2) The caste system is very prevalent. It also leads to corruption similarly as Rick Warren found tribalism was the cause of corruption in Africa.

3) How many white-black mixed marriages do you see in America? Not many. Most kids up for adoption are biracial black-white. The prejudices remain over here in the USA - at least in relationships. Read the chapter on preferences in interracial dating in the book Freakonomics.

There could be a number of factors that determine the difference between university entrance scores for different racial groups. While those places are free, lower caste groups may be too worried about feeding themselves, or trying to protect themselves in rough environments, to worry about studying. They could also be, in general, less genetically gifted.

Though unpopular, it is no more racist to state the second options than it is to analyse the difference between African and European performance in athletic sports. People once though that a more athletic society was responsible for the generally better performance of Africans. these days most sports physiologists will acknowledge that African people have a genetically higher percentage of 'fast twitch' muscles.

Just because something is unpalatable does not mean it shouldn't be discussed.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=59891

wow. did not know that.

By the way I know several people from lower castes who are super intelligent. And forced hereditary occupations are a thing of the past EVERYWHERE. Even in Bihar, our most backward state, you can't FORCE someone from the lower cast to stick to a profession (which is why Lalu Prasad Yadav, our railway minister and his party came to power, by fighting for Dalits, or at least claiming to).

Make no mistake, the caste system is very prevalent but you don't need to exaggerate to make your point.

My room mate was from the untouchable caste (translation for Americans). He was super intelligent too - managed to leave the country and got 2 post graduate degrees in the USA, trained himself to run marathons.

regarding your comment on hereditary occupations, please read this article

And no, I am not a brahmin.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2231011.stm

"In the dead of the night, when the city of six million goes to sleep, groups of jobless low-caste Hindus, known as Dalits, eke out a living by removing human excrement from pits in the poorer neighbourhoods of the city."

the word 'caste' comes from the Sanskrit 'Varna' which means 'skin color'.

see http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl...

Other than that, there are clear differences in race genetically. Caste, in the Indian sense, is much harder to argue and would have to say the differences are minimal since it is more recent on an evolutionary timescale. Exceptions are when there was forced selection, such as with the slave trade which lead to the descendants of slaves being larger and stronger than those still in Africa. If there is a physical difference in appearance, then there is a high probability of other genetic differences. A perfect example is the distribution of immunity to HIV. It's really only in Europe, specifically Northern and Eastern Europe. Different geographic areas have had different selecting forces over thousands of years, so the populations are different.

The caste system is definitely racist and a much much bigger problem but this whole linking of skin color to castes is just not true.

Also, I wonder what it is that makes black-white marriages taboo, while asian-white marriages are almost becoming the norm in some places.

The irony is that there has been reservation for people from lower castes in government jobs and schools across the country and they pay much lower fees and get in with fewer marks. So you now have people from higher castes changing their names to lower castes to cheat and get into schools easily and also pay less.

"what it is that makes black-white marriages taboo"

Black Americans are a lower caste - Unfortunately. How many wealthy intellectual white-black marriages do you see? Few. But now Hispanics are the new ------ in America today. (a certain word that I wont use)

(I look Hispanic myself, and realized how much they are disliked when my wife observed that I receive glares and cold stares from strangers).

With what I know about the Indian education system, it is impossible to make it into the best schools without a great deal of personal wealth.

you are mistaken. The best Universities are almost free - subsidized by the government. (However in high schools, those that are English speaking Western schools do require wealth). Only brains counts. The IIT Math entrance exam is said to be the toughest in the world (google for past qs papers).

When you have a society where bribing is the norm (nothing is possible without a bribe basically, and even then its not guaranteed), the people with wealth are obviously going to be the ones to benefit most and stay on top. No matter how intelligent, if you don't have the money for the bribes, you can't get anywhere.

Yes K to 12 level education needs money but University admissions do not depend at all on what school you attended, only on your score in the Std 12 exam held by the state or an entrance exam. Further there are 25 - 50% reservations for poor people from lower castes in most Universities. So yes bribing is a big problem and so is casteism but one place where the problem is close to non existent is higher education.

It is like saying, if you studied in public school in small town america, you cannot get into Harvard.

Your small town analogy doesn't work. A better analogy is if you went to a poor inner city public school, then you can't get into Harvard. This is basically true, since you don't receive a good enough education to get the scores to get in. Also, if your family is poor, especially in India, you have to work to support your family and self rather than focus on your school work, which leads to lower grades and test scores.

Further, there is actually reservation for poor people from lower castes (25 - 50% of the seats). So it's not the same thing. I don't disagree with ingenium that better socio-economic opportunities help richer people do better, but the discrimination against lower caste people is not systemic in higher education.

It's just a fact that people with more wealth have better socioeconomic opportunity than people with less wealth, not that they're more intelligent. This means better schools and better education.