by frb on 8/11/22, 1:33 PM with 253 comments
by flak48 on 8/11/22, 2:14 PM
They seem to focus on this blanket ban against discussing this issue at Google, as the discriminatory act - rather than alleging that actual caste discrimination is being perpetrated at Google (for the most part).
They do however seem to point to two examples of rumoured alleged casteism at Google (I think):
"I think the Cisco case is probably the most publicly known example—is that, within a team, when you’ve got people who are caste privileged and caste oppressed, the people who are caste oppressed start to be given inferior assignments, get treated differently, left out of meetings, which are certainly things that I heard from Google employees within the company. "
"Asking things like “What’s your last name? I’m not familiar with it.” Then, when the manager hears that last name, they’re, like, “Oh, so you’re from this caste—no wonder you have these leadership skills.” Things like that. And somebody else in the room is, like, “What the hell?” It’s those different types of experiences that I’ve seen or that have been shared with me that show that caste discrimination is happening in the workplace.
By the tone of the article/employee I'm confused whether the employee is discussing hearsay based on examples of how discrimination could be occuring at Google - based on what they read about stuff at Cisco or elsewhere (perhaps with the intention of explaining why such issues could be relevant to discuss at Google) - or if they actually met Google employees facing these issues.
I wonder if the journalist themselves are trying to intentionally conflate the issues of 1) actual caste discrimination possibly taking place and 2) not being allowed to talk about casteism
Either way censoring internal talks about employee grievances/ possible workplace discrimination/discrimination outside the workplace (which one was the talk going to be about!?) is not a good look on Google - given that they've always tried to paint an image a company that lets its employees openly discuss anything for the most part.
by Karawebnetwork on 8/11/22, 2:02 PM
And another (2020): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23697083
---
One good resource (imo as an outsider) from the recent one is this:
"As a Dalit myself, I wrote a Dalit 101 for non Indian audience. https://thelit.substack.com/p/dalit-101" by user thelit (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31595663)
by John23832 on 8/11/22, 2:00 PM
When I worked as a software engineer are capital one earlier in my career, thus was a very noticeable trend.
You had entire teams/groups (and to some extent geographical regions given the way the capital one workforce was split between Richmond Virginia, McLean Virginia, and NYC) where particular castes grouped together.
It became particularly acute when you took into account who was on visa/sponsored and who was not.
by isoprophlex on 8/11/22, 1:54 PM
I'm a native western european so I'm likely blind to some extend for these issues. Like the article says, this sounds like harmful class-ism that silences or disadvantages specific groups, but not in an "obviously" racist manner based on skin color.
Anyone care to share some real life experience? Was this a problem in your workplace? How did you detect this was going on, at all?
by glibmelody on 8/11/22, 3:05 PM
- The accuser was hired to a coveted project by the manager, where every member was among the highest paid employees in Cisco (millions in total take home). Even among those people, the accuser was among the highest paid.
- The accuser was supposedly discriminated by not getting a $5,000 raise after the annual performance appraisals.
- The accuser was passed over for promotion, but the person appointed as the leader / successor by the manager was also of the same, supposedly discriminated caste.
- The accuser and the manager went to school together, studied every class for 4 years together, and the accuser was hired to this coveted position by this supposedly discriminatory manager.
by woweoe on 8/11/22, 2:42 PM
A few decades ago during the Cold War, there were several large scale anti-caste movements, and this caused a lot of the moneyed upper caste (note that many of the upper caste are poor) to flee to the US where money often open doors. The immigration to the UK and the other English speaking countries tended to be more varied and more middle class based on skills (doctors, engineers, etc...).
It's widely known within India that a notable portion of the upper caste are based in the US, but in India the IT industry is one of the most caste-blind industries in India, along with how the majority of the IT industry is based in South India where casteism is traditionally less.
by jrsj on 8/11/22, 2:24 PM
I wonder if these two things are connected. In some cases is this going beyond just caste discrimination and becoming something like a recreation of a caste system within the company itself? And why are we incapable of even discussing whether or not these things are happening despite them being blatantly illegal?
by jaywalk on 8/11/22, 2:22 PM
If the talk was standard DEI fare (shitting on white men) I'm sure any complaints would have been ignored.
by _fat_santa on 8/11/22, 2:02 PM
by vsr_pg on 8/11/22, 2:09 PM
by JumpCrisscross on 8/11/22, 2:38 PM
So I can see someone who is not themselves discriminating on the basis of caste taking offence to someone suggesting it exists. Add Google’s elitist culture (nothing wrong with that per se, but it creates blind spots) and I can see how reasonable people may conclude the problem doesn’t exist.
That said, internal activism is unlikely to be effective. By the time it worked for e.g. racism, it was an established problem in popular opinion and the law. Companies generally aren’t at the vanguard of social change.
We need legislation and case law. In that respect, firing the organiser was a strategic blunder—it frees her to meaningfully penalise Google.
by hcarvalhoalves on 8/11/22, 2:13 PM
It seems an increasing disbelief in politics and democracy has moved these discussions from public forums to private companies. This is problematic, as it’s not in a private company interest to promote discussion (even if it’s pretending to do so, for PR or legal reasons), neither is it a power equilibrium since a company can just fire you at will.
by Aunche on 8/11/22, 2:19 PM
>You don’t get to claim or hijack one form of discrimination to perpetuate another form.
And yet from the Hindu's perspective, this is exactly what Gupta is doing. The only instances of caste discrimination Gupta can recall are anecdotes of "coded speech". Meanwhile, I'm sure that many Hindus feel that anti-caste-discrimination is coded speech. If there's a lesson to be learned, it's that using feelings as a rationale for argument is completely counterproductive.
by nojito on 8/11/22, 2:28 PM
Now that I am a more senior in my career, I’ve made it my mission to always call it out when it happens.
I hope others start doing it as well.
by fleddr on 8/11/22, 3:23 PM
Other than the fact that perhaps they should spend time on actually working, the typical activist method cannot ever succeed. It starts with some sweeping assertion affecting a large group: men oppress women, this cast has a bias to this cast, white people discriminate against black people.
So it starts with a sweeping accusation. Which is presented as fact. The accused can't bring forward any counter point as this confirms the accusation, according to activist logic. Instead, you need to sit down and be "educated" and humiliated on things you don't even agree you did, as an individual.
We shouldn't be surprised that this approach makes people angry and creates even more division. Activism, DEI and its struggle sessions are wildly unpopular and ineffective.
Recently there was a good article (a serious one, I promise, from a progressive research institute) concluding the same: DEI in corporates is a massive failure. It's done nothing to progress any cause, instead deepened division. In extremer cases it even ends in a shouting/bullying match.
Vague sweeping claims do not work. If you have a case of discrimination, document it the best you can, have a good story with tangible evidence. And then take it forward.
by winternett on 8/11/22, 2:32 PM
Just the other day I remembered how as a young guy I was once dating a Korean girl in college and how our relationship fizzled quickly the minute I met her parents... And how I was working long hours on a job and being so stressed by management that I was grinding my teeth in my sleep, even though I was a manager myself, while 2 colleagues I was supposed to lead got away with constantly not being technical enough to support a project at all.
It's something special to be referred to by a sitting president (meant to reflect and represent everyone) and hear him say the words "My African American", and to observe memes that creatively play with a word that was used as my family members and ancestors have historically been abused to, or to see even things like Juneteenth Ice Cream coming from huge corporations that don't hire people like me to consult them time after time to properly address the issues...
It's also not surprising that discrimination is ingrained in many things in our world, and that so many people would easily say they are against hate and division, but are unaware of how it is upheld and sustained by apathy towards the micro aggressions that are embedded in it.
It is truly epic when someone of dark skin tone can navigate through and overcome the adversity created by old world ignorance, and it's even more special when they see it as an opportunity to represent everyone properly despite the adversity they encountered. It's also rare to find people that truly aren't bound in their word and actions by some sort of historical and psychological bias in terms of the dark history of this world... It's an every day struggle which rarely gets talked about, and an internal conflict that many people deal with, and more often reason out irrationally. This bias also translates into company policy, into platform algorithms, into service delivery, into everything.
If your company photos from leadership levels to the development room don't truly reflect diversity, the people in charge often end up multiplying the blindness to cultural bias in everything they do until it makes the news...
It works in both and all ways, and screws everything about a company, product, and service up... Royally.
by carapace on 8/11/22, 3:08 PM
Let's talk about Google's caste system.
There are at least two main castes at Google: The "Googlers" who get all the perks, and the support staff who do all the work and get far fewer perks. The upper caste gets meals, those nifty buses, medical care, etc. The lower caste does not get all those things (I think they get meals, but not in the same cafeteria) and they are specifically trained not to get familiar with the upper caste. In fact, they can get in trouble for fraternizing with the "real" Googlers.
It's worth noting that the upper caste is made up mostly of white, Chinese, or Indian folks while the lower caste is mostly Mexican (in CA that means anyone from south of the border from Mexico to Chile and Argentina), Filipino, and some Arab people. (There are very few black people working at Google.)
Google is progressive in the sense that they don't hate their servant class, but they are just as caste-conscious, if you will, as Indian culture.
by 40acres on 8/11/22, 2:09 PM
by rdtsc on 8/11/22, 3:45 PM
That’s one way to play the system - outvictim the victim! Well done. Who can prove they really felt unsafe or just wanted to keep the issue hidden and perpetuate caste discrimination.
by treyfitty on 8/11/22, 2:44 PM
by vanderZwan on 8/11/22, 4:01 PM
by kthejoker2 on 8/12/22, 2:30 PM
The number of people in this HN thread without the critical thinking skills to understand that is astounding.
by anonymoushn on 8/11/22, 3:25 PM
It seems like if you said there was discrimination against tall white men, people would also deny that.
by bsedlm on 8/11/22, 2:26 PM
as I see it, such phrases are a goal, an intention, more than they are a reality.
we need to keep working perpetually in pursuit of such an ideal goal, but just pretending we do not live in a caste (or tiered) society does not really do anything to achieve this goal.
this is the my point: to pretend that tiers (or castes) do not exist does not move us any closer to the stated ideal goal.
the more direct action I can think of is to dissasociate what somebody does to earn a living from their social status.
by mitchbob on 8/15/22, 2:06 PM
by pc86 on 8/11/22, 2:23 PM
by ggfdh on 8/11/22, 3:30 PM
by bko on 8/11/22, 2:04 PM
Seems a bit extreme. Even questioning whether caste discrimination in the US or Google is a large problem is enough to get you lumped into Holocaust denial territory.
> People can absolutely discriminate based on caste by essentially denying it and not wanting to learn about it.
What makes discrimination bad is the arbitrary nature. If you don't know the arbitrary classifications of groups, and you're making decisions on something tangible that presumably affects the person's skill set, then is it discrimination if it correlates with some arbitrary distinction you're not aware of?
by remflight on 8/11/22, 2:15 PM
by ldjkfkdsjnv on 8/11/22, 1:54 PM
by wikitopian on 8/11/22, 2:14 PM
People can be truly diverse, including in ways that other people find offensive, objectionable, or unacceptable, when they're not forced to share the same physical spaces.
The question of how google should solve the complex and confusing world of indian caste politics is a stupid question. Google should fix their search results and leave fixing India to Indians.
by hobabaObama on 8/11/22, 2:04 PM
Why shouldnt the talk be allowed?
What harm could it do to raise awareness about this very practical issue that Dalits face day in and day out for centuries.
Google employees who had this talks cancelled are ultimate COWARDS and should be ashamed of themselves.
by AcerbicZero on 8/11/22, 2:05 PM
by AuthorizedHelp on 8/11/22, 1:58 PM
by shultays on 8/11/22, 1:51 PM
Why did you want to join Google, and what did you feel about the place when you did?
tanuja gupta: I started working at Google in 2011. I had been working as a program manager in engineering and software for about a decade, but Google was top of the top. Of course you want a career at a great company. That was a product that I used day in and day out. It was a great opportunity
by lampshades on 8/11/22, 2:26 PM
Regardless of what the New Yorker thinks.
Edit: Bring in the downvotes, I welcome them. It’s clear to me that white lives don’t matter to the HN crowd, but that doesn’t surprise me at all considering the main people who come here are white people from California who grew up in completely white society and now have a savior complex. That’s an American caste system nobody wants to talk about right there, the way coastal whites treat everyone else.
by georgia_peach on 8/11/22, 2:58 PM
> *I have wondered if the high Asian population is one reason why San Francisco has such conspicuous homelessness. Western religion has some egalitarian ideas such as “The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
> On the other hand if you think a person's fortune now depends on karma they got from past lives then you might think it is a virtuous thing to perpetuate people's misery.
by anovikov on 8/11/22, 1:46 PM