Fresno, California, has become the second city in the U.S. to ban caste discrimination, after the City Council voted unanimously on Thursday to incorporate two new protected categories into its municipal code.
Discrimination based on caste or indigeneity is now illegal in the city.
In the midst of a nationwide civil rights movement, led mostly by South Asian Americans who come from caste-oppressed backgrounds, local governments, business and institutions have been contending with the caste question. In February, Seattle became the first U.S. city to explicitly ban caste discrimination, and in California, a bill currently on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk would do the same statewide.
Caste sytem is structural racism and needs to be abolished in India, and shouldnt be mirrored in any other country.
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Wait, that’s a thing here? Ok.
Within tech it’s apparently an issue, where certain classes are intentionally passed over for promotion if the manager is Indian too.
The whole acceptance of cultural differences is important, but within reasonable limits. Discrimination of any type should not be tolerated.
Another one that always bugs me is: Middle Eastern guy marries a young lady. BAD! (And it is). Indian dude living in California in the 21st century marries a lady that was chosen by his mother and her parents to be his wife (she had little say in it): That’s a cultural thing and we accept it…
Why?
That’s not my understanding about how modern arranged marriages most commonly happen in the Indian community. For the most part it isn’t really that different from a blind date that your parents arranged and participate in overseeing. Many people go through several arrangements before they find someone suitable to marry. Also many people work within both the westernized system of dating and the arranged system until they find a partner. For the vast majority of modern arrangements both parties have broad latitude to back out.
Only in the most conservative and extreme households do people receive coercive pressure to marry against their will. You’ll find that more in rural India than among expatriates.
Also many men and women still prefer the arranged system as they find dating cumbersome, awkward or time consuming.
The reason you should accept other cultures is partly because of how much ignorance and presumptive reasoning your carry into you decision making process…
Arranged marriages seem to have a very high rate of success and satisfaction. Why trade that for the typical marriage, which in the US is about as good as a coin flip for its chances of success?
Despite doubling in urban areas since 2007[1], only about 1 in 100 Indian marriages end in divorce.[2] This is one of the lowest divorce rates in the world. Even more impressive is the second statistic, about the high levels of satisfaction reported by those in arranged marriages over the longer term.
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Is there any law in the US mandating arranged marriages? If not, then it reinforces the freedom we have here, including the freedom to marry someone we have never met because our mother tells us to.
To those of us who grew up outside that culture it seems absurd, but to people from India living in the US who also want to maintain a connection to their culture, I won’t tell them they can’t do it. Having the government tell them who they can’t marry is just as misguided as telling them who they can marry. Your mother has a different, non-governmental influence over the decision, though.
Marriage and freedom don’t really go together. Marriage is making a choice to give up the freedom of being with anyone, to be with one person who isn’t going to run away when things get hard, like all those free people would/could.
That’s more due to lack of women rights and cultural of discrimination. There is little resources and alternative for many of the women in arranged marriage. Just because cultural and societal road blocks married prevent divorce, doesn’t mean it’s a better.
The marriage assumptions has been debunked as linking to happiness. You should just look directly at human rights indexes and happiness survey instead.
Unless your whole ideology was people must marry, then that’s a different discussion.
The article also mentions Indian-American couples and some info around that. It wasn’t as clearly stated, but it didn’t sound like it faired worse than traditional American marriage, and the women should have free will in the US.
I’m not married, so my ideology really can’t be that one must marry, or else that would leave me in a weird spot. But I can ignore statistics, that married people live longer and a generally happier, especially as they get older. As I enter middle age, the idea of growing old alone sounds awful and I have a very real fear of dying over something really stupid, because there is no one around to notice I’m dying and get help. The stress around that is real.
Good!
Am I missing something? What is the delay in Newsom signing the bill? Is he waiting for the wind to blow the right direction or something?
A significant part of the silicon valley deep pockets are opposed to the legislation
They either don’t want to deal with having to follow the law and/or feel this law is racist to Indians.
Is discrimination not banned in general in the US?
Is it really a thing in CA? Seems like completely pointless. Like making a law that forbids forcing slaves to ware blue shorts.
It’s adding an additional class to the protected classes list. It probably didn’t fall under any of the previous classes like race, religious beliefs, or national origins. So technically you could discriminate against them based on caste just like you can discriminate against people under the age of 40.
So I wouldn’t call it pointless especially given that people from regions who face caste discrimination were the ones pushing for the law. It’s not just some cheap PR stunt from a government. It might only affect a very small minority but that’s exactly what these kinds of laws are supposed to do, protect a vulnerable group.
Wow, I was about to write “age is a protected class” and actually read that it only applies to “over 40”. I learned something new today.
Uh… huh. What year did you graduate? Oh 20 years ago? (Hmm if you graduated in your 20s and that was 20 years ago… That would make you over 40) OK thanks. … HR don’t hire them, their education is outdated.
Done.
And if you do that over several hiring position over time you have now shown a pattern of age based discrimination.
Or, (and this is an actual thing) you find out that both people you interviewed had the exact same resume except for their age and were hired by lawyers in a class action lawsuit for age discrimination.
Additionally, Fresno is home to a large Asian-American population, particularly Hmong. Fresno was a primary destination for Hmong immigrants after they fled from Laos following the Vietnam war.
It makes sense to me that Fresno would pass this law, it probably impacts more people than we would care to admit.
