Caste Discrimination in America

Steve Sailer comments on an NPR article on caste discrimination in the U.S.

The article states that:

At over three thousand years old, caste hierarchy is one of the oldest forms of social stratification in the world: the community you’re born into in places like India, Pakistan and Nepal has designated where you can work, who you can marry, and what your reputation is in life. Even today in South Asia, caste conflict and discrimination remain a potent force in everyday life. In the United States, though, caste tends to be a relatively muted topic.

But a new survey, “Caste in the United States,” finds that caste discrimination is playing out in the United States as well — a finding that raises questions around how South Asian Americans understand themselves and their history.

The survey, which is the first of its kind, was commissioned by Equality Labs, a South Asian American human rights startup, and includes the experiences of about 1200 people who volunteered their answers.

The report on the survey’s results said that two-thirds of members of the lowest caste, called Dalits, said they have faced workplace discrimination due to their caste. Forty-one percent have experienced discrimination in education because of it. And a quarter of Dalits say they’ve faced physical assault — all in the United States. …

This survey provides data for what many in the community already know: any time there’s a dominant population of South Asians — whether they’re living in Silicon Valley or New Jersey, or working at an office or a restaurant — caste biases emerge. It could be anything from refusing to date or marry someone from a lower caste, to being on the receiving end of a casteist slur, to being made to sit separately because of your perceived “untouchability.” …

What makes caste discrimination even harder to combat in this new context is that some lower caste people hide their identity as well — 52 percent of Dalits surveyed worry about being “outted” as lower caste. 

Suhag Shukla is the executive director of the advocacy group the Hindu American Foundation. She said it’s important to get rid of caste prejudice, but that this new survey unfairly essentializes and villainizes Hinduism. It’s one of the most complex arguments surrounding caste; as the survey notes, caste first appeared in Hindu scriptures. It now pervades all religions of South Asia.

“The single most problematic issue with this survey is that it traffics in the most dangerous and false tropes about Hinduism,” she said.

“So instead of demanding an honest conversation about caste and privilege, or its contested relevance among South Asian kids of the third and fourth generation who are now coming of age that are all brown regardless of caste, this report kind of alienates Hindus by scapegoating them,” Shukla said. Caste discrimination isn’t on the radar for many South Asian kids of later generations, she added. What they’re worried about is the discrimination they face for being brown in America. Hate crimes against Muslims and South Asians are at their highest levels since the year after 9/11. 

Steve Sailer comments:

I’ve never heard of Untouchable-Americans. Are they here and hiding their status from their Hindu oppressors or not here? There are well over 150 million Untouchables in India, so I could imagine this becoming a big push in the US to give them all refugee status here. For example, if Modi’s Hindu Nationalist stays in power, liberal Indians in the US might start a big push to flood America with Dalits, kind of the way liberal American Jews don’t want Israel to send black illegal infiltrators back to Africa, they want Israel to dump the blacks on Europe.

From the article it sounds like the Hindu director wants to avoid issues of caste discrimination in order to focus on pan-brown victim mongering.  Sad.  An honest conversation would include a discussion of caste and genetics and IQ! 

The Article later states:

There has been a long history of Dalit and Black leaders finding common ground in their struggles. The Black Panthers in Oakland, for example, inspired the formation of another resistance group, the Dalit Panthers, in Mumbai. And Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, often recognized as the most renowned Dalit leader of the 20th century, and an architect of India's constitution, exchanged letters with W.E.B. Du Bois in the 1940s, after seeing the similarities between the plight of India's Dalits and African Americans in the US. This history was front and center at the event that evening in Cambridge.

"Let us never forget Ambedkar!" West insisted, as applause rung through the room. "And the spirit of W.E.B. Du Bois is here as well!"

This kind of gets to the heart of my blog.  As white nationalism rises and white Americans lose patience with black victim mongering and crying about white privilege, are upper caste Indians going to follow suit and tire of OBC and scheduled caste’s complaining about Brahmin privilege?

As Dalits align themselves with African Americans, then as white nationalists become more prominent and fatigue with BLM and Black agitation increases in the US, then Indian intellectuals will have no choice but to start becoming tired of Dalit complaining if they are also aligned with African Americans.  If Cornel West starts attacking hard working humble Brahmin families that have had to struggle to survive in America for their caste privilege, then there is a good chance that their children could become little red pilled generation Z shitlords speaking out against caste reservations.  

Some interesting comments from Sailer’s Readers (outside of the standard hateful anti-Indian alt-right stuff)

rec1man says:

@songbird

Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists from South Asia, all have castes

Muslims have 3 main castes
1) Ashraf = High Caste, Foreign origin
2) Ajlaf = Low caste
3) Razil = Untouchable Muslim

Christians have caste
1) High Caste Syrian Christian
2) Untouchable Christian = have separate burial grounds and are made to sit separately in Church
Most bishops are high caste

Sikhs have caste
1) High Caste Jat Sikh
2) Untouchable Mazbhi Sikh
They have separate regiments in Indian Army
Untouchable Sikhs go into Sikh Light Infantry

In the diaspora, esp in UK and Canada, caste issue is mainly within Sikhs – often very violently- including murder

rec1man says:

I guess about 5% of the Indian diaspora is Untouchable ( 15% in India ), and 1% are tribal ( 10% in India )

Untouchables are 20% of the Sikh diaspora and non-Sikhs cant tell them apart , unless by name and many change their name too

The biggest caste friction in the diaspora involves Upper Caste Jat Sikhs assaulting Untouchable Sikhs

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1900882,00.html

Upper Caste Jat Sikhs murdered Untouchable Sikh preacher in Vienna.

During the Khalistan movement ( Sikh Separatist movement in Indian Punjab )
It was entirely led by a section of Kulak Jat Sikhs, and the Indian govt armed the Untouchable Sikhs into a militia in rural Punjab to eliminate them

So much for the other religions eliminating castes!  Seriously, given the stark genetic diversity among the population, there is no way that something analogous to caste wouldn’t have developed if the invaders wanted to preserve their privilege in South Asian society.   

Dave Pinsen

@foobc

John Durant argued that Hinduism’s untouchables arose as an alternative way of avoiding disease to Jewish religious rules. The Jewish approach was to encourage hand washing, dietary laws, rabid burial of the dead, etc. The Hindu approach was to have all the dirty work done by one caste.

This could make sense. 

Anon7 says:

Great post. The other day I was sitting with some Indian people in their 20′s at a party, and it suddenly occurred to me that when I was 20, every single Indian person I met was actually from India. But now that I’m 60, lots of the professional Indians I meet grew up here.

Up to a few decades ago, everyone who was Indian in the USA was upper caste, as far as I could tell. Now, though, I’m starting to run into the lower strata of Indian society, less well educated, less intelligent, less hard working.

There’s a lot more of those than the Brahmins.

Yup.  This is my main fear.

            Bliss says:

@jimmyriddle

Jat Sikhs vs Dalit Sikhs = Sudras vs Chandalas = Low Caste vs Outcaste = Non-Aryan vs Non-Aryan

Sikhism is supposed to be an egalitarian religion but clearly the sikhs are not practicing what their gurus taught. Because of the strong hold of the casteist culture of India, created by brahmins ages ago. It is a wonder that low caste sudras who are the majority of hindus don’t revolt against brahminism which is the longest running scam in the history of mankind.

Actually, the caste system could make sense if it was based on merit not birth. India could learn the stupidity of hereditarianism from Chinese Confucianism and the European Enlightenment which it inspired, which in turn led to the founding of the American and French Republics.

But yet they don’t rebel…could it be because Brahmins are actually smarter?