In another significant moment for the movement against caste discrimination in the United States, a Bill to make caste discrimination illegal was passed by the California State Assembly on Monday, August 28, with 50 votes in its favour and only three against it. It was earlier passed by the state’s Senate in May this year. With its passage in the state Assembly, California will become the first US state to ban caste discrimination. The legislation will add caste as a protected category under ‘ancestry’ in California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, Education, and Housing codes.
However, the Bill met strong opposition from a section of Indian-American residents who argue that it will ‘discriminate against Hindus’ and ‘racially profile select communities on the basis of their ethnicity and ancestry for disparate treatment’.
Religious extremists love saying not being able to oppress everyone else is somehow oppressing them…
Saying other groups are equal somehow hurts your group only makes sense if one of your groups foundational beliefs is oppressing others.
And as far as I know that’s not part of Hinduism. But it’s a central tenet of far right extremism
They want to keep harrassing, humilitating, and persecuting people because the alternative is to accept that all humans are indeed equal which means their claim to superiority and pure-veg purity is & has been just b.s . It also means they and their casteist friends and their casteist families and their casteist ancestors are sadistic bastards without a shred of humanity.
The Nazis implemented their Ubermensch-untermensch discrimination for only 12 years, India’s oppresor uppercastes perfected it thousands of years back. Christianity & Islam fucked up their systemised sadistic game by introducing the idea of equality, educating the oppressed, and offering them a way out of the oppressive Hindu caste system.
Meh
Christen missionaries weren’t saying everyone was equal, they were saying Christians were all equal, and they’d go after oppressed minorities because they were most likely to change religions.
Far right religious extremism is the issue, the flavour of religion doesn’t really matter.
Hinduism doesn’t say Hindus are all equal. Christianity and Islam do. There are no castes in Christianity or Islam, and that is the reason many from the oppressed castes renounced Hinduism and accepted those religions. It’s also one of the many reasons why Hindu supremacists hate those religions.
Right. Christianity and Islam say we’re all equal…
Unless of course, you’re lgbtq, or a woman, or an atheist, or a member of another religion, or anyone they don’t like really.
But other than that we’re all equal.
Unless of course, you’re lgbtq, or a woman, or an atheist, or a member of another religion, or anyone they don’t like really.
so does Hinduism. We’re discussing caste here though, which does not exist in Christianity and Islam.
Your argument was that Christianity and Islam preach that we’re all equal. I am saying that is not true (Or actually, that it preaches that while simultaneously preaching the opposite). It simply lacks one layer of inequality.
Every layer of equality mattered and matters to those who face that inequality elsewhere.
Yeah apparently a law that says everyone is equal profiles against Hindus, right. These idiots just want to bring the caste problems from India and spread it even more here.
I’m also surprised it’s Indian-Americans talking about this and not Republicans. There’s been a caste system in the US since its inception based on race and income.
Anyone who is under the impression that Indian-Americans are progressive & hate discrimination needs to know that Indian-Americans carry within them the oppressive caste system that they’ve been trained into by their families & communities since birth.
Even those born outside India are trained into & practice caste oppression. Since developed countries look down on discrimination, so caste atrocities are carried out behind closed doors and in devious ways. Indian newcomers to college/ work place are asked their full name, because the last name/ surname is a caste marker. They’re invited to a pool party to check whether they wear the Brahmin caste thread, or a friendly hand is placed on their left shoulder to check whether they’re wearing the Brahmin caste thread under their clothes. Once info on their caste is gathered, they’ll either be welcomed as one of ‘ours’ or severely discriminated against by the oppressor upper castes a discreetly as possible.
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, a victim of caste oppression, India’s first Law Minister, and the architect of India’s Constitution had said this “If Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Indian caste would become a world problem”
You’re acting like they’re two separate groups, I doubt these far right religious extremists are democrats
You’ll be suprised, Many are good at wearing a progressive mask in public and behaving otherwise in private.
I am Indian and know people who have moved to the US. Irrespective of which party they supported in India, most Indian-Americans support the Democrats in the US. This is because of two reasons:-
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The Indian political landscape is to the left of the US landscape. So right-wing parties in India are often similar, policy-wise, to centrist Democrats or moderate Republicans.
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Even rich, upper-caste Indians face racial discrimination in the US.
1
Lol, suuuuure
???
In the 2020 Carnegie endowment survey, ndian-Americans preferred Biden to Trump 72% to 22%. The three biggest issues for them were economics, healthcare and racism.
From the people whom I know, the biggest concerns were the lack of free healthcare and free / cheap higher education, and racism. Nowadays gun violence and restrictions on abortions are also factors they consider.
Oppressor uppercaste Indians want democratic values, secularism, and affirmative action in countries where they are a minority so that they can benefit from those policies. Where they’hold the reigns of power, they want casteism, religious extremism, and patriarchy.
Exactly. In each situation, they are supporting the party that would benefit them.
Indians fleeing Modi and then voting Biden over trump in America doesn’t mean India is more leftwing than America…
Ah, so that’s the issue. What I meant is that in India, things like food, healthcare, higher education, electricity and internet are free or heavily subsidised. There is also a general expectation that the government should regulate prices of essentials, and even our rightwing parties at least pay lip service to the constitutional principles of socialism and secularism.
So when Indians move to the US, they get much better salaries, but suffer from racism and miss things like cheap healthcare and free uni. So they would support politicians who promise to fix these things, which are usually the Democrats.
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I love how they’re complaining that this will
‘racially profile select communities on the basis of their ethnicity and ancestry for disparate treatment’
when that’s exactly what they’re doing by putting people into castes in the first place. lamf, indeed.
DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offendor) or projection?
Why is this worldnews when it is about a state in a country.
Caste oppression is not confined to ‘a state in a country’. Every pusbback against casteism a win for humanity everywhere, hence this news is in worldnews.
World news was always mostly USA news. Even though they specifically made it to counter news, which is also just USA news. Old Reddit tradition.
What does caste mean?
Caste is associated primarily with cultures of the Indian sub-continent. According to those who practise and promote it, Caste is determined by birth and cannot be changed. Each Caste continues in a state of social paralysis, antagonistic and hostile towards the others’ interests, with inter-marriage discouraged if not prohibited. Whereas, in a class-based system there is the possibility of vertical mobility, this is denied in a Caste-based system.
There are four caste categories, each ranked differently in terms of social honour. Brahmin men are on the very top of the caste pyramid as they authored religious texts on caste and put themselves on top, and their only claim to superiority and excuse for the many cruelties they’ve created & imposed on everyone else is based on the caste system that they created. Dalits & Adivasis are at the very bottom, and are at the receiving end of every violence and indignity that the oppressor castes come up with.
Yet caste discrimination is not limited to South Asian countries. As Indians have migrated outside India to study, work, and stay, they’ve carried the ideology and practice of the caste system with them.
The notion that the Dalit community is by nature ‘impure’ and therefore inherently bound to servitude continues to create social divisions across South Asia. Although Dalits are the most severely affected group, caste-based discrimination ouside India is pervasive, affecting all communities among the South Asian diaspora because of the entrenchment of caste as a social paradigm.
Discrimination based on one’s caste holds similarities to discrimination based on one’s ethnic background or race; members of one group hold prejudice and exercise discrimination towards the group that they deem to be inferior. However, it is important to note that while the discrimination experienced can be similar to racism, caste is different from race.
While ‘race’ is a way of classifying people into groups based on physical traits, ‘caste’ is a system of social stratification, where groups are assigned a way of life defined primarily by occupation. Caste is not just a division of labour, it is the division of labourers.
Caste has no distinguishable physical feature and members of the same ‘race’ group may be of several different caste groups. In Britain for example, Dalits have progressed economically and do not follow their traditional occupations of cleaning toilets and skinning dead animals, but they encounter caste-based discrimination in social interactions. Unlike race discrimination, caste discrimination is intra-racial and is practised among those of the same nationality, ethnic origin and/or cultural background.
Caste in the USA is not direct or obvious though. It is a subtle taboo to even mention its existence. The real caste in the USA is the poverty line and exploitation inherent to capitalism. It is perfectly legal to discriminate for loans, and all of the goods and services available to the poor. Banks, utilities, housing, and the job market are all indirectly discriminatory in ways something like this can not address. This is one way places like India, where caste is a prominent social component, have something of an advantage. They have an addressable issue to fight against in the sociopolitical sphere. Every culture has a caste system to various degrees. I argue that it is harder to fight caste in places where it is not clearly defined and prosecutable. This may seem odd to someone accustomed to a caste dominated system, but here in the USA, this will likely only really apply to a situation where the plaintiff and defendant are both from a culture where caste is an established legal issue.
The real caste in the USA is the poverty line and exploitation inherent to capitalism
that’s a class issue .
This is one way places like India, where caste is a prominent social component, have something of an advantage.
India’s oppressed castes will disagree. Oppressor uppercastes not only have no problems inflicting barbaric violence on the oppressed castes , they also face minimal to no negative consequences for their crimes.
Here’s a recent days old example where a 20-year old Dalit youth and the three young children with him were beaten up, urinated on, and hung upside down. The perps, all oppressor upper caste men, recorded the atrocities they were commiting and circulated its video which should tell you how sure the oppressor castes are of their crimes being taken lightly. The police only filed a report against them after the video they made went viral. They make and circulate such videos as caste pride and to humiliate and terrorie the oppresed castes even more.
Oppressor castes too have their sociapolitical spheres who act vocally &sometimes silently to ensure caste oppession foes unpunished. Oppressor castes are wealthier, have greater political representation, and almost all in positions of power are fromthe oppressor upper castes. which is why even after 77 years of Independence, caste atrocities are rampant in India.
This may seem odd to someone accustomed to a caste dominated system, but here in the USA, this will likely only really apply to a situation where the plaintiff and defendant are both from a culture where caste is an established legal issue.
Caste discrimination is a problem in every place where oppressor upper castes come across those who they think should be oppressed, both inside India and outside. It is a global problem, but not discussed much because most of the diaspora Indians who are vocal and visible are also mostly from the oppressor upper castes.
Your passion is admirable.
In the USA these same issues manifest in our enormous prison system. The imprisoned minorities are facing the same bias and direct oppression.
The illusion of equality and justice in the USA is only amongst those that have not directly experienced it. The cost of any serious court case in the USA will cost upwards of $100,000, due to how the system works and the reliance on academically credentialed (opinion mercenaries or so called) expert witnesses. If you do not have the funds in reserve, there is no chance of you winning a court case.
Housing in the USA is completely unaffordable for the average person to have ownership. All of our consumer markets are monopolies where the price of goods are artificially 3-4 times what they would cost in true free market capitalism. All of the consumer and labor protections mechanisms in the USA have been defunded or made legally inaccessible for the average person. Wages have completely stagnated for the average skill worker over the last 40 years while housing has increased 6-10 fold in the same period, mostly due to foreign investors that are allowed to complete with buyers in the domestic housing market.
We are also constantly pushed to buy products and services by subscription with corporations working very hard to monopolize markets for these goods and services. This has eroded ownership and property rights to the extreme. The only difference between a citizen and a serf is the right of ownership. The lower class of the USA is under a new age of corporate dominated feudalism. This is direct and blatant theft from a group of people with no effective voice. The antiquated two party political system in the USA suppresses true democracy. The system is funded by super rich and corporate anonymous donors. Ordinary people have no effective voice in the USA. Corruption at the highest level of the legislature, the supreme court, is common knowledge and a meme at this point.
Social services for the elderly and disabled are totally inadequate and provide less than the minimum wage. The suicide rate amongst the poor is large. All the school shootings and violence in the USA are because of the hopeless pressure individuals and families are under. It is disenfranchisement of people in general. It isn’t just class. Class has mobility. In the USA, mobility is an illusion. This illusion is subtly hidden in a way that makes it impossible to target and fix. If you do not already have funds to exploit in the USA, you will never have the chance at social mobility. Every aspect of this is institutionalized. In this place, there is nothing more expensive than being poor. Everything you need will exploit you. Every product you can afford will break prematurely, every vital service will employ every means possible to exploit you with manipulation and hidden fees.
These issues are everywhere in the USA, but there is no group or caste to fight against. We despise the billionaires, but the issue is far more perverse than these 750 parasites, it is systemic. Caste sucks. I get it, but we are fighting mostly the same problems. I’m just facing a far less obvious opponent.
I appreciate you putting it all here. and yes, we’re all fighting similar problems.
India’s oppressed castes have borne the brunt of caste oppression in silence for thousands of years (I’m not even exaggerating), because Indian civilization denied them a voice and normalised caste oppression. Caste has now become an obvious opponent, because oppressed castes speak about the caste atrocities and humiliations they suffer, risking violence if they need to. And because Dr. Babaaheb Ambedkar took steps to shine light on its barbarity.
The good people at Castewatch UK have explained it better than me when they say :
While ‘race’ is a way of classifying people into groups based on physical traits, ‘caste’ is a system of social stratification, where groups are assigned a way of life defined primarily by occupation. Caste has no distinguishable physical feature and members of the same ‘race’ group may be of several different caste groups. In Britain for example, Dalits have progressed economically and do not follow their traditional occupations of cleaning toilets and skinning dead animals, but they encounter caste-based discrimination in social interactions. Unlike race discrimination, caste discrimination is intra-racial and is practised among those of the same nationality, ethnic origin and/or cultural background.
Your class can change in the United States but caste is something you are born into and cannot change. Doesn’t make it any less made up, but it’s still not the same thing at all.
Caste and class are different things.
