The interesting thing about caste is that it's basically invisible: unlike race, you can't tell somebody's caste by looking at them. (There is some correlation to skin color, but there are also plenty of eg Tamil Brahmins who are very dark-skinned.) Which is why caste-conscious Indians meeting new people go through an elaborate dance asking about family name, where they're from, if they're vegetarian etc to figure out their caste.

While in the USA at the moment, I would agree that most racism that's seen is based on clearly-visible skin color, I would argue that's a fairly new development.

My grandparents were born in the 1920s. One side is Polish, the other side is Italian. With the exception of my Grandfather who looked extremely Sicilian, none of them would have their ethnicity readily apparent to someone in the late 30s who may have posted a job with "Poles need not apply". Until they mentioned their surname, of course.

There's plenty of racism still against Jewish people as well, and I would argue that the vast majority of Jewish people are utterly invisible, unless someone jumps through very similar hoops to the Indians you mention, asking about family name etc.

> My grandparents were born in the 1920s. One side is Polish, the other side is Italian.

Columbus Day was started by the Italian community to show that they were 'really American':

> The first national Columbus Day was proclaimed in 1892 by Republican President Benjamin Harrison to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Italian-born explorer Christopher Columbus’s supposed discovery of America.

> But for Harrison, it served another purpose: to help resolve a diplomatic crisis with Italy — and gain support among Italian American voters — after rioters in New Orleans lynched 11 Italian immigrants the year before.

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/10/10/columbus-d...

Italians were not "white" to many Americans:

* https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/12/opinion/colum...

It's often also very local. Everyone knows who some castes are like Patels and Nayars, but how many people in north india know that vellalars are relatively high caste (but not brahman) for instance. And of course the specific relationship between various castes can change village to village.

Indian friend told me that you can know the caste by their last names. And this is true for most last names.

Isn't that true?

True if you know all the caste names, but a lot of caste names in the south don't fit into the four buckets used in the north. Which makes for a very interesting discussion.

Due to the actions of EV Ramaswamy Naicker, a lot of Brahmins from Tamil Nadu were forced to give up their traditional surnames, and made to instead take on their father's names.

Ah, found the racist brahmin. First time I'm hearing this passive aggressive "Naicker" attached to Periyar's name.

I'm torn between calling you out and asking for a source for your claim. Going to do both.

Salty much? Plz link to source lol.

I'm also curious handling about other races. İf, say, a brahmin, on average, favor a brahmin over a white/black/asian/etc.

Surely if caste implies a class, that has to have bias for/against others too

The law should simply say: do you observe any beliefs that make you treat a group of people in a favorable or unfavorable way, based on criteria other than academic or professional qualifications? If so, you should declare your conflict of interest at the beginning of each meeting and document and be excluded from professional decisions involving hiring, firing, promotions, etc.

Ideally, this should also apply to investors not only employers.

Replace "academic and professional qualifications" with "competence-based merit", in order to avoid committing credentialism which can become yet another form of arbitrary clique-like discrimination.

Is "according to my personal experience this person generally knows what they're talking about" a professional qualification, or are you thinking more like formal certs?

The person who claims they have no such beliefs is lying.

When you remove the human element (including intuition, tacit knowledge, reading of social-behavioral cues, and subjective assessments of temperament and character), you're going to get absurdities that cost society way more than any conceivable benefit.

>The person who claims they have no such beliefs is lying.

prove it.

Anyway, doesn't seem likely, there are first of all various medical and psychological conditions in which intuition, reading of social-behavioral cues, and subjective assessments of temperament and character are impacted, which would mean that some people with these conditions would not be prone to the beliefs that come from these states.

Furthermore there are wide variances in humans as to how much one accepts tradition, authority, how much one searches out newness etc.

given all these factors it strikes me as unlikely that every human would be susceptible to the beliefs that probably affect most of the population around them.

I am however perfectly content to say the person who has no such beliefs is an outlier.

You have four candidates who are all the same on paper--have the same qualifications, experience, etc--and will be serving as a critical liaison between your customers and the technical team.

Which one do you hire?

(1) The candidate with a face tattoo and ear gauges (holes) who was observed to "roll coal" when he left the interview in a lifted truck with entirely too many skulls and anarchist emblems.

(2) The one with an extremely thick accent that is near unintelligible. [HR says he has a top TOEFL score and satisfies the "speaks English" requirement.]

(3) The candidate who showed up a little late, a little underdressed, a little distracted--maybe demure--, and who just generally didn't seem to want the job.

(4) The candidate who is enthusiastic, pleasant, good at small talk, and who uses the "do you have any questions for us?" part of the interview to ask surprisingly pertinent/proactive questions about the challenges your team is facing instead of focusing on benefits/pay etc.

You might argue that many of the attributes I've mentioned are valid "professional qualifications". But remember, that term--under OPs law--will not be your notion of qualifications: it'll be a contorted mess of statue plus case law plus HR policies plus things you can clearly articulate in advance in the job criteria and prove to some jury against a plantiff with a sob story.

first of all you said there was nobody immune to prejudice, but when called on proving it you turn it into a question about my own immunity, which I never claimed to possess.

second of all this seems like a variation of that old interview question - tell me a reason why we should hire you over any other candidate that had your same skills but had X (I was asked once why should we hire you instead of someone who speaks our language better) to which I replied obviously if you have someone who has all the same skills but one thing better than me you should hire that person.

Going back to the problems that were initially under discussion; The problem that is supposed to be addressed is not candidates who have all the same skills and abilities and how to choose one because at that point you might as well just draw lots. The problem is candidates who have superior skills but are not taken, candidates with inferior skills but right social markers being preferred.

> it'll be a contorted mess of statue plus case law plus HR policies plus things you can clearly articulate in advance in the job criteria

HR policies and clear articulation of job criteria are things the company controls, but in your scenario they seem to be some insurmountable barrier put in place to catch them out. An organization that is damaged by its own HR policies and job criteria should do something to fix that.

>and prove to some jury against a plantiff with a sob story.

If you chose a candidate from a list of candidates that all were exactly the same qualified it seems doubtful that the sob story will be much good.

Finally:

candidate number 1 doesn't seem likely to me because my prejudices tells me the candidate with face tattoos AND ear gauges is most likely a member of Earth First, and is not going to roll coal but will probably have gotten to the interview on skateboard or something else generally environment friendly.

Candidate number 2 so you're saying HR made a mistake and he did not pass the speaks English requirement adequately.

I don't think I would care much about differences between 3 and 4.

Why should it apply to investors? It is no one’s business where an investor chooses to put their money, their goal is to make a return, not uphold some moral code.

Then why have a different moral code for employers and investors?

Caste is discrimination based on religion. The discriminator views the victim as being less deserving based on religious ideology. The religious ideology insists that a person born to a certain caste deserves it based on something they supposedly did in a past lifetime. It thus excuses the prejudicial behavior as a form of cosmic justice.

I can understand that this is how those who participate in caste discrimination may justify it to themselves.

But, I do not see how in the US, that claim somehow makes its way around racial discrimination laws, where to someone not sharing that religious belief, it very much appears as though people are simply discriminating based on ancestry i.e. race.

I do not see why caste based discrimination should be legal given the current law, but high caste people have powerful positions in these important companies. They are politically connected. It may take a while for the case law and EEO machinery to put a stop to it.