At the first level, the Indians who say there’s lots of discrimination against Indians—the folks getting Apu cancelled—get a lot of air time, but aren’t representative. My point is that the same thing may apply to low caste Indians too. The views of this Dalit activist may or may reflect the experience of low caste Indian Americans.
But aren't often those the people who need that sort of representation the most? Even if 90%[0] of Indians aren't discriminated against, the 10% who suffer discrimination absolutely deserve representation and redress.
[0] Apparently 90% of Indian immigrants in the US are high-caste, so funny how that statistic might seem to line up. This of course makes sense, since low-caste people are probably less likely to be able to obtain the education and financial resources necessary to move to a different country.
It's talking about the kind of racism you see on H1B threads here, like the outright confession of violating federal law that I once saw in a comment "I stopped giving interviews to Indians because I found they lie in the resume".
When you engage in activism on behalf of $GROUP you’re affecting the relationship of everyone in the group with the larger society.
On the other hand, if you are successful at being convincing (and loud enough) for a minority community you can achieve a lot of good! LGBTQ+ activists have made the lives of young non-binary folks so much better in just the last 30 years: they are a minority, but they were loud and convincing that "maybe we should treat people equally (e.g. right to marry) even if their sexual proclivities are different from our own!"
Groups that really change the shape of society ultimately have to be loud if they're underrepresented, and make a lot of people uncomfortable. Frederick Douglass was a free black man, which was rare for the time. He used his very minority voice to make a racket that helped propel centuries of social change for the better. Would you prefer he didn't succeed / couldn't have a platform? It's still up to loud minority communities to actually be convincing, after all. All the hate campaigning like those "god hates fags" stuff won't ever get anywhere because it's not convincing to most people.
I disagree with that—the question matters either way. Activism creates conflict, and ordinary members of minority groups may or may not feel like the conflict is justified in comparison to the actual scope of the problem.
Other Indians at Google objected to this activist as being anti-Hindu. At the very least bringing this sort of advocacy into the workplace creates the potential for conflict. Depending on the actual scope of the caste discrimination problem, members of lower castes may or may not feel like the potential for conflict is worthwhile.
A lot of industries are based on the idea of "I don't care if people think they're superior to me as long as they pay me." The savvier ones even exploit this: "I'll get people to think they're superior to others because they pay me" (see: Apple, Rolls Royce, DeBeers, BMW, Louis Vitton, and every other luxury brand). American society is uniquely suited to this sort of mercenary economic climbing, because it brings together lots of people who have no knowledge of each others' previous social hierarchies anyway.
Por que no los dos? This is such a tired take -- how is activism at odds with getting good at what you do and working hard? You can absolutely do both. In fact, some of the most helpful activists are folks who made it and give a helping hand to others (e.g. successful black businessmen teaching other black folks to be successful businessmen; successful women in tech helping other women to succeed in tech).
You do realize that this very "capitalism as the great equalizer" take ignores that being underrepresented / disadvantaged also very negatively affects one's economic prospects. Say I'm a woman -- looking at that rare woman in tech who's overcome many sexist hurdles / gotten lucky enough to make it to the top, are you telling me I should be cool with my odds being shittier?
White folks already love yelling about affirmative action because it lowers your already-low odds so very slightly when it comes to Ivy League college admittance. But you'll tell minorities "shut up just work hard activism is stupid" in the same breath.
> There's a collectivist, political, external-locus-of-control assumption to your point.
First of all, minorities ARE collectives even if we don't all contribute equally to our collective causes. And representation is political because policy shapes how we are treated and what our lives look like. A democracy by design favors the majority, so minorities need to be politically convincing that their needs are important too. It's okay to work hard at this, it's okay to want the world to be more meritocratic.
Frederick Douglass could have lived as a free black person and had a much better life than other black folks in the US. There were other free blacks who did less for the collective. Instead, he gave a crap about activism, and used his education and ability to make a difference. Wasn't that great? Plenty of white folks running plantations at the time were inconvenienced by this guy saying black folks should be free and that slavery is bad, and I'm sure they said "you're free why do you give a damn." But some people do give a damn about the people around them and the world they hand to their progeny.
Not every activist is their minority's Frederick Douglass, but you can certainly be a point along that spectrum of activist, in accordance with your ability and concern. Saying that minorities should be "too busy making money" to give a crap about how their children will be treated is some hot garbage.
> American society is uniquely suited to this sort of mercenary economic climbing, because it brings together lots of people who have no knowledge of each others' previous social hierarchies anyway.
Guess I won't convince you of the many glass/bamboo/whatever the fuck ceilings that exist, but it seems obvious that people are _absolutely_ bringing knowledge of previous social hierarchies. Talk to some {black folks, women} in tech and see what kind of bullshit they have to put up with that you don't have to. How many female founder stories can you find that talk about counterparts assuming something due to their gender? You simply cannot escape social prejudice and hierarchy (oh wait, you can, if you're a white male! maybe this is why you're confused).
It's like how if you ask for a raise, you will probably be denied. If you make yourself invaluable to the business and then threaten to quit, you will get that raise.
Slavery and Frederick Douglass is actually a pretty good example. White Northern factory owners won the Civil War - look at the Gilded Age that followed, and how "industrialized society" is just "society" now. Blacks did not. The Civil War was followed by Reconstruction; which was followed by Jim Crow; which was followed by 50s segregation; which was followed by the Civil Rights era; which was followed by Nixon's criminalization of crack, marijuana, and all drugs that were associated with "Black" culture, which led to the creation of a permanent Black underclass. We are still having this debate 150+ years later.
There's an order to acquiring power, and it goes technological -> economic -> cultural -> political -> military. If you try to skip steps (forcing economic development without technological modernization, or political power without acquiring economic and cultural power, or military power without consolidating political power) you don't get durable gains, and your system collapses after 10-15 years.
And I was one of those minority children that was treated as hot garbage. I haven't forgotten. That's made me a pretty avid observer of which tactics actually lead to durable shifts in power balance, and simply asking for more power is not one of them.
Isn't this all obvious stuff? None of which refutes the idea that activism moves the needle and is _required_ for minorities to equalize how they're treated.
> Time spent developing skills and seizing opportunities will not be, because it can be done in secret, and if you hit roadblocks just go around them and find other people to do business with.
This sounds untethered from reality. Consider being a black kid who wants to be an engineer in silicon valley. Your entire ethnicity is heavily underrepresented, so you don't have role models / might not even view working as an engineer as something attainable. Okay say you get past that and work hard, you still get fewer opportunities because bias is real and there are so many unwritten rules about how to play this game (get an internship at these companies! talk to startups! this is how to leetcode!) -- you find a lot of these things out via your connections. But if your entire network is underrepresented, how do you break in?
This is to say nothing of unconscious biases that affect you as a minority. Less favorable interpretation of your interview results, less insider information about how to play the game, fewer opportunities offered due to prejudice about your potential, pay gap.
If you hit these roadblocks, pray tell how you "just go around them" ??? If your advice is "don't protest, just work hard and be that lucky 1 person who made it to the top for your race/gender/whatever" that's pretty shit advice.
> It's like how if you ask for a raise, you will probably be denied. If you make yourself invaluable to the business and then threaten to quit, you will get that raise.
That's the problem though. You can't make yourself invaluable or succeed in your career if folks don't take risks on you. If folks don't give you opportunities. There is a huge opportunity gap for folks born black, born female, in systems of power that disadvantage them. Participating in activism to rectify this isn't a waste of time -- if it doesn't directly benefit the participants, it benefits their children.
> And I was one of those minority children that was treated as hot garbage. I haven't forgotten. That's made me a pretty avid observer of which tactics actually lead to durable shifts in power balance, and simply asking for more power is not one of them.
Pray tell what tactics you're talking about other than "get lucky and work hard and hope the system is less biased and more meritocratic than you think" because that's all I'm hearing in your comments. What "durable shift in power balance" was achieved as a result of this advice?
Activism has a great track record. Consider LGBT rights in the country 20 years ago vs today. Would gay marriage be possible today if not for the tireless work of activism?
You're folks to essentially shut up and work hard in the unfair systems they were born into. It's just not going to work for most of them. And it's not "asking for more power" -- it's _fighting_ for equal treatment and _exercising_ the power they already have to multiplicative effect.
Maybe your main gripe is that this takes a long time and doesn't generally pay off monetarily or career-wise for individuals, since you have to spend your money and time for the collective?
But instead of calling this stupid and at odds with success, why not be more honest and realize you can do that AND also work really hard and succeed with the opportunities you've been given. The existence of full-time activists doesn't diminish the contributions of folks who contribute in other ways, and that you can contribute in other ways does not render full-time activists unnecessary.
I think to side with your point ... the vocal extremists have the mic.
> If someone drags it here with them they need to understand its their baggage.
If you're a low-caste Indian working in the US, and your high-caste boss discriminates against you, I think you'd feel pretty pissed at someone trying to claim that you're dragging your baggage with you. It's the high-caste boss that's doing the dragging.
The thing that is the issue, again from the little I read, is that such discrimination is brought by other Indians on the Dalit and it's most defyingly bit something they want imported. I didn't figure or yet what is wanted and how but it's not like this is sintering you can blame them for.
Something like 90% of the Indian immigrants in the US are high-caste (big surprise, lower-caste Indians are less likely to be able to get work visas and travel), so of course this is a minority problem. Certainly not all of that 90% wants to perpetuate the caste system here, but I expect it's not easy to be vocal about it. Doesn't make it any less worthy of investigation, though.
Why do you think this is the case despite one of the most active affirmation programs in the world (just search "Reservation in India" on Wikipedia)? Something like 50-60% of seats in colleges and jobs in the government are reserved for lower castes (not a typo, the Wikipedia page should link you to official Indian constitution websites). I am from India and I genuinely don't know the answer myself.
Don't you think this might have something to do with the representation of low caste Indians in the US, and that they have to be their own advocates? Minorities have to make disproportional noise to get issues that affect them to be heard to the same degree as others. That's just how it is, otherwise our systems would always only advocate for the majority and every single minority would group would be systemically disadvantaged.