed.org/institute-for-economic-equity/the...
Why are the data for Asian people not shown on those graphs? It only lists Black, Hispanic, and White. Is it because (at least according to the stats on Wikipedia[0], sourced from the US Census) they don't reinforce that narrative? In fact, according to that data, the median white income is ~$66K, which is surpassed by Ghanaians (~$69K), South Africans (~$98K), and Indians (~$150K). I can think of several reasons for that that have nothing to do with racial superiority or systemic oppression. Deciding what must be the cause of the problem ahead of time and claiming anyone who disagrees is a racist is both poor form and ineffective in actually solving problems of inequality.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...
Yes, there are some ethnic groups that have higher median incomes, but that doesn't mean there isn't a racial disparity in america. The fact of the matter is that african americans, as a group, have much less wealth than white americans, as a group. If a person believes this is due to some "inherent racial trait", they're a racist, plain and simple. On the other hand, if one accepts that this is not due to any inherent racial trait, then one has to look at American culture and history with an open mind and try to understand how it came to be that way (the fact that asian americans don't see the same disparities as african americans is an important clue here).
I'm glad to see that you are interested in solving problems of inequality and engaging in a good faith discussion with me on this complex social issue.
From this I think you're (a) allowing that there might be cultural differences correlated with race that are causative; and (b) expressing that it's flatly impossible that there could be (statistically on average) genetic differences that contribute to greater or lesser success depending on the prevailing environment.
Point (b) sounds like a denial of the mechanisms of evolution that we have high confidence are correct, and Lysenkoism more generally. It's not that (b) is necessarily true, but your implication that it cannot possibly be true (or at least that admitting it's true makes one the worst sort of monster) is shutting science out of the discussion before it can even be consulted.
An example of the first; we know that there are genetic differences in average heights of populations, and other physical measures; if a biologist were to tell me, for example, that people with lighter skin were superior at generating Vitamin D from sunlight, I would not be inclined to disbelieve them; there is strong evidence for heritability of traits as fine-grained as political leanings; and so on. Saying that a race has a superior economic position due to these factors is, as far as I can tell, usually insufficient - the differences are minor enough, and usually overshadowed by other factors like noise or culture, that I don't think the math adds up.
But there's also a moral judgement made in the racial superiority argument; that because Race A has higher incidence of traits X, Y, and Z, they deserve a higher place in society/greater wealth/whatever. This is a racist outlook because it prejudges people based on their race rather than their merits, and paints an entire race of individuals with the same brush. Still, this is the argument that many avowed racists have made in the past and many in the present are quite sensitive to it.
The difference is subtle but important; the first meaning acknowledges distinctions between races and ethnicities, but allows for individual variation and places no moral weight on those differences. The second implies that acknowledging differences between races is tantamount to declaring that one race deserves supremacy and obeisance from the others. The difficulty comes from people who believe the implication of the second meaning while hating the conclusion, and that's where you get Blank Slaters and, as you mentioned, Lysenkoism.
Arguing for the first meaning is not productive without disambiguating it from the second.
But the popular culture today is, itself, trying to impute a moral judgment. Where most of us, I think, very much want to get past all this racial BS, we're being forced to view the world through a racial lens so that the "anti-racists" can make a moral judgment about observed differences in outcomes.
Where do you draw the line? Doesn't a straightforward interpretation of free speech and civil discourse demand that we let the assholes be assholes, and not cancel them?
From my perspective on the other side, I find it really weird that a bunch of highly paid, middle aged white professionals (and I'm one too) seem so threatened by college kids yelling about privilege or whatever. College kids have always been assholes. You don't remember meeting (or... being?) them?
Absolutely. My disagreement comes from the presented false dichotomy of the explanation being either racial inferiority - which neither of us believe - or ongoing systemic discrimination which (in my view) can only explain some of the problem. Further, I think that over-reliance on it as an explanation blinds its advocates to other possible causes and therefore other solutions.
Let's take a toy example for simplicity; a game of Monopoly. Systemic economic discrimination would take the form, perhaps, of one player having favorable rules; they get to reroll their dice, or get more money from passing Go!. Clearly unfair, and the solution would be obvious; equalize the rules. However, there are other ways the game can be tilted. If one player starts with more money, i.e. benefits from historical wealth, then they are likely to do win more often. This historical economic oppression is not the same as systemic discrimination - the rules affecting each player can be identical once the game actually begins - and requires different interventions to resolve.
I recall reading some time ago that immigrants to America from African nations tend to do better than the background African-American population, despite often coming with even less than a typical African-American family would have. One would expect them to experience just as much systemic discrimination, and they are just as impoverished as those who have experienced historical economic oppression, so that also does not seem to explain things fully. We can then turn to matters of culture and environment. If one of the players in the hypothetical Monopoly game pursues a non-optimal strategy (by refusing to buy real estate[0] for example) then they are likely to lose even with equal rules and starting assets.
The cultural explanation also helps understand why the Japanese, literally interned as prisoners en masse during World War II, and the Chinese, imported in their thousands as low-wage labor to build the railroads and both banned from owning property until 1952 [1], were able to bounce back into two of the most wealthy population segments in the country. Strong social cohesion and an understanding of long-term beneficial life strategies both help oppressed minorities overcome their situations. This is entirely independent of discrimination, which is why it is so frustrating to see, for example, no less a source than the National Museum of African American History and Culture [2] label traits like "objective thinking," "hard work being the key to success," and "delayed gratification" as aspects of white culture, and therefore alien.
Let's take another example - crime statistics. The "classic" systemic discrimination explanation of higher numbers of black people being incarcerated denies that actual crimes committed are higher and statistics showing that they are is a symptom of racist police forces and justice systems. To solve it, we need police and prison reform, racial sensitivity training, etc. The historical economic oppression explanation instead concedes that yes, black communities tend to have higher crime, but that is because of fewer opportunities available and recommends investment into education, reform of certification and some financial laws to make it easier for small black businesses to get started, and stronger investment into infrastructure to make it easier and safer for the population of inner city communities to access the job market. The cultural explanation also concedes that there is more crime there, and that black people have the power to solve that amongst themselves, by cooperating and developing stronger social norms that discourage violence. In one remarkable example, such an effort gave birth to hip-hop culture [3]!
Each explanation points at part of the problem; I hope you'll agree now that labelling only one as correct and sufficient, and saying that everyone who disagrees with it can only explain the problem through racism is non-productive. Even if the cultural and historical explanations are rooted in systemic discrimination of the past, they demand different solutions in the present to resolve, just as making a playing field even after one player has already accrued a significan advantage would not lead to a fair game.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlKL_EpnSp8 (NSFW, explicit visuals and lyrics) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Alien_Land_Law_of_1... [2]: https://archive.is/gyYNs [3]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-23/disruptin...
I'm not really sure it's an important point though, since most of the things we can/should do to remedy it IMO (medicare for all, ubi/negative income tax, and in general a more expansive social safety net) don't depend on quantifying the harm done to an individual.
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.
Well, then I have no idea at all what my caste is.
you're an American citizen, by many measures the best caste out there :)
The only people who really want to stop awareness of this are people like that manager.
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.
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".
Putting your head in the sand doesn't solve problems. Awareness does.
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
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.