[HN Gopher] Sr Manager at Google Resigns After Dalit Activist Di...
___________________________________________________________________
Sr Manager at Google Resigns After Dalit Activist Disallowed from
Giving Lecture
Author : ddtaylor
Score : 98 points
Date : 2022-06-03 21:45 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thequint.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thequint.com)
| drewcon wrote:
| I cannot wait for this era of GENERAL political activism at work
| to end.
|
| If there are specific policies at work that effect you
| (meaningfully, not tangentially) by all means seek to change
| them.
|
| If you just want to wear your woke flair and bring all general
| outside politics inside...get a hobby, start a religion, join a
| movement...leave the rest of us alone.
| kgwxd wrote:
| If a policy effects my colleagues, it effects me. If that
| doesn't effect you, then by all means, do nothing.
| [deleted]
| sva_ wrote:
| What I don't understand is, how do people know the caste of some
| individual if they want to decide if they hire them or not, how
| does it work? It doesn't seem like people are very public about
| their caste, so how do they get an advantage? Do the people of a
| caste somehow communicate with each other?!
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| Things like where you're from, what your parents or
| grandparents did for work, even your last name, can give away
| your caste.
| thret wrote:
| Name, skin colour, and yes they can speak to each other.
| magneticnorth wrote:
| My understanding is that it can often be identified by last
| name, or last name + home city/region.
|
| And there are other indicators; I've been told upper casts are
| usually lighter-skinned, and Brahmins are often vegetarian.
| gfiorav wrote:
| We're reliving the last days of Ancient Greece. Direct democracy
| (strictly NOT representative democracy) led cities like Athens to
| make harsh decisions based on just-in-time demagoguery. It led to
| their fall.
|
| Representative democracy is not a fruit of technological
| impediments, but a conscious decision by the founding fathers
| after learning of the plights of direct democracy (which they
| equated to anarchy).
|
| Companies like Apple firing people on employees just in time
| judgements is the failure of justice and the decay of modern
| society.
|
| Hot take, but you know...
| [deleted]
| davidw wrote:
| The actual WP article:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/02/google-...
| dkarl wrote:
| > "We also made the decision to not move forward with the
| proposed talk which - rather than bringing our community together
| and raising awareness - was creating division and rancour," the
| spokesperson further said.
|
| Google publicly defending this decision via an official
| spokesperson, rather than apologizing and backtracking, makes me
| think that someone close to the top is personally bothered by the
| content of the talk. It seems like it would be easy for
| leadership to brush off complaints about it from further down the
| chain.
| [deleted]
| hackernewds wrote:
| Were they disallowed BECAUSE they were a Dalit? Or because of the
| nature of their talk?
|
| Both are not the same scenario, which the headline seems to
| conflate.
| hef19898 wrote:
| According to the WP article it was a Dalit soeaker who was
| invited to talk about Caste-based discrimination. The talk was
| canceled after severe backlash against the topic, internal
| backlash.
|
| So I'd say it was both.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I really dislike when headlines use weasel words to imply
| causation when there is none, but I'm not really seeing it
| here. No one is saying they were denied because they were a
| Dalit. Some view it as being cancelled from the nature of the
| talk making those in power uncomfortable, others view it as
| being cancelled because the activist said anti-hindu things.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Google should focus on improving their search engine and making
| better products or they will soon go the way of Lycos.
| [deleted]
| godshatter wrote:
| > ...a Dalit rights activist was not allowed to give a
| presentation on caste following emails by employees calling her
| "anti-Hindu."
|
| I must be the last person still alive that keeps their opinions
| to themselves while on the job.
| thoms_a wrote:
| This doesn't mean that the opinions of powerful people do not
| affect you, however.
|
| The Civil Rights Act and its consequences have meant that
| America will forever be politicized along every fault line of
| human identity. Whether it can withstand this burden and remain
| a functional civilization remains to be seen.
| ushakov wrote:
| maybe Basecamp's no politics at work policy wasn't that bad
| after all...
| frostburg wrote:
| How does that work when apparently there are Indian managers
| that discriminate against lower caste Indians under them?
| criddell wrote:
| Does the Indian-ness of the manager matter? Nobody actually
| thinks discrimination is okay.
| frostburg wrote:
| This is basically invisible to "us" (assuming you're not
| Indian); I'm a comparatively well read westerner
| regarding this issue but I have no practical ability to
| spot the subtle signifiers that let people familiar with
| system glean who "belongs" to what caste if they care to.
|
| Also non-Indian managers are very unlikely to be
| interested in discriminating against specific subgroups
| of Indians even if they're huge bigots or something, so
| this is a pretty specifically inter-Indian issue.
| epistasis wrote:
| That policy doesn't mean that there's no politics at work,
| just that there's no open discussion of the politics that are
| affecting employees and the company. See for example:
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/trapped-in-silicon-valleys-
| hidde...
| ushakov wrote:
| i seriously doubt that no politics at work policy was to
| undermine discussions about employees struggles
|
| to me it seems that people got carried away by political
| debacle so much they forgot why they should be actually
| doing on the job
|
| moreover i doubt Basecamp had a caste problem to begin with
| madeofpalk wrote:
| "No politics at Google" is an impossible stance.
| thriftwy wrote:
| That's likely because you belong to a social group whose
| opinions are considered worthless.
| godshatter wrote:
| I don't align well with most of the most outspoken social
| groups, so, yeah, probably true.
| hellohowareu wrote:
| I'm so glad no one at my current technology workplace discusses
| politics anywhere-- not in Slack, Email, nor Conference calls.
| I literally haven't heard a single political opinion at work,
| and I freakin love it!
|
| I previously worked at Unity Technologies (3d game engine
| company) and as well as a CRM Consultancy, and I was amazed by
| how much time people spent arguing their political agenda. It
| was a major contributing factor of why I left both places. I
| had this feeling of "Why are these people chatting about things
| irrelevant to our work, while I am working? They should be
| working too-- they're paid to work, not chat & check their
| slack feed for 30-60 minutes a day about politics"
| munk-a wrote:
| Unfortunately just because people don't openly discuss their
| politics it doesn't mean that there isn't hiring discrimination
| going on.
| [deleted]
| scarmig wrote:
| Could someone steel man the protest against the lecture?
| (Anonymously if you prefer.)
|
| Particularly, the most I've been able to hunt down are vague
| claims that her organization is Hinduphobic. If that's indeed the
| issue, what are the concrete examples of this?
| khazhoux wrote:
| I don't think "steel man" has entered the common vernacular
| yet. At first I thought it was a typo.
| civilian wrote:
| it's entered the tech vernacular :) do you grok it now?
| astrange wrote:
| That's because it's another term reinvented by people who
| want to do philosophy without studying any of it. The
| traditional term is "argument reconstruction".
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| This seems like a case where a field settled on
| undescriptive jargon (like "Type I error") and needs to be
| disrupted by a useful vernacular (like "false positive").
| If you hear "steel man" once, you'll never forget it. I've
| forgotten "argument reconstruction" already.
| hef19898 wrote:
| That she dares to be critical of the Hindu caste system. Twice
| bad because she is a woman _and_ a Dalit. Not that any of that
| should matter, but we live in the world we live in.
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| "Steel man" means the opposite of a straw man argument.
| https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/steelmanning
| loeg wrote:
| Ah, you beat me to it by one minute. :)
| [deleted]
| loeg wrote:
| "Steel man" refers to an argument that is the opposite of a
| "straw man."
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Come on, this isn't a steelman.
| naveen99 wrote:
| See French approach on the topic. They refuse to acknowledge
| identity politics (except between labor and capital)
| astrange wrote:
| And between the politician and his three underage mistresses.
| Although Macron has reversed it by marrying his high school
| teacher.
| hahaxdxd123 wrote:
| > France appeared to be one of the least racially tolerant
| countries on the continent, with 22.7 percent saying they
| didn't want a neighbor of another race.
|
| Interesting social contract.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15.
| ..
| [deleted]
| equalitystreet wrote:
| Relatedly, this was a missed opportunity in the UK when the last
| Labour government were formulating what became the Equality Act
| 2010.
|
| It's illegal to discriminate against a person's characteristic of
| age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment,
| marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race,
| religion or belief. But not caste.
|
| This was pointed out at the time, but was unfortunately ignored.
| donsupreme wrote:
| Serious question: For Indians who live in America or Europe now,
| why do you even care about caste?
| closetnerd wrote:
| To be fair - I think James Baldwin explained it so it's not
| just Indians. For a lot of folks, you feel some sense of
| security about your place in the world when you know there's
| someone "lower" than you.
| Arnavion wrote:
| I don't care about caste, and I haven't met anyone who does for
| the decade I've lived in the US. It doesn't mean there aren't
| any Indians in the US that care about it; there surely must be
| given that such Indians existed back in India. I'm just making
| it clear that it's not 100% of Indians in the US that care
| about caste, as your question seems to imply.
| s5300 wrote:
| Sheesh. I only worked in Sorrento Valley (San Diego
| tech/Qualcomm) & heard about it multiple times there. & I'm
| pasty white.
|
| Not discounting your experience, but I couldn't imagine that
| Sorrento Valley would have larger issues about it than
| Silicon Valley.
| cperciva wrote:
| People from lower castes care because they face discrimination,
| obviously.
|
| People from higher castes, even if they're open-minded on the
| topic of caste, likely have relatives who aren't -- especially
| if they're the only member of a large family who has left
| India. Children have been disowned or even murdered by their
| relatives for marrying a member of a lower caste; it's really
| hard to escape that sort of prejudice.
| vsskanth wrote:
| I'm Indian, live in the US (Midwest, south, outside big cities)
| and I'm happy to just meet another fellow Indian lol. Couldn't
| care less about caste or language or whatever.
|
| We are already so far away from home, atleast we can look out
| for each other.
|
| I'm not in tech so I've never lived anywhere with many Indians.
| I'm guessing these types of issues start to crop up when you
| have higher chances of meeting many people in your exact social
| group back in India and end up forming cliques.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| I don't and no one I know does. I'm happy to leave all that
| crap behind. Apparently some people would rather drag those
| issues along with them into a new country that was previously
| free of this particular scourge :/
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I'm torn between thinking it's dumb to give talks on caste at
| work and thinking Google is weak for giving in to people who were
| complaining about this talk for whatever reason. I suppose I hold
| both opinions.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Caste is apparently as much a reason for discrimination as sex,
| sexual orientation, race or religion. Those topics need to be
| addressed at workplaces. Refusing to so is actually part of the
| problem.
| s5300 wrote:
| Caste discrimination is more relevant than most other forms of
| discrimination we quabble about here in the US.
|
| For those it affects, that is.
| munk-a wrote:
| While caste systems might seem far off and irrelevant in the
| modern world there is actually a rather extreme amount of caste
| based discrimination in work places. It's an issue we need to
| talk about and resolve.
|
| I can't talk to this particular activists positions, but Dalit
| Activism is a very relevant and worthy cause - it causes pretty
| significant discrimination even in the US.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| How do you come to know someone's caste?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| We get talks about discrimination based off race and gender at
| work. Caste discrimination is even more deserving because it's
| much less obvious to non-indians.
| closetnerd wrote:
| If you've had a job - I'd be surprised if workplace
| discrimination talks sound new to you.
| testfoobar wrote:
| Never worked at Google. Are such talks about social issues a
| regular occurrence at Google or other big tech firms? Who would
| be the intended audience and what would be the goals for the
| speaker, the hosting employee or the host company?
| stadia42 wrote:
| Yes, a regular occurrence for the social issues that are either
| uncontroversial (e.g., reducing poverty, improving education,
| dealing with pandemics) or only lightly controversial (e.g.,
| climate change, misinformation in the media, etc.).
|
| For the more controversial topics, the talks are vetted more
| carefully, to make sure they align with the political position
| of the company, and that they don't raise too much opposition
| from any groups within the company.
|
| The goal of the speaker is to convert as many (preferably
| influential) people as possible to their viewpoint. The goal of
| the hosting employee is typically the same, at least for the
| controversial issues (since those are usually highly
| politicized). The goal of the host company is to promote
| themselves as a bastion of certain (good, from their
| perspective) ideas, and/or as a place for thoughtful
| discussions.
| civilian wrote:
| Have you not worked the last five years? Tech companies are
| chock full of "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" talks
| smegsicle wrote:
| curiously, i've seen many first hand accounts of DEI stuff-
| but no kind of researched journalism about what's going on,
| why, and how widespread it is
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I have never had one in 9 years of working at tech startups.
| It's a fair question to ask.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| Startups are in survival or hyper growth mode. They don't
| usually have a lot of time for these topics as much as big
| tech.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Having talks on academic subjects is fine. Companies should
| do more of that. The issue is that corporate diversity
| discussions happen with all the education and nuance
| appropriate to elementary schoolers.
|
| Because most of the people in these roles aren't actually
| well-educated in 'best practices', you get stuff like
| mandatory non-anonymized surveys that ask whether people are
| trans and send the results to managers, or slideshows talking
| about minority representation that omit Asians, Hispanics,
| and other 'common' groups.
| epistasis wrote:
| These are serious social issues that affect the functioning of
| tech companies in the Bay Area:
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/trapped-in-silicon-valleys-hidde...
| ushakov wrote:
| funny how they cheered for diversity but _completely
| overlooked_ the caste system
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| Because they only care about visible diversity
| hef19898 wrote:
| Because people have a hard time getting the difference
| between Suunit and Shiit moslems. The caste system is
| even harder to grasp, for us Westerners Indians are
| Indians. So it seems caste based discrimination was
| imported through the back door, without anyone realy
| noticing.
| epistasis wrote:
| Who is the "they" in your comment? I don't quite
| understand.
| ushakov wrote:
| > tech companies in the Bay Area
| dkarl wrote:
| The article says that the speaker "has delivered presentations
| on caste at Microsoft, Airbnb, Netflix, Saleforce, and Adobe."
| jleyank wrote:
| Where was the lecture being attempted? If it's in n America,
| others should think about how non-native social structures
| intersect with traditional mores.
| unchocked wrote:
| Which traditional mores might you have in mind, and how would
| you suggest others (North Americans?) should think about them?
| throwaway_1928 wrote:
| Workplaces are best for doing work, earning income and making
| light conversation. It is risky to turn them into a battleground
| for every political and religious issue under the sun.
|
| Good riddance.
| [deleted]
| turndown wrote:
| Just because I know you won't have a good answer - explain how
| a Dalit activist being called 'Anti-Hindu' when it is Hinduism
| that calls for the caste based system is not evidence of the
| exact kind of caste being present at these companies(a publicly
| documented problem.)
| s5300 wrote:
| Great, you seem to have a semblance of understanding of the
| issue. Now go talk to the c-suite execs & even lower level
| managers that are actively discriminating against people, get
| them to stop, & then all will be well. Things can revert to the
| form you & most likely wish it would be.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Unless the issue is specifically workplace discrimination.
|
| Just because it doesn't affect you personally doesn't meant
| it's not important.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I would be interested in hearing the perspective of any HN
| readers who are of south Asian background and working in America.
| Statements that tech companies in the US have caste
| discrimination (or reverse discrimination) for South Asians who
| work there, are hard for me (an Anglo-American) to judge, seeing
| as if it were happening (either way) there's little chance I
| would have noticed it.
| rayiner wrote:
| I'm Bangladeshi, rather than Indian, so I'm watching this from
| the sidelines. That being said, I'm of the opinion that
| activists suck up all the oxygen when it comes to discussions
| of race in the U.S. A Pew poll a few years ago noted that 90%
| of Indian Americans think discrimination against Indian
| Americans in America is a "minor problem" or "no problem at
| all": https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/16/miss-
| americ.... But the 10% that think it's a big problem get the
| biggest platforms.
|
| In reality, it's probably impossible to understand how big or
| small a problem caste discrimination really is in context. The
| folks who don't face any negative experiences mostly aren't
| going to pipe up.
| dubswithus wrote:
| I don't know if you're aware of this, so I'm going to link it.
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/01/tech/cisco-lawsuit-caste-...
| guerrilla wrote:
| Check the comments on the last post about this talk
| cancellation for a lot of that [1] and then check the search,
| this topic has been discussed a few times before.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31593799
|
| [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?q=caste
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Am I understanding correctly that she got severe backlash on a
| topic nobody in the US cares about _except_ the beneficiaries of
| an obscure identity politics in India... that nobody thats not
| from India, in America, cares about?
|
| Seems like exhibit A for something the rest of us should be aware
| of, and balance opinions on. Since there are many people from
| India in the US.
| bragr wrote:
| Not a unique issue either, see the California v Cisco lawsuit:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cisco-lawsuit/california-...
| [deleted]
| booleandilemma wrote:
| What are the best ways of identifying this kind of discrimination
| for a non-Indian? How can I tell if it's happening in my
| workplace?
| pvg wrote:
| Dupe of yesterday's 875 comment thread
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31593799
| throwawaybxb wrote:
| I've read (I think this was on a fairly marginal website, which
| is why I'm not entirely convinced) that there are networks of
| high-caste Indians/Hindus in SV who promote each other.
|
| Looking at social media, I know discussing caste is quite taboo.
| People who celebrate their caste openly are mocked.
|
| Is caste dead, or has it been driven underground? Does it still
| play a role in places like SV?
| bragr wrote:
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cisco-lawsuit/california-...
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(page generated 2022-06-03 23:00 UTC)