
Silicon Valley Has a Caste Discrimination Problem - el_duderino
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3azjp5/silicon-valley-has-a-caste-discrimination-problem
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kanobo
I genuinely had no idea and surprised that caste discrimination is a thing in
silicon valley companies, have readers here experienced this? I would have
imagined that people got better things to occupy their minds with when there's
work to be done.

~~~
walrus01
I actually can't say I'm surprised. I've talked to a number of African
businessmen who've spent time traveling and working in India on business, and
they report that the discrimination and bigotry they faced there is a real
cause for concern. One of the weird things about racism is that it's not just
former colonial powers/white people discriminating against BIPOC, but also a
vast complicated web of xenophobia that some POC exhibit towards other POC.
There is a historically discriminated-against ethnic group in Afghanistan who
have been persecuted by the Tajik and Pashtun majority, because they look
Mongolian/Central Asian and are not Sunni [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazaras](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazaras)

I have personally seen discrimination in Pakistan, by the ruling elite class
in the Islamabad/Lahore area, against darker skinned persons of different
ethnic groups whose home area is in Balochistan.

~~~
kelnos
I think it's good to be reminded that "POC" is a very coarsely-defined term
that comprises a bunch of different groups, some of whom can be racist against
other POC groups. Racism, even of the systematic kind, is not limited to white
people oppressing non-white people.

It just goes to show you that people like having power over other people, and
they'll find any excuse possible to turn some group into the "other" so they
can feel justified in oppressing them. In the case of the Indian caste system,
race isn't required for this. In Afghanistan, as you point out, it can have a
big religious component (though race is part of it too).

It _is_ interesting to note that systematic racism against white people
doesn't seem that common, at least in places I've visited (mostly Asia), where
white people are in the minority. Discrimination there seems to be more
xenophobia-based than race-based.

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PaulHoule
I think the shocking thing is that even though Dalits are just 1% of the
Indian population in the U.S. that other Indians still seek them out as
victims here.

One detail I'd lean on is that South Asians are not just "engineers and
coders" but in many companies play a big role in management. This is in
contrast to East Asians which face more of a "bamboo ceiling". (e.g. a black
or white person who goes to Harvard has a golden ticket; an east asian has a
ticket to get into medical school)

~~~
badrabbit
In what scenario would anyone get to skip medical school? Or are you saying
they can't get a job with a Harvard degree? Or maybe they don't get promoted?

~~~
PaulHoule
I am saying that East Asians get funneled into detail-oriented jobs that are
about learning highly complex skills that are well paid.

Other people who go to Harvard can get into bullshit-oriented jobs that outpay
the jobs East Asian Harvard grads get by more than East Asian Harvard jobs
outpay the average American.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_ceiling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_ceiling)

For instance,

"As of 2015, less than 2% of Fortune 500 CEOs are Asian, although they
comprise 5.6% of the total United States population, and about 30% of the
graduates in the top 20 MBA programs in the last 20 years."

~~~
badrabbit
Thanks for clarifying,that sucks! Society should really get rid of this had
practice where individuals are always seen through a "race" lens.

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t0mmyb0y
Why would people be expected to leave their bias at home when they move? Born,
raised and still living in silicon valley and can easily say there are biases
here the same as everywhere, yet can seem more magnified by being in a small
pond with too many others and people cutting necks to get ahead to nowhere.

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dummydata
As with any form of discrimination, the individuals who subscribe to such a
worldview are just shallow. They don't have an appreciation for the complexity
and history of each human life.

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strikelaserclaw
how hard would it be for a dalit to just lie? "I'm from X upper caste" ,
genuinely curious. Not that they have to but could they? Is there some
cultural aspects that separate people of different castes that could be used
to identify which caste a person is from?

~~~
walrus01
There absolutely are, I'm no expert on it, but I imagine it would also be very
stressful for the person creating a fabricated family identity. Imagine if you
faked a thick Australian accent to get a job and then had to keep that up for
years while at work, M-F. Not that it's accent based but the same degree of
difficulty.

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throwaway_caste
This has been a big problem in Silicon Valley. My first-hand experience has
been in some of the older, "blue-chip" tech and networking companies like
Cisco, Aruba, Juniper, etc.

I'm Indian American in my 30s -- one of the rare elusive Bay Area natives --
my parents have been in the states since the 1970s.

Both Engineering and Management in the companies I've worked at have been
mostly South Asian Indians who have immigrated from India, not born here.

Management's modus operandi has typically been to only hire other Indians who
are here on H1B visas or other work visas (or their Indian friends). Why?
Well, the folks who are here on visas who have eventually settled down, taken
out a million dollar mortgage, and enrolled their [Indian American-born] kids
in local schools are essentially hostages -- captive workers who have learned
not to speak up or stir the boat and to never protest for fear of punishment.
They've rightfully tried to put down roots and they don't want to risk losing
them.

I've witnessed hiring processes essentially being a good old boys club, tied
to all forms of discrimination based on gender, race, caste, religion, and
language. In my personal career, I've essentially been stonewalled and
politicked and harassed because I'm not "Indian" enough -- I'm "American"
after all. Meetings where managers joked that they should hire another
Kannada-speaker, or meetings that were in Hindi only despite non-Indians being
in the room.

Typically in all-Indian teams here in the Bay Area, I've been the only one to
speak up and to be the lone voice of dissent. No matter how many facts or data
or research you bring up, if you're the only one dissenting, you're looked at
as crazy; management squashes your voice and ultimately makes major short and
long-term mistakes because everyone else was afraid to tell the emperor
[raja?] that he has no clothes.

I've witnessed tens of millions of dollars wasted in R&D and at least $100m in
lost sales because our Indian management chain has been an echo chamber of
"yes men" and friends and "good old boys" who never hold each other
accountable and bide their time for their RSUs to vest.

And what's funny is that the only teams I've actually been able to get
meaningful work done has been with "minority" teams, led by white American or
European managers, who themselves face an uphill political battle against the
Indian teams.

Lastly, the other fight I've gotten in trouble with has been advocating for
women engineers. I've witnessed so many senior, experienced women engineers be
given dead-end projects or grunt-work, versus new male hires straight out of
school getting the best projects (for which they are under-qualified for).
Repeatedly. I've brought it up to management and as expected, nothing changes.

With 10+ years of experience, every team I've worked with that had an Indian
manager has essentially thrown my work in the trash, reprimanded me, put me up
for performance issues, and/or eventually laid me off.

It's been a nightmare. I'm tired. Exhausted. Whenever I think of all the time
I've wasted because of the inane politics, it brings me to tears. This is most
certainly not now my parents raised me, nor how they adopted and integrated
themselves into the American Dream. I am constantly ashamed that the caste
system, racism, and sexism in the Indian demographics of tech are so alive and
well in the New World, where they should have been shed and discarded so long
ago.

P.S. Throwaway since my real account has my real real name and I'm currently
knee-deep in a job search. Wish me luck!

~~~
raincom
It is not so much of caste cliques in these groups. As you noticed it
yourself, H1-B employees are on-call for everything: if a manager requests
something at 7:24 pm, you can expect a reply from an Indian H1-B by 7:30 pm.
Then, there is game of "appearing to work hard". A team with majority of
Indians is full of "appearances of working hard".

Here are some example of such appearances: (a) reply to emails after work-
hours (b) last minute requests to other teams, as though it is urgent,
involving managers and others. (c) instead of being upfront, they engage in
subtle hard-working techniques.

People can add other examples, as they are relevant to study this Indian
phenomenon. This phenomenon has less to do with castes, than more to do with
the Indian way of 'management' before the British Raj came to India.

