From what I understood, the former Google employee being interviewed here is discussing the problem of not being allowed to discuss 'caste discrimination in India', eg. during Uttar Pradesh elections - and in companies like Cisco.
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.
You forgot the most important statement from which is clear casteism is a rising problem:
>"T.G.: There was my own obvious background. My parents immigrated from India in the early nineteen-eighties. I was certainly familiar with the topic. In September, 2021, two employees approached me. I hosted D.E.I. office hours every week where people could come in and talk about these topics, confidentially, and multiple Google employees came into my office and reported that they had faced discrimination when trying to talk about matters of caste in the workplace. There was already a public condemnation of caste discrimination at Google from the Alphabet workers’ union. They had put out a press statement when the Cisco case broke. There were reports from at least twenty Google employees as well. [In June, 2020, California sued Cisco and two of its managers for engaging in caste discrimination. Afterward, Equality Labs received complaints from more than two hundred and fifty tech workers, including twenty Google employees.]"
> 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
Seems weird to me that a ban on talking about discrimination wouldn't automatically be seen as being discriminatory rather than somehow the reverse.
(Outside looking in perspective. I am not Indian.)
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.
Saw this at American Express. In many cases, VPs and Directors were actually cousins or even siblings. This was a decade ago. Fast forward to now, and they are at the top of many NYC banks running IT divisions, the same group that worked together so many years ago. Theres an invisible network in many large corporations and none of the jobs are available to employees of those corporations
One company I worked at in a major US city allowed individual teams to perform their own hiring. The division I was in had employees mostly from outside the US, and the autonomy given to each team led them to form their own to ethnic enclaves. There was a team of Indians, Chinese, Koreans, etc. When I first started, I couldn't believe it. That doesn't happen merely by change, at least not that pervasively and consistently.
I wonder if anti-bias training for Indian hiring managers have would any effect? Or would taking the hiring of Indians need to be made by non-Indians in order to avoid this bias?
Additionally, there is some selection-bias as well. In other words, do we measure against the Indian pop in the US (or Canada, etc) or against the proportions in India itself and when doing so raw numbers, or number of graduates or graduates from the IITs?
As someone doing management in a company that hires many Indian workers, both in on-shore and off-shore teams, this is a highly relevant topic for me.
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?
Part of it is to do with emigration from India to the US (where money talks) during the communist Cold War era when there was discrimination against upper castes in India (and note that an upper caste person may not have much money). In the UK and other English speaking countries, immigration was varied and across a much longer time period with predominantly middle class and skilled people.
I've read the details of the original california lawsuit against cisco, and it seemed to be a blatant attempt by the accuser to get back at his colleague and manager, in the guise of caste discrimination. It was subsequently sensationalized by the media.
- 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.
If someone wants some more background information.
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.
I've also heard rumors about discrimination by Indian managers against non-Indian employees at the largest employers in my city. I'm inclined to believe this is true as I've heard from multiple people who worked there that most of engineering management consists of upper caste Indians now but that group represents a relatively small minority of engineering as a whole.
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?
This happens all the time in Canada. When you have a large ethnic majority and they start identifying with the language and start bringing toxic work culture with management fully aware of the issues and exploiting this.
For example for a startup I worked for in Vancouver had a large Chinese/Russian majority in the development team. They would stay behind past working hours and require me to do the same. When I left early they reported me. They also started to bully and talking only in Chinese or Russian.
It was absolutely a shock and not a surprise why Canada has a brain drain going on. I don't even have any beef with these groups since I have friends from those community that grew up here but for whatever reason, those guys at that startup specifically chose to isolate ppl that didn't speak their language.
It was a modern day sweatshop and it was weird seeing even Taiwanese engineers who also grew up here for less than a decade participate in this toxic behavior.
My mistake was expecting Canadian work culture and expecting others to follow it and the management who were white canadians knew exactly their culture and exploited it.
Just more and more reasons to leave Vancouver. Happened to my friend who were with Indian engineers too, funny thing is they discriminate based on caste which confuses a lot of Indians from island nations, south america.
This rings somewhat true but I have no proof. What I do know is that when I was searching for a new job recently is I had nearly 100% success making it to a full loop interview with non-Indian hiring managers/tech screeners, and I never advanced in the hiring process when the initial manager screening me was Indian.
It's abundantly clear that any discrimination against non-favored groups is ignored and in cases promoted/celebrated. Heck, I live in a country with anti-white and pro-black laws/regulations. Minorities here plainly get denied jobs due to the color of their skin and no one bats an eye.
I'm all for fairness for all, no matter their race, but seeing what I've seen in person is very eye opening. I no longer have sympathy for DEI and other such initiatives because they will always be targeted against white people and males, no matter the state of equity/fairness in the world.
> The Google spokesperson told The New Yorker, "We made the decision not to move forward with this proposed talk which was pulling employees apart rather than bringing our community together and raising awareness."
If the talk was standard DEI fare (shitting on white men) I'm sure any complaints would have been ignored.
lol claims of white people being the victims are so not ignored that it's common discussion fodder right here on this board, and Oracle has been sued for not hiring white people in certain roles
I don't know why Google (or really all the tech companies in SV) aren't taking this far more seriously. I feel like it opens them up to lawsuits and with the weight they hold, a company like Google can easily institute a zero tolerance policy against it. Send a message that if you do this, you're getting kicked to the curb.
Caste is not a protected class in US employment law. Arguably there might be a basis for a suit if you could show that it reasonably projects onto an existing protected class, but it's not clear to me that you could.
Having an Indian CEO makes Google a lightning rod for this discussion. You are right to suggest that it needs to be taken more seriously at all tech companies.
I am ashamed to say I did not have an appreciation for its perniciousness when one employee from India made caste-based comments about another one, a decade ago, in my presence.
>I don't know why Google (or really all the tech companies in SV) aren't taking this far more seriously
The CEO of Google being a Brahmin is a pretty good reason. Either (1) he knows there's discrimination but he won't pursue because it calls into question his own legitimacy or (2) having risen through the ranks since 2004 as a Brahmin he knows there's no real problem with discrimination.
I take no position on the broader issue of the article, but I was shocked to see that Isaac Chotiner (a repeat India-related article writer at New Yorker) failed to mention that Narendra Modi is an OBC in the context of describing the BJP's caste base. Truly, an egregious oversight and one that misleads readers.
> “The right-wing Hindu movement in India has historically not been associated with people from underprivileged castes, and those people have generally been less supportive of the movement“
My understanding is that BJP has come to power under an OBC wave, both in UP in 2022, and in the North 2019.
India is going through a ethnic nationalist revival. That creates a victimhood complex in which criticism is taken as animosity towards the group, whether that be all Indians or Hindu Indians.
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.
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.
>Numerous employees within the company expressed the view that any talk on caste discrimination was offensive to them as Hindus, and made them feel unsafe.
>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.
The DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) forum is pretty unambiguously the forum to talk about caste discrimination. What forum is Gupta "highjacking" to talk about caste in your opinion?
The lesson to be learned is, if you are offended by someone saying they experienced oppression/discrimination, really, look inward.
There might also be employees who spend their personal time on stormfront dot org and feel that all sorts of DEI language is coded speech, but we generally don't regard their opinions as valid.
As a US born individual with immigrant parents, I had NO idea how many times I got scoped for my caste. It’s quite amazing how routine simple questions have ulterior motives behind them.
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'm an unworldly white boy in a sea of Indian immigrants, probably several generations in.
How can I help prevent that kind of discrimination from going on? I don't know what to look for and how to not take part in it.
The simplest solution from a company perspective is to not hire activist type employees. It just never ends well. You may very well find the activist's point valid and just, but it still won't end well in most cases.
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.
Consequently, to filter out the potential troublemakers, for short a period of time encourage “bring your whole self to work”, “open and honest conversations” etc. See who starts to raise issues and then put them on PIP for purely “technical” reasons.
If the system for reporting and handling these cases on an individual basis actually worked then there wouldn't be a problem. The entire point of discussing this is to make those systems work better. Presenting counter arguments is fine, but trying to prevent the discussion from happening does suggest that you benefit from the status quo.
It's wild to me how much of right wing rhetoric on Hacker News is portrayed as "simply how it is" and "activist logic" is portrayed as always wrong, a failure, and counter-productive.
None of the situations described in the parent has ever happened. Nor do any of the scientific studies agree with the positions above that are implied to be facts. However, because it is written dispassionately (even condescendingly) the flaws will be ignored and the sentiment applauded.
We spend so much time talking about the traditional race and class struggles in the United States that we don't really have the capacity to properly deal with and address the issues inserted into race by other world countries.
It bewilders me to this day to think of all the different dynamics that old world thought subtly imposes on the painting that is now...
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.
> 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 traditional American Black/white photos, you are flat-out right. Many of the problems you allude to cannot be fully addressed until leadership is diverse.
In the context of caste, it is challenging for non-Indian Americans to discern the caste differences in such photos.
The Indian caste system is Google's problem to solve?
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.
I think what you are describing is class based rather than caste based. Caste is explicitly based on heredity and is unchangeable. The fact that the two classes are made up mostly of different ethnicities is probably caused by a confounding variable, such as different educational opportunities, as well as discrimination of course.
"support staff who do all the work and get far fewer perks", what do the support staff do? Are they also engineers, or are they the ones doing the non-product work at Google. Since you said they do all the work, I guess they're directly working on the products as well?
How would a non Indian person even tell? Is it really all in the last name? I've worked with a fair amount of Indian folks with a wide variety of names - how would you even go about determining someone's caste? Based on this article it sounds like most people who end up in Big Tech will be upper caste.
Usually dealing with what city they are from, what city are your parents from, are you vegetarian, are you having dessert?
I've never experienced or seen the thread searching. Larger person grabs your shoulder to see if the thread is there. But that wouldn't surprise me at all.
> Numerous employees within the company expressed the view that any talk on caste discrimination was offensive to the
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.
It's not just Google. As a non-Tech non-Indian that previously worked at AmEx, I was shocked to see how many indians there were at AmEx. I was even more shocked to learn that they discriminate based on caste.
For a moment I thought this was going to be more like "allegorically" about castes than about actual castes, since Google also has a history with the former, as highlighted by Andrew Norman Wilson in his 2007 art piece "Workers Leaving the Googleplex"
Sidebar: Anecdotes and personal experiences aren't sufficient evidence to make conclusions about DEI efforts and whether discrimination is occurring, where, to what extent, for or against whom, etc.
The number of people in this HN thread without the critical thinking skills to understand that is astounding.
> The first thing is denial. Saying this doesn’t even exist. That is a form of discrimination. There were messages on e-mail threads that talked about how this isn’t a problem here. If you replace the denial of caste discrimination with the denial of the Holocaust or something like that, it instantly clicks where other people start to realize, “Oh, something’s wrong if people are denying this.”
It seems like if you said there was discrimination against tall white men, people would also deny that.
fact is we live in a tiered society. no matter how many times we repeat to ourselves that "we are all equal" (before the law).
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.
This is not true of traditional American families. In many traditional American families you will have some people that are widely successful and many others that are not. Yes, there are the elites, they are a different class for sure, but the middle and lower classes of American society are not tiered in the way a caste system is. In a caste system, your family is your destiny. Confusing the two is dangerous because it normalizes the caste system, a system that is very economically damaging to a country.
We need to stop calling this a "caste-bias problem" and call it what it is: racism. Just because they're not a distinct ethnicity doesn't mean it's not racism, and the people looking down on others because of their caste are no different than the white guy yelling the n word in traffic. Neither should be tolerated, and if you find yourself working with one, they should be fired. It is antithetical to an open society.
I agree, if only for the purpose of avoiding ignorant comments like "America has a caste system too, rich vs poor" which we often find in these discussions
Isn't racism based on race or ethnic groups. Caste bias can be like a white person judging another white person because one grew up in the Bronx while the other is from New Jersey. That is not racism but classism maybe mixed in with some religious discrimination.
I can understand why Hindus would be resistant to being labeled the “oppressor” in an “oppressor/oppressed” dynamic. Instead of discussing individual discrimination and behavior these discussions always result in the “reverse” hatred where the oppressed group is vilified. See white people in discussions of racism and Christians in discussion of LGBT issues.
> If you replace the denial of caste discrimination with the denial of the Holocaust or something like that, it instantly clicks where other people start to realize, “Oh, something’s wrong if people are denying this.”
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?
Sounds like you are a Brahmin mad about Dalits messing with your status.
>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?
The problem was clearly stated to be discrimination from other Indians against lower class Indians, NOT white managers unknowingly discriminating against low class Indians.
Please don't rage-delete comments. It renders the discussion unreadable because the context is gone.
Believe me, I understand how impossibly frustrating it can be to represent a minority/contrarian view in an internet discussion on an inflammatory topic, but turning over the chessboard and storming off—which is what deleting comments and leaving spiteful remnants in their place amounts to—is not a positive contribution.
If Google doesn't have a blind spot towards caste bias than why where they unable to even have a talk about it? It seems like it's a topic that cannot be discussed and as such I really doubt it doesn't represent a problem
"Google is doing more about any type of inequality than any company on this planet"....
cough...'wealth inequality'...cough
An AP analysis finds that most foreign workers with H-1B visas are paid less than their American counterparts. But for most non-computer science occupations, foreigners are paid more.
A friend once showed me the internal Google meme page and it was so safe and PG that it was unintentionally funny as hell in how lame it was. But I understand it has to be this way in any large company
Just like I can't blast my music tastes on others, not everyone should be subjected to insane Eric Andre humor
Isn't the whole point of edgy humor that it's unsafe? If it's humor you can deploy in any situation without fear of durably offending people, it's not edgy; it's safe, practically by definition.
In the extraordinary effort google does for equity and fairness, is caste bias ever addressed directly, with explanations, the same way gender/race discrimination is?
I can't speak for Google or what goes on there, but one thing that I've learned over my career in this industry is that minority groups, especially those that speak non-English languages, very often have things going on that are not at all visible to non-speakers and those not part of their community.
I've had fellow team members subject to extreme verbal abuse by managers who would stop by their desk and say absolutely horrible things to them in their native language while maintaining otherwise perfect composure. Threatening their visa status, threatening their family reputation, or just threatening to fire them. I've also learned of the out-of-work social pressure they can face because their communities are smaller and insular and so they interact with these folks outside of work, and there can be power dynamics extending to those places that are just not at all visible to other employees or leadership within the organization.
Those peers have had to suffer quietly some of the most abusive workplace relationships I've ever been adjacent to.
Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Another thing that I've learned, is that companies very often talk to the most about the things they suck at the most. For example, one firm that I worked for touted how everything was based on Teamwork. There were teams for everything. Every employee was expected to be on at least 5 teams. 3 "position related" and 2 "organizational" (e.g. The Birthday Part Team). Your annual evaluation wasn't based on your direct manager at all, it was entirely based on feedback from your "teams".
Needless to say, I've never seen a less team-oriented culture in my life. Every single team was entirely dysfunctional. Nothing got done. Epic levels of in-fighting over every little thing.
Anyhow, people usually talk the most about their insecurities. So, just because it's being talked about, with tons of posters and "trainings", doesn't mean anything truly effective is being done. Probably just the opposite.
ps. As a fellow fan of "edgy" humor, you just gotta learn that work isn't where your edgy sense of humor belongs. Even in the "edgy humor" industry, you'll find that people don't like it mixing with "the job". It's how you get fired or have your career ruined. Regardless of Google's internal HR policies, you're gonna need professional references at some point, and if you've annoyed or creeped everyone out, it's going to be a self-limiting behavior. It doesn't matter if you work at Google, or a truck stop, or a comedy club. Be professional, be inclusive, be friendly. I know a lot of people are going to disagree, but the simple fact of the matter is that you aren't as funny as you think you are, and you probably don't have the ability to "read a room" the way a world-famous entertainer does. Even they get it wrong.
No offense, but your perspective does not sound open minded.
I'd recommend being open to other, unexplored (by you) possibilities, since one person cannot be everywhere at once, nor understand the experiences of everyone at Gigantic Mega Corp (100k+ people).
I think having a perspective closed to unexplored possibilities is arguably a good definition of naive.
"na·ive
/nīˈēv/
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adjective
(of a person or action) showing a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment.
"the rather naive young man had been totally misled"
(of a person) natural and unaffected; innocent."
That said, I think you have good intentions-- You appreciate your employer. But that said-- this likely also results in certain biases.
So to think that Google has a blind spot towards caste bias is simply stupid.
Follow the money. Google has a lot to lose if they discriminated against black people or gay people. Google has, or at least had, little to lose by allowing discrimination against dalits. Never forget that all major corporations are essentially money-generating psychopaths and if they stood to make a buck by building death camps for left-handed people they would break ground tomorrow.
What people dont realize is that leetcode problem style testing is a very eastern/asian approach to hiring. Memorization for a test with a large body of problems ends up selecting for people that grew up in those cultures....
One of the best features of homesourcing, one that everybody is thinking about but nobody is discussing, is that it completely sidesteps the need to arrive at a universal, global workplace monoculture.
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.
I'm pretty sure the modern world has a Caste problem - Meritocracy and castes just don't go together and it's pretty obvious to me which of those two I'd prefer for myself.
No, castes are primarily a phenomenon from the Indian subcontinent and surrounding areas. It is becoming a larger problem in the world due to Indian emigration.
I always find it funny how there are massive east asian only groups in all major corporate entities. This is not diversity, this is racism. Nice work FANG.
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. Flamewar and ideological battle are what this site is for, and destroy what it is for. Please don't create accounts to do those things with.
In my university I find that a lot of the Indian and Asian students like to group together and form their own groups.
But they also have a big language barrier: they don’t speak English well and in their groups they always communicate natively. They also have a culture barrier as well, combined with the language barrier this makes them seem awkward.
Define "East Asian only group". Do you mean a division that's only East Asian? Or a social group within the company that is exclusively for East Asians? And how would that come about organically? East Asians aren't really homogeneous, there is a lot of ethnic strife between the different East Asian groups (HK vs Mainland, Mainland vs South Korea vs Japan). So I can't really see how they'd naturally be a closed off clique.
Maybe, but it could also be the reverse. I few years ago, I was hiring for some Data Engineering positions in a European country, and highly disproportional part of the most qualified applicants were Chinese, but with below average language skills. (Chinese people are a VERY small minority in the general population in my country.)
I would expect many companies to not consider many of them, due to the communication limitations. That would mean that those who ignored those issues could get a LOT of them, and possibly at a lower-than-average salary, for their technical ability.
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
Heh, I was expecting an emotional lie/response such as "I want to change the world" but got surprised. I appreciate her honesty
Eastern religious actually talk a lot about material pleasures and how they are harmful. Both Buddhism and Hinduism are very much against "showing off" or "accumulating wealth". In fact, Buddhism clearly says - "Desire is the root cause of all sufferings". That said, most immigrants from Asia are used to seeing poverty and homelessness everywhere, so it probably just feels like the extension of that in the west. Also Hindu text talks about - कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥ २-४७ - which literally means you only have right to perform your duty (karma) you have no right to expect the fruit of your duty (karma). This whole bastardised definition of "karma" doesn't fit with the values that I was brought up with.
(Disclaimer: I grew up Hindu in India, but I am no longer religious, I would identify myself as atheist/agnostic/rationalist/freethinker.)
Aren't most of the absurdly rich people in California white people? To me it seems like Asians in SF as a race are more in a middle to upper middle "professional" class, hardly the group of people to fix very hard social issues such as homelessness.
Friendly reminder that white people are shot by cops at a very high rate and yes, all lives do matter.
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.
I am reposting PaulHoule's (flagged) comment because it was a very good one:
> *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.
It's not a very good one. Western philosophies and religions can definitely show this type of bias.
Some branches of protestantism do believe in predestination. It's also common to see (bad) Christian takes that suffering is a challenge from god (often backed by Job's trials) and thus a thing that may not need changing.
I believe Max Weber also covered this concept sociologically in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Maybe i'm being ignorant, but why don't you just not work for the company that has few or no Indians? Because other nations of course don't know about which last name means which caste or would ever care about it, you won't be a subject for discrimination. And besides, these places will probably pay better anyway.
I'm all for acknowledging my ignorance and charging forward with a bad idea in technical situations (if nothing else it gives somebody more experienced something to tee up on), but generally I try to avoid it on discrimination issues.
flak48|3 years ago
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.
themenomen|3 years ago
>"T.G.: There was my own obvious background. My parents immigrated from India in the early nineteen-eighties. I was certainly familiar with the topic. In September, 2021, two employees approached me. I hosted D.E.I. office hours every week where people could come in and talk about these topics, confidentially, and multiple Google employees came into my office and reported that they had faced discrimination when trying to talk about matters of caste in the workplace. There was already a public condemnation of caste discrimination at Google from the Alphabet workers’ union. They had put out a press statement when the Cisco case broke. There were reports from at least twenty Google employees as well. [In June, 2020, California sued Cisco and two of its managers for engaging in caste discrimination. Afterward, Equality Labs received complaints from more than two hundred and fifty tech workers, including twenty Google employees.]"
lamontcg|3 years ago
Seems weird to me that a ban on talking about discrimination wouldn't automatically be seen as being discriminatory rather than somehow the reverse.
Karawebnetwork|3 years ago
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)
unknown|3 years ago
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dang|3 years ago
Google cancelled a talk on caste bias - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31593799 - June 2022 (946 comments)
Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30515099 - March 2022 (543 comments)
India’s tech sector reinforces old caste divides - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29994226 - Jan 2022 (5 comments)
The Casteism I See in America and American Tech Companies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29133517 - Nov 2021 (5 comments)
How Big Tech Is Importing India’s Caste Legacy to Silicon Valley - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26435117 - March 2021 (195 comments)
Caste discrimination in some of Silicon Valley's richest tech companies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24952698 - Oct 2020 (322 comments)
India’s engineers have thrived in the tech industry. So has its caste system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24923338 - Oct 2020 (6 comments)
How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24555492 - Sept 2020 (47 comments)
Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24552047 - Sept 2020 (613 comments)
Silicon Valley Has a Caste Discrimination Problem - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24065132 - Aug 2020 (14 comments)
California sues Cisco alleging discrimination based on India’s caste system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23798922 - July 2020 (56 comments)
California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23697083 - July 2020 (592 comments)
Ask HN: There is caste system in the Silicon Valley? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13704504 - Feb 2017 (6 comments)
John23832|3 years ago
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.
ldjkfkdsjnv|3 years ago
thisiscorrect|3 years ago
It sounds like this is occurring everywhere.
mc32|3 years ago
Additionally, there is some selection-bias as well. In other words, do we measure against the Indian pop in the US (or Canada, etc) or against the proportions in India itself and when doing so raw numbers, or number of graduates or graduates from the IITs?
thunkshift1|3 years ago
isoprophlex|3 years ago
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?
spicymaki|3 years ago
There is plenty of colorism within India too (everywhere in fact). I think you should definitely read about forms of discrimination.
bko|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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woweoe|3 years ago
glibmelody|3 years ago
- 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.
woweoe|3 years ago
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.
thunkshift1|3 years ago
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jrsj|3 years ago
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?
upupandup|3 years ago
This happens all the time in Canada. When you have a large ethnic majority and they start identifying with the language and start bringing toxic work culture with management fully aware of the issues and exploiting this.
For example for a startup I worked for in Vancouver had a large Chinese/Russian majority in the development team. They would stay behind past working hours and require me to do the same. When I left early they reported me. They also started to bully and talking only in Chinese or Russian.
It was absolutely a shock and not a surprise why Canada has a brain drain going on. I don't even have any beef with these groups since I have friends from those community that grew up here but for whatever reason, those guys at that startup specifically chose to isolate ppl that didn't speak their language.
It was a modern day sweatshop and it was weird seeing even Taiwanese engineers who also grew up here for less than a decade participate in this toxic behavior.
My mistake was expecting Canadian work culture and expecting others to follow it and the management who were white canadians knew exactly their culture and exploited it.
Just more and more reasons to leave Vancouver. Happened to my friend who were with Indian engineers too, funny thing is they discriminate based on caste which confuses a lot of Indians from island nations, south america.
SauciestGNU|3 years ago
treis|3 years ago
zo1|3 years ago
I'm all for fairness for all, no matter their race, but seeing what I've seen in person is very eye opening. I no longer have sympathy for DEI and other such initiatives because they will always be targeted against white people and males, no matter the state of equity/fairness in the world.
jaywalk|3 years ago
If the talk was standard DEI fare (shitting on white men) I'm sure any complaints would have been ignored.
mrguyorama|3 years ago
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/labor-department...
thisiscorrect|3 years ago
secondcoming|3 years ago
_fat_santa|3 years ago
dcolkitt|3 years ago
xbar|3 years ago
I am ashamed to say I did not have an appreciation for its perniciousness when one employee from India made caste-based comments about another one, a decade ago, in my presence.
treis|3 years ago
The CEO of Google being a Brahmin is a pretty good reason. Either (1) he knows there's discrimination but he won't pursue because it calls into question his own legitimacy or (2) having risen through the ranks since 2004 as a Brahmin he knows there's no real problem with discrimination.
vsr_pg|3 years ago
andsoitis|3 years ago
metadaemon|3 years ago
1sembiyan|3 years ago
> “The right-wing Hindu movement in India has historically not been associated with people from underprivileged castes, and those people have generally been less supportive of the movement“
My understanding is that BJP has come to power under an OBC wave, both in UP in 2022, and in the North 2019.
JumpCrisscross|3 years ago
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.
hcarvalhoalves|3 years ago
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.
andsoitis|3 years ago
Isn't it in a company's interest to nurture an environment where everyone they hire can thrive?
Aunche|3 years ago
>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.
arvindamirtaa|3 years ago
The lesson to be learned is, if you are offended by someone saying they experienced oppression/discrimination, really, look inward.
anonymoushn|3 years ago
nojito|3 years ago
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.
mrguyorama|3 years ago
Tryk|3 years ago
fleddr|3 years ago
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.
rdtsc|3 years ago
jrsj|3 years ago
krainboltgreene|3 years ago
None of the situations described in the parent has ever happened. Nor do any of the scientific studies agree with the positions above that are implied to be facts. However, because it is written dispassionately (even condescendingly) the flaws will be ignored and the sentiment applauded.
winternett|3 years ago
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.
xbar|3 years ago
In traditional American Black/white photos, you are flat-out right. Many of the problems you allude to cannot be fully addressed until leadership is diverse.
In the context of caste, it is challenging for non-Indian Americans to discern the caste differences in such photos.
carapace|3 years ago
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.
dsq|3 years ago
jackling|3 years ago
40acres|3 years ago
nojito|3 years ago
Usually dealing with what city they are from, what city are your parents from, are you vegetarian, are you having dessert?
I've never experienced or seen the thread searching. Larger person grabs your shoulder to see if the thread is there. But that wouldn't surprise me at all.
known|3 years ago
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ReptileMan|3 years ago
The easiest way to get to live in the US is to have money.
The southern border is the new ellis island trough which the great unwashed can enter.
rdtsc|3 years ago
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.
unknown|3 years ago
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treyfitty|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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vanderZwan|3 years ago
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0RTgOuoi2k
kthejoker2|3 years ago
The number of people in this HN thread without the critical thinking skills to understand that is astounding.
anonymoushn|3 years ago
It seems like if you said there was discrimination against tall white men, people would also deny that.
bsedlm|3 years ago
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.
pictureofabear|3 years ago
mitchbob|3 years ago
pc86|3 years ago
lotsofpulp|3 years ago
cuteboy19|3 years ago
encryptluks2|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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pictureofabear|3 years ago
ggfdh|3 years ago
bko|3 years ago
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?
adamsmith143|3 years ago
>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?
The problem was clearly stated to be discrimination from other Indians against lower class Indians, NOT white managers unknowingly discriminating against low class Indians.
remflight|3 years ago
dang|3 years ago
Believe me, I understand how impossibly frustrating it can be to represent a minority/contrarian view in an internet discussion on an inflammatory topic, but turning over the chessboard and storming off—which is what deleting comments and leaving spiteful remnants in their place amounts to—is not a positive contribution.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
arvindamirtaa|3 years ago
If person A slaps person B and person C goes "I didn't experience anything. There are no slaps in this company", does that sound reasonable?
jrsj|3 years ago
photochemsyn|3 years ago
cough...'wealth inequality'...cough
An AP analysis finds that most foreign workers with H-1B visas are paid less than their American counterparts. But for most non-computer science occupations, foreigners are paid more.
https://apnews.com/afs:Content:873580003
jimmywetnips|3 years ago
Just like I can't blast my music tastes on others, not everyone should be subjected to insane Eric Andre humor
tptacek|3 years ago
droopyEyelids|3 years ago
numbsafari|3 years ago
I've had fellow team members subject to extreme verbal abuse by managers who would stop by their desk and say absolutely horrible things to them in their native language while maintaining otherwise perfect composure. Threatening their visa status, threatening their family reputation, or just threatening to fire them. I've also learned of the out-of-work social pressure they can face because their communities are smaller and insular and so they interact with these folks outside of work, and there can be power dynamics extending to those places that are just not at all visible to other employees or leadership within the organization.
Those peers have had to suffer quietly some of the most abusive workplace relationships I've ever been adjacent to.
Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Another thing that I've learned, is that companies very often talk to the most about the things they suck at the most. For example, one firm that I worked for touted how everything was based on Teamwork. There were teams for everything. Every employee was expected to be on at least 5 teams. 3 "position related" and 2 "organizational" (e.g. The Birthday Part Team). Your annual evaluation wasn't based on your direct manager at all, it was entirely based on feedback from your "teams".
Needless to say, I've never seen a less team-oriented culture in my life. Every single team was entirely dysfunctional. Nothing got done. Epic levels of in-fighting over every little thing.
Anyhow, people usually talk the most about their insecurities. So, just because it's being talked about, with tons of posters and "trainings", doesn't mean anything truly effective is being done. Probably just the opposite.
ps. As a fellow fan of "edgy" humor, you just gotta learn that work isn't where your edgy sense of humor belongs. Even in the "edgy humor" industry, you'll find that people don't like it mixing with "the job". It's how you get fired or have your career ruined. Regardless of Google's internal HR policies, you're gonna need professional references at some point, and if you've annoyed or creeped everyone out, it's going to be a self-limiting behavior. It doesn't matter if you work at Google, or a truck stop, or a comedy club. Be professional, be inclusive, be friendly. I know a lot of people are going to disagree, but the simple fact of the matter is that you aren't as funny as you think you are, and you probably don't have the ability to "read a room" the way a world-famous entertainer does. Even they get it wrong.
unknown|3 years ago
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hellohowareu|3 years ago
I'd recommend being open to other, unexplored (by you) possibilities, since one person cannot be everywhere at once, nor understand the experiences of everyone at Gigantic Mega Corp (100k+ people).
I think having a perspective closed to unexplored possibilities is arguably a good definition of naive.
"na·ive /nīˈēv/ Learn to pronounce adjective (of a person or action) showing a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment. "the rather naive young man had been totally misled" (of a person) natural and unaffected; innocent."
That said, I think you have good intentions-- You appreciate your employer. But that said-- this likely also results in certain biases.
cjdoc29|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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causi|3 years ago
Follow the money. Google has a lot to lose if they discriminated against black people or gay people. Google has, or at least had, little to lose by allowing discrimination against dalits. Never forget that all major corporations are essentially money-generating psychopaths and if they stood to make a buck by building death camps for left-handed people they would break ground tomorrow.
kache_|3 years ago
Vote with your feet and leave.
ldjkfkdsjnv|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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wikitopian|3 years ago
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.
markisus|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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hobabaObama|3 years ago
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.
unknown|3 years ago
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AcerbicZero|3 years ago
pictureofabear|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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naruvimama|3 years ago
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known|3 years ago
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naruvimama|3 years ago
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AuthorizedHelp|3 years ago
dang|3 years ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32425607.
armchairhacker|3 years ago
But they also have a big language barrier: they don’t speak English well and in their groups they always communicate natively. They also have a culture barrier as well, combined with the language barrier this makes them seem awkward.
So I don’t blame them.
hackerlight|3 years ago
trashtester|3 years ago
I would expect many companies to not consider many of them, due to the communication limitations. That would mean that those who ignored those issues could get a LOT of them, and possibly at a lower-than-average salary, for their technical ability.
strikelaserclaw|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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shultays|3 years ago
kome|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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elefanten|3 years ago
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PaulHoule|3 years ago
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nelblu|3 years ago
(Disclaimer: I grew up Hindu in India, but I am no longer religious, I would identify myself as atheist/agnostic/rationalist/freethinker.)
strikelaserclaw|3 years ago
vehemenz|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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tolkienfanatic|3 years ago
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lampshades|3 years ago
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.
andsoitis|3 years ago
If you think that cops target white folks then you must probably be an avid supporter of reforming law enforcement.
georgia_peach|3 years ago
> *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.
hikingsimulator|3 years ago
Some branches of protestantism do believe in predestination. It's also common to see (bad) Christian takes that suffering is a challenge from god (often backed by Job's trials) and thus a thing that may not need changing.
I believe Max Weber also covered this concept sociologically in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
anovikov|3 years ago
Karawebnetwork|3 years ago
hobabaObama|3 years ago
If they have problems to work with lower caste people, they should change their company.
becquerel|3 years ago
bee_rider|3 years ago
throwaway6734|3 years ago
adamsmith143|3 years ago