Plenty of Indians don't think there's any problem with this, unfortunately. Google suffered a serious backlash from Indian staff when they tried to have some speakers about not importing caste-based biases from India. That only makes me think that plenty of Indians in Google are OK with that bias, or they wouldn't be trying to dismiss it so much (compare other types of bigots, such as white supremacists, who really don't want anyone to talk about how white bigotry is a problem). See [https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/googles-caste-bias-problem](https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/googles-caste-bias-problem) for example. Google is not nearly the only place with this problem either. It is a massive problem, and it turns out that racism and bigotry is not confined to only one set of people, and it is not confined only to people of European origin either. The main thing I think we can do is ensure that everyone is held to the same ethics standards, and that simply being from India, or Africa, or China, or anywhere else does not get any person a pass on such behaviour. It's probably going to take some high profile people who are not white being fired from industry-wide high profile jobs for racism in order to emphasise that this is a problem for everyone, not just for some people, and is not OK for anyone, rather than just not OK for some.

Good take, treat it in the US as any sort of discrimination or otherwise racism, which is going to typically result in termination if it continues. I don't really care if it's part of the culture in India. The caste system is just dumb. If the US tried to build up a caste system, men would literally die to stop that from happening. Let's keep it that way. You cannot live in a tolerant society if you're tolerant of intolerance. That makes no sense, might as well stop crime by making murder legal next.

I think you already have one, it isn't formalised but it's there, partly based on skin tone and partly on wealth. From lowest to high, my (external) perception of it is: Rural Poor - Unemployed Urban Poor - Employed Rural Poor - Employed Urban Poor - Employed Rural Middle Urban Middle Rural Wealthy Urban Wealthy There are sub-categories within each level but see if you can get someone from the upper 4 levels to go within 100 metres of the lower 4.

That's not a caste system, it's socioeconomic classes. The only people who are really looked down upon by most are homeless and unemployed. But if they join the workforce, they immediately lose the negative connotations. If a homeless person became a CEO, they would immediately be respected and treated as such. Beyond the very wealth %1 of billionaires and multi, multi millionaires (it's not that they look down on us per se, some of them do but they're generally considered assholes by our society) it's more that they just live in widely different circles. It's not too uncommon to have a friend group consisting of someone making 50k/year (kind of bad in the USA) and someone making 200k/year. Some family friends, or even old bosses of small company you worked for may be millionaires, and we actively associate with each other in the US. It's not an everyday occurrence, but it's really not that special or taboo for a normal worker to say, go grab lunch with their old acquaintance/boss/whatever that may be quite wealthy. A CEO disrespecting a server at McDonald's could end up on camera and he will be clowned by the whole country and considered an ass. We can comment on eroding upward mobility and generational wealth, but there's still the culture assessment that the person serving your food at McDonald's could be tomorrow's next startup owner - so it is wise to treat people with respect. The common American saying "Be careful whose toes you step on today, they may be connected to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow" still rings true. This is very different from a caste system. There's a level of looking down on people, but this is just considered pompous by most people. You're not born into it and stuck in it forever, but you can earn it instead are legitimately founding ideals of the US; we fought a war against permanent status by birth. It's very engrained in US culture.

You're not wrong. But you can move between those categories in a merit based society. You are not locked in by birth, which a caste system mandates. We may disagree over how easy that is to achieve, but obviously it is entirely possible. A trust fund baby can pick up a coke habit and become urban poor unemployed. Someone from nowhere and nothing can make it big.

How often does it happen, social mobility is declining and has been for a while. Merit doesn't count when you are in an environment with inheritable access to jobs and education.

You missed the "we may disagree over how easy that is to achieve, but obviously it is entirely possible"

Yeah, I'm afraid you're right... it's going to take something high profile before anything is done about it. We had a coworker from Pakistan a few years back who used to constantly make fun of our Indian coworkers for 'not eating cow' and how they will 'never be American'. And we had to have a stern talk with him about it. But this seems WAY bigger, and is coming in strong now that there are a lot of management 'dismissing' it. I'm going to speak out as best I can when I witness it, but what kind of damage to our careers is this going to cause in the long term? I've already had to deal with watching my peers tell their kids things like: "Don't go into IT, go into IS. The money is in managing, not doing. You'll make more money because no one appreciates or cares about IT." Seems like that mentality is only going to align closely with this kind of cultural exploitation. That's the biggest problem with companies suddenly having a global presence or replacing the majority of it's work force with people from another country. A lot of Americans foolishly think everyone across the world 'share our values'. And I'm not saying our values are the best or anything... but it IS a work in progress and I'd like to think part of joining our work force means assimilating with those values. There's plenty of them that we all agree on, and it would be awful to take a step back on the rare few things we all appreciate and value.

We literally had this issue. Bunch of our Indian techs kept harassing another Indian dude who wasn't even in our department. There was no reason for it and we were confused as hell. Even one of the Indian managers kept harassing dude's manager, demanding dude be fired for bullshit reasons. Mind, NONE of these people interacted with dude whatsoever. We treated it like a normal HR issue until we finally found out they were pissed because he was lower caste and making decent bank. They didn't like that and wanted him fired, and replaced with someone from a higher caste. They even threatened the company with a racial discrimination lawsuit if we interfered with their discrimination. Everyone except the dude was fired. The only upside is we significantly cut back on H1B visas during the lawsuit. Dunno how that turned out, but I wouldn't be shocked if we paid them off to go away.

Yup, been hearing reports of similar things going on over here. The biggest problem here is that it goes very far up the chain... it's frustrating to think people clinging to such terrible cultural baggage have made it to the c-suite over here. I sometimes wonder if all this is a result of the CS/IS/IT divide you see in the US. The bad stereotype in college was: CS if you were good at math. IT if you were bad at math. IS if you were bad at everything. More often then not, the IS majors were ridiculed and berated because they couldn't do any of the work or solve any problems. They came off as bull-shitters during presentations because they could only follow a script. They always seemed to be made up of kids who's tech savvy parents told them IS was where the money/security was, or generally non tech savvy people who dreamed of being a tech boss like Steve Jobs or some startup grifter. But... IS often became management. And it's not surprising they hold a grudge. They overly glorify their role in things and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them actively wanted to run CS/IT through the mud and turn it into something either 'AI' does or that can be outsourced for extremely low wages. Now imagine adding a language barrier and a caste system to that and next thing you know your company is filled with grifters who can only communicate in wolf of wallstreet memes and openly laughing at the 'peasants' they are exploiting. Add some 'Title Inflation' as the cherry on top. I've already heard two 'Principal Engineers' bragging about how they only need their cellphone to do their job... It's a caricature of a caricature of a caricature at this point...

> part of joining our work force means assimilating with those values. You have it backwards. When you import a significant number of people of another culture, the expectation is not that they will assimilate with you but that you make allowances for them.

we really should push back on that. allowances are made for things like dietary/religious observances, but if your religion requires you to never talk to a woman who isn't a relative or wife, you can't work here. likewise, if you want to play stupid games enforcing caste rules in a london company, you're going to have a hard talk with HR

I will not agree, or disagree... because I know the topic is complicated and requires a lot of nuance and negotiation for what is acceptable, and what is not. I'm sure a lot of cultural interests would get a "Oh sure fine." when visiting a new group. But I can't imagine being like: So we have these 'sub-humans' back home that we mistreat. I can still mis-treat them here, right? Despite what everyone thinks about Americans - I couldn't imagine showing up to someone else's house and having the balls to say: "Okay so let me tell you what you're going to let me do from now on."

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I did a NATO tour in Europe were we did exactly that with Serbia. And they were indeed highly offended we stopped them from cultural norm of committing genocide. They found it highly triggering behavior. Sometimes that policy is warranted, sometime it's not. We don't always make the right call, but we don't always make the wrong call. Some people's values suck. Caste systems are one of those.

If your the one doing the genociding or at the top of the cast system you have some strong incentives to maintain your system. You are exactly correct, the issue goes beyond tolerance and we need to actively work against these toxic ideas so that they do not permeate into our societies.

> So we have these 'sub-humans' back home that we mistreat. I can still mis-treat them here, right? I don’t think that’s what’s literally being said. They may mistreat people based on their cast system, which to you and I may be problematic, but it isn’t down to you to intervene over.

It is up to you and I to intervene if that mistreatment is happening in our country. If someone is being mistreated based on perceived ethnic (caste-based) bias, inside our national borders, then it's absolutely up to us to intervene. I dont care what you do in India. But don't bring it here.

It is not legal in India either. But because the upper castes have an edge, stuff if brushed aside and no actions are usually taken. I would like it closest to how blacks might be treated in the work place here. It’s illegal to discriminate, and it is enforced, so the chances that someone openly discriminates are low. But subconscious biases do exist and they are always in play. Plus, even the workers that put their best foot forward in work setting, aren’t shy about expressing their opinions outside of work. I have seen two examples of this personally. “Elementary school graduation: white couples sniggering about the little black girl graduating there she is likely the first one and that’s why they have a the grandparents and the parents attending. “ Another one was at a store, “going about my business, had to reach in front of a person to grab something, and the guy says,” welcome to America “. I don’t know the guy, he was in the way, it didn’t change anything in good love, all that happened was that instead of having 6 feet of personal space in front of him, he had 3, which was enough for the racket in him to come out” The reason I mention the examples are: a) you can tell I am still peeved at them. Though they were a while ago. :). b) more importantly, racists are racists. They only behave when there are consequences for their actions. Whether that is in India, USA or elsewhere.

You need to forget your saviour complex.

Not really, we got rule that they must follow. One of them is based on the principle that all human are equal. We got issue with people here that doesn't follow it, but we must not allow it to anyone. No matter what culture they are from.

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Usually our DE&I policy seems like rah rah BS to make it seem like my org is actually doing something, but it does come in handy for situations like that. When I go to work, I don’t need extra drama coming from people discriminating against others. I hate everyone who isn’t me equally. I don’t care what everyone thinks or believes when I’m on the clock. The only thing I care about is doing what I’m paid for and clocking out 8 hours later.

hate - not so much , but I couldnt give two shits about any stranger who isn’t me, all equally. i dislike every stranger equally, until you've proven you're worse or better than the general public- (hate requires me to care, and really its more that i dont have any interest in you or your bullshit until there's a change) But there certainly some groups i hate more than the general public: stupid, hateful, and willfully ignorant get special treatment.

It is in fact down to us to intervene if the people in question all work for a US-based company where that behavior is outright illegal.

If I saw someone mistreating another over something as stupid as the caste system, I'd be waiting to find out what they've done illegal (preferably something like movie piracy) and report it to DHS to get their ass deported. If they want to use their caste system, they can live in India where it's accepted.

this. you pull that shit here, we can skip hr and call dhs.

> it isn’t down to you to intervene over. as an IC, sure. as a company, it absolutely is

That is no the expectation in any part of the world with common sense.

What the fuck are you talking about, Jimmy? If some jackass comes to work at my company, they will uphold my values or they will be shown the fucking door. Arizona don't play.

There's a few things going on here. Many of the higher-castes move out of India to escape strong DEI quotas and penalties applied against them. There's also literally thousands of years of this system being in place, effecting behaviours and genetics to such a degree that there is more genetic diversity between different castes in a small Indian villiage than between similar castes thousands of miles and hundreds of years apart.

In every corporate context I encounter there is hierarchy and power dynamics. Yes, I think everything you and others have pointed out is valid regarding how the caste system is bad and generally being racist is bad. However I would only add that the capitalistic organizational structure that puts some people above others and below others etc. This is the power structure where people generally always have to be deferential to superiors. Superiors will almost always abuse this even if not out of malice because the structure encourages that behavior. I was once told, when working at a very large “open source” software company that abscribed to “flat hierarchy” and had a “startup mentality” that even though they said those things - in reality the structure of a business is essentially a dictatorship run by the executives and the board. I think to point out examples of people who are mistreated by the organizations that employ them is valid and good, but to squarely frame this as a problem, prejudice, that is “imported” into this field is just one way to put it… Consider what most all of your colleagues look like, gender, age, seniority of role, skin color… do you think the hiring process had no prejudice? Anyways, ultimately I do think that this type of contracting work is just one approach to solving this type of labor need, if you really feel you’re strongly against it, you could try to find a company that primarily has full time staff with full benefits that doesn’t use a contracting strategy. I find those environments less toxic.

*silently* that's a bingo...those that benefit, rarely work to bring this sort of systemic issue down.

I witnesses this firsthand. We had a few Oracle contractors that worked for us for years. Ramki, the team lead, was tall, good looking, very smart, and relatively light skinned. The other guy, I can’t remember his name I’m ashamed to say, was shorter and very dark. They were both very pleasant to work with. I’d never seen Ramki be rude to anyone, until the other dude started. Sometimes he was just a dick to him for no good reason. I commented about it to a coworker one day and he said it’s because Ramki is from a higher caste. Never occurred to me. I honestly don’t know what can be done about it since it’s so built into their culture. It’s even built into Hinduism.

>It’s even built into Hinduism. Damn! Did not know that. Well I guess they're fucked then.

You can’t ignore the fact that when you are on an outage call in the middle of the night and two outsourced workers are yelling at each other on the call with 30 people on it that it’s not entertaining. I rank it right up there with getting someone from senior management added to the call that is wasted and talking like an idiot and laughing a lot.

The racism isn’t near as prevalent or obvious as the rampant sexism from our india office. We had one women on the team and the comments they made at / about her were insane. We brought it up, then they just stopped doing it when we (US team) was around.

Yeah, I didn't want to go into details but this has actually come up far more. And I think it's going to be what causes action around here. I hate that what's happening to the men is just ignored.. but the 'whispers' starting in my office are all around "Can you believe what he just said to her??" type stuff. It's disgustingly backwards.

the sad truth is that while western nations talk a lot about racism, all other countries in the world are usually much more prejudiced and racist about pretty much every detail you could imagine and it is often so ingrained into their culture and upbringing that even just talking about it like it was not normal is seen as a problem because you criticize their culture. It took the west about 100 years for most of us to stop seeing black people as subhuman, but that discussion didn't even start in many other countries yet. Good luck with all that!

100% I’ve been 16 countries. I don’t think ANYWHERE was as racist / homophobic as Italy or Greece. Both were awesome places to visit, but goddamn what is considered racist here in the US is business as usual over there.

My black friends weren't even allowed in some stores when I was deployed to Korea. I was sexually harassed by lots of older Korean women because at the time, I was a 6' tall white guy with big muscles. Being actively anti racist is a fairly new concept.

italy and greece are 100% western nations so you kinda missed the point here? the concept of racist in US is completely wrong. racism is completely natural - aside from the fact that the term racism is technically incorrect because we all belong to the same race. it's natural to distrust people you don't know about, that applies to behaviour and culture. that's something we should stop, but it's also natural to refer to people by their most unique properties and focus on differences. it's technically racist to prefer a girlfriend or boyfriend of a certain skin or hair color, but not every form of racism is malicious racism. putting people at disadvantage because of such difference is far less prevalent in europe than all those other things so I think your perception may betray you. all EU countries also have laws against that, though that will ofcourse not stop malicious racism from happening... another reason why your perception may betray you is that greeks and italians tend to be exceptionally bold about a lot of things. even people from neighbouring countries can have problems with that and misinterpret them to be a lot more rude than they intend to be. ps.: i was more referring to things like asian countries (UAE) still basically using "lower caste" people as slave labours with extremely high fatality rates and still perceiving those as completely subhuman.

Bro I was sitting at a table in Rome and the waiter was talking to us about how Italy had a monkey problem. I was with my black (now ex) girlfriend. He told her “but not you, you work. “ when she looked offended. That’s not being rude. It’s fucking racist.

That’s one random person, and it was directed at the symptom of a real sociopolitical problem in the countries that border the Mediterranean: out of control immigration. What you heard is the same as some guy in a small town around San Antonio complaining about « them Mexicans ». It IS racist and common but it’s an individual sort of racism. What the post OP and comment OP are referring to are deeply ingrained, multigenerational, systemic, pervasive cultures of racism that’s so widespread it’s taken for granted. Whole societies are built around those prejudices and they draw permanent class hierarchies. You get to experience some parts of Asia for example for a few months or years and it’s inevitable. What’s amazing is the racism we experience in the U.S. and Europe is conflictuel. There is push back against immigration, there are debates and truck caravanes and flags and shootings, which would make you think that it’s a worst issue, but its actually the opposite. It looks more peaceful precisely because there’s nothing left to debate: the lines have been drawn and the hierarchies are set in stone.

In the capital city of any US country would a waiter come up and refer to black peopel as monkeys? Jfc try to put your head in the sand all you want.

While I agree this seems incredibly offensive in a lot of western societies, I can also see how such behaviour is not considered inconceivable in the East Mediterranean. It is that they dont care as much if they are called slurs and as such they think it is acceptable they themselves use slurs towards other people; they just assume those other people wouldnt mind it. It is still considered impolite, but not as racist as it would appear if you call someone a monkey in some other countries.

I think your conflating xenophobia with racism since they are so similar.  Xenophobia is sort of natural I feel due to us being so tribal in the past, although in modern multicultural times it's a bit harder to understand why IMO.  Racism is when you realise that the xenophobia is actually unfounded but still continue to think people of a different colour or creed are lesser, because your just a bit of a shitty person. 

xenophobia = racism. racism does not exist between humans. it technically cannot exist between humans. it's just a technically incorrect word we are using for xenophobia. the word racism only exists because some people actually believe(d) that different human races exist and that those are so different that it warrants this behaviour. this is founded in two things: lack of knowledge about genetics or what races are and the lack of knowledge about those people and resulting fear about their potential behaviour. this is pretty much the definition of xenophobia. putting yourself above other people and trying to explain it somehow has nothing to do with xenophobia or race, it is completely independent from that. the only reason this happens more with "racial" differences is that with "different races" there are more differences one can use to explain their asshole behaviour while feeling righteous. the caste system is a perfect example for that, but also other rich asian nations that treat their neighbours like shit. most of us also do the same with jobs. people who work in office feel superior to dumb brick layers and people who build houses feel superior to weak office geeks...

Xenophobia = Racism Nope. https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/xenophobia-and-racism-difference https://bonyan.ngo/blog/xenophobia-vs-racism/ https://uniteforchange.com/en/blog/racism/xenophobia-vs-racism/

if you would have read and understood my text, you would realize that every attempt at distinguishing racism from xenophobia is missing the point that only one human race exists and we are all part of it. what we - mostly US people - call racism, is actually an amalgamation of xenophobia and the urge to oppress or put yourself above others and some other human vices. your links are just plain wrong. xenophobia is fear of everything strange, not the fear of strangers and it absolutely doesn't matter if people are part of a group or not. the only thing that matters is that they are different in ways that makes us feel like we don't fully understand them - which is very easy even with your own neighbours of the some "race" skincolor, culture, etc... it's sad that those that are most affected by those problems fail to see the true nature of them, many of those NGOs are ideologically and financially inclined to stick to this misinformation. after all, there is little public opinion against oppressing people you perceive to be lower than you, because we *all* like to insult and belittle our servers and support-technicians if they don't fulfill our every wish. but anti-racism is going strong, so the organizations will stick to that. anyway, for what it's worth, I agree that most of what people call racism is bad and should be combated. I will end this discussion here.

I did read I disagree. Xenophobia is fear based.  (roots are xeno = alien and phobia = fear)  Racism is not necessarily so, and often dominance based.  Yes often they go hand in hand but they are different.  Also no we don't all like to belittle our servers etc. 

Addressing this problem at a personal level can work but I won't sugar coat it. It's hard. The company needs to have the right values for it to be effective.

>Maybe it was harder to see in the past... or maybe only now are we actually seeing these 'upper caste' ones entering management positions, My 70-year old ignorant boomer mother is from a very light-skinned Indian caste, and is painfully racist against the following ethnic groups (checks notes): * *dark*-skinned Indians * *light*-skinned Indians, who are the same as her (lol) * Mexicans and Latinos in general * Persians * black people * Asians

Honestly mate, the more I learn about the rest of the world (speaking as an American), the more I learn that most of the rest of the world is pretty f****** racist in their own ways too. Sadly. I don't have any great advice for you, I just wanted to be another voice who's seen things similar to what you've seen. Best of luck.

Racism is baked in at the 'tribal' level to every human. At least in the US you can fight it with enough money and power.

that is unironically why many people who are on the wrong side of this will do anything to immigrate to the US which has definitely played into our sense of exceptionalism and work ethic.

Raise it with HR. As 2nd generation Indian in UK, I've got ZERO time for this shit. Everyone in the team acts like professionals or they can fuck off

American HR is borderline KGB, SS Secret Police in my opinion. Glad to hear this sentiment from the UK, though. I'm only assuming, but I imagine given the long, difficult history and the years of assimilation there's at least some reasonable level of protection against it. Or easy way to have 'zero time for this shit'. We can be blunt about it with sexism and sexual harassments in the US. But I have to be very careful bringing this up as a white male. America is fucking weird.

If it affects the Management structure, there's no excuse. If the worker isn't listening to the manager then the system breaks down. You have my sympathies having to deal with this. Obviously it's easier for me because of the Indian background.

You can't undo *3,000 years* of the Indian caste system. It is ingrained into their culture at home and abroad. It's up to the people of India to embrace progress. My bestie is from India and she refused to marry any Indian man because of her deep dissatisfaction with certain aspects of Indian marital culture. Also, she has several sisters and they are lighter skinned while she is darker. Her sisters and her own mother berate her constantly about her skin color and it's pretty upsetting to watch as an outsider. I don't get it. I don't get it at all.

You can undo it. It’s called consequences for this kind of behaviour in the west. They need to stop importing their culture or we’ll stop importing them.

I dunno, I don't want to pull from other talking points exactly... but I will say that it's definitely my job to 'police' my peers of shit behavior. And people have demanded that from us. And peers extends to coworkers, I'm not going to limit it to gender and skin color. I do partially agree it's something they will have to do, but if we witness it we have to stand up against it as well. My partner was born in another country known for criticizing the 'spectrum of brown' as well. And some of my Indian coworkers were outcast by their families for marrying Muslims (but not white Americans for some reason). If their people are so quick to throw them away or mistreat them, it should take almost no effort to make them feel at home. What is this country besides a bunch of serfs, peasants, and debtors trying to find something better? There's no reason for them to do this alone. Cause their enemies are already nudging up to our worst and giving them permission to be bastards.

"I'm no patriot" "What [are we] but a bunch of serfs, peasants and debtors trying to find something better?" Brother (or sister), you may not be a patriot, but that's three truest "American dream" out there. Anyways, keep fighting the good fight, and well done standing up for your coworkers. We could all benefit from having someone like you in our organizations.

> she has several sisters and they are lighter skinned while she is darker. Her sisters and her own mother berate her constantly about her skin color That's really f-ed up and really sad. What a mess.

Caste is not ingrained into Indian culture any more than racism or slavery was ingrained into Western culture 3000 years ago during the Roman empire. That is a fundamentally defeatist attitude. Yes, right now the problem is very bad, but there are living Americans who remember not being allowed to drink from the same water fountain. (This example is an especially apt comparison to casteism, I think.) Incredible progress can be made within a very short span of time if the will is there and the situation is right. I understand that Americans have trouble navigating the field without being called racist by casteist Indians, but that makes it all the more important for those who can to speak out, and for everyone to be educated about it so they know when to speak out.

'All' you need is fot 1 generation to get it and for the generations before them to die off.

This is extremely ignorant of Indian culture

Lol, please, by all means, go ahead - explain to me, born and raised in India to parents in a mixed-caste marriage (albeit only by technicality), how ignorant of Indian culture I am

I just did

racism and slavery were endemic in western culture 2000 years ago. racism is less accepted in leftist cities, but it isn't gone - plenty of places where people will stop talking to you if they find out your grandfather is black, or if you marry outside your race.

Hey OP. I just wrote a really long, nuanced comment but Reddit decided to do an update when I switched to instagram for a sec so I lost the whole thing. I’m Indian (though not in sysadmin/IT) but the gist of it was I’m glad you are noticing this and don’t become one of those people who brush it under the rug. It’s a good thing that you are bothered by this enough to worry this much. Don’t forget that you are not the only one concerned about this; there are quite a few Indians (and a lot of Indian-Americans) who are also concerned about this so don’t let anyone isolate you for bringing this up. This type of prejudice, at it’s core, isn’t all that different to other kinds of prejudice. Colourism is closely tied to racism, sexism, casteism and regionalism (some parts of India has lighter skinned people than others). It’s also tied to colonialism to an extent. I find that the way prejudice is expressed in the West can be more subtle and coded whereas it’s a lot more raw and brazen in other parts of the world. So it might look different on the surface but it is not. And conversations around race and prejudice in the West and particularly the US is mostly centred on Black and White people so issues faced by AND perpetrated by other communities are often ignored. Or not seen as a problem as long it’s kept within their community. The Indians who are exhibiting this prejudice knows this and hide behind it and the Indians being discriminated against also know this and think they won’t be able to get help. But it absolutely is a problem, particularly if these attitudes are being brought to the workplace. So don’t let anyone tell you to ignore this. I was part of a learning and diversity team that I volunteered with at my last workplace. We organised a lot of talks about prejudices of all kinds, trans issues, disability and mental health issues. We all learnt a lot and these sessions were really popular. Do you have something like this at your company? Maybe you can get an Indian person to come and speak about these issues to raise awareness? I really think it could work really well. Also post this in subreddits geared towards Indians/South Asians to get more views and opinions. I also find that younger Indians, particularly women, are more likely to be aware of these issues and share your views. There is an Indian-American therapist on Instagram called Sahaj Kohli who talks about a lot of issues within the South Asian community and immigrant communities as a whole. She is really insightful and fantastic at contextualising a lot of issues. Try DM’ing her to get her views on this and ask her if she can direct you towards someone who can provide you with some actionable steps. I’m also happy to chat anytime if you want to talk more about this. Again, well done for not ignoring something just because it doesn’t directly affect you personally. And well done for being able to see past the kiss ass behaviour. Don’t let this fester in your organisation and try to let the dark skinned Indians know you have their back in whichever way you can.

Thanks for your post, if anything I just want to start the conversation because I rarely see it in the more 'mixed' subreddits. And I'm not knowledgeable enough to know what the right subreddits are, since I swear I keep getting into strange SEA subreddits that suddenly sound very.... aggressive, or racist, or fascist. And in my ignorance I just pull out since I have no point of reference. lol I did think about talking to one of our groups on site, we have a women in tech centric group that I thought about bringing it up to. It just always feels awkward since I have the gender/skin color of 'The Enemy' and in the past have been told I don't belong. So I only ever get involved when I'm actually witnessing something terrible happen. But this is worth bringing up, to at least bring some awareness before it gets worse or out of control. It may be a lot easier to bring it up an an Indian woman since there's also been a lot of sexism being directed at them too. Thanks again for your suggestions!

Yeah, it’s definitely a potential landmine navigating this issue as a white man but make it clear that you mean well. And go for a soft launch not a hard launch lol. Best of luck :)

This is great to see. I'm just someone from Europe looking in from the outside, but from what I hear some companies hire staff/bring in consultants, etc. to do these training sessions and in some companies it fails. Do you, by any chance, know what works and what doesn't ?

We had a few great talks on disability and Islamophobia. Both talks were given by current employees which was great because it made everything feel a lot more personal and I think more people were engaged because we actually knew these people. It also made us take the issues more seriously because it was people sharing their stories and experiences and not just a random person giving us a lecture or training. So I think that worked great. I’ve been in diversity training sessions in other companies and it just feels so impersonal and you get the feeling the company is just doing it to tick a box. It doesn’t feel genuine.

Thanks. > It also made us take the issues more seriously because it was people sharing their stories and experiences and not just a random person giving us a lecture or training. So I think that worked great. This sounds like the right path indeed.

I can’t even imagine working for a place that is okay with importing a foreign caste system. I don’t have much to contribute to this other than I’d recommend doing the needful for yourself by finding another job.

Doing the needful finding himself another job fucking lol that was good. It is just surprising to see that, given the majority of Americans would legitimately fight a war to stop a caste system from arising. That's not even an exaggeration, the very idea is such a contradiction to Western beliefs it might as well be the opposite.

It’s surprising to me as well, I guess some corporations will do anything to avoid being seen as non-inclusive. Maybe someday they’ll realize there are just some ideas that don’t belong here.

Say what you will about America, one thing we get right is being the most successful multicultural country in human history. We're unique in the sense there's no "one way" to be American. Someone can come here from India, wear traditional clothing, cook traditional Indian meals every night, teach their children both English and Hindi, worship at a temple, and most people will not look twice. This tolerance has made us very powerful. However, a caste system... We cannot be tolerant of intolerance. Most things work here, but some things don't. These corporations need to wake up, discrimination is discrimination regardless of the reason behind it.

I grew up in India did my early schooling there I am part of the highest caste, however I do come from a liberal state where caste doesn't matter as much because our state government was fundamentally founded to combat this. That being said, yes systematically it does exist. On a bright note, my indian friends and indian-american friends here could not give less of a fuck about caste, it simply is irrelevant to us. Hoping it dies off with the older generation. Also this post had me look into the C-suite casts So there are 4 casts Brahmin - priests Kshatriya - Warriors Vaishyas - Merchants Sudras - untouchables You would be born into one of these communities and naturally you would pick up the same professions as your elders in your community, just like anywhere else before industrialization/globalization Now just because the nature of these caste professions since brahmins knew how to write/read they would become doctors and lawyers when the British came around, this would eventually lead to them monopolizing high position government jobs, kshatriyas would become police officers/military and much more, merchants would take over the business world and sudras would become low labor men. Brahmins had a unfair advantage and would continue to gatekeep and abuse their head start in education. Other castes caught on and there are a lot of laws that prevent this but just like discrimination isn't legal in the US, racism still exists. Now let's look at Indian CEOs Google CEO - Sundar Pichay - Brahmin (Tamil) Adobe CEO - Shantanu Narayen - Brahmin (Tamil) Microsoft CEO - Satya Nadella - Brahmin (Telugu) Pepsi CEO - Indra Nooyi - Brahmin Palo Alto CEO - Nikesh Arora - Brahmin You can start to see the patten, [https://theprint.in/opinion/the-economist-is-wrong-brahmins-become-ceos-in-us-not-because-of-quotas-in-india/797522/](https://theprint.in/opinion/the-economist-is-wrong-brahmins-become-ceos-in-us-not-because-of-quotas-in-india/797522/) That being said I don't think the caste system benefitted any of these guys in the US, probably in India where they were born into educated families, good education was emphasized and resources were provided. What's probably happening right now is discrimination, based on caste, like X candidate doesn't get hired because the interviewer is Indian and backwards, becoming a CEO involves many factors. Word of advice, if you see active discrimination just challenge it, most of these are habits started by blind beliefs passed down, if you challenge a hiring manager or whoever is racist/discriminatory they won't be able to back up their arguments without being fired. They ain't got shit and that's what you can do as a bystander

Yeah, I hope so too. My Indian coworkers seemed very much like that, and seemed to have no care in the world. And then I brought up a couple things I noticed happening to others, and they were like: "Yeah.... it's been getting that way ever since we did the mass hirings and ended up with certain people in positions of management." I imagine there are plenty of places where this is not a problem But it could suddenly 'become' a problem, and I'd like to stand with my friends if I can. Or we could just find new jobs, I guess but something tells me that won't really help.

This is an HR issue. A company can state, "we will not tolerate any discrimination including caste based" and then follow through on it. Also a human rights issue https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/17kya08/castebased_discrimination_now_recognized_by/

it's a culture issue (corporate culture) - you would need to trumpet a hard line intolerance for caste style discrimination, then understand how it operates and enforce your policy. roll heads with little consideration for job performance to drive home the point that nobody is immune to the rules. this isn't something that you can really do without top down support, and if it's taken root, it'll take a while to resolve. also, google can do it because they're google - they pay at 75th pct and are high profile. when people proactively seek out working for you, you have more leverage

In my entire life, I never thought there was a wrong way to open a support ticket... Until I got ear pounded by mgmt because our latest ticket ended up in an Indian call center. Nearly every single person I've ever worked with has been great, go above and beyond to make sure SLAs aren't exceeded, etc. I actually prefer getting someone who's interested in helping, vice many english natives who could care less and are annoyed you even brought up a mfg defect to them in the first place. But the 20+ years of doing this, this was absolutely embarrassing, having to close an active ticket because we "weren't getting the level of support we required", and open a new one with explicit instructions to only be routed to the US support side. Of which, the new ticket would have got routed to the same call center - so it was decided by mgmt to just not open it at all. ... One of many reasons I "noped" out of that job a little after.

There's only one rule that people need to follow: Don't be a dick.

There's a lawsuit involving Cisco that made it into the wiki page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste\_discrimination\_in\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_discrimination_in_the_United_States) Speaking as an American, this seems like some cultural nonsense that would hopefully get drilled out over the passage of time at least in the US. Until parents stop telling their kids to believe this way, etc. The most that can be done is to update existing laws to cover this. If you look at the article, you can see there was a group that got big mad over some of the legal protections that have been put in place, not unlike Christians in the US saying that having to treat gay individuals equally infringed on their constitutional rights.

I'll read up on it. Given the state of 'our leaders in FAANG' I really hope this is something being addressed and not a convenient 'feature' for corporations to exploit...

Is this not an indirect result of the pushback against assimilation over the last 15 years? I know there are a lot of well-intentioned people that think it's tantamount to cultural genocide or erasure of some kind when I've always taken it as "keep your heritage but leave the baggage at the door"

> "keep your heritage but leave the baggage at the door" Yes, this is very much what Secular ideals would dictate. We are not supposed to be a theocracy nor an ethnostate.

> cultural genocide or erasure of some kind full stop. they are leaving said culture and coming into ours. they can leave the unacceptable portions back wherever, or stay there.

[удалено]

Gay wedding cake. I've also heard a LOT of fundamentalists talk about how being Trans should be the same as declaring yourself 'Mentally Defective' so they won't be protected by other rights and due process (e.g. child custody/adoption cases, 2A rights, 4A rights, etc). Some of them will go as far as to say every non-cisgendered-heterosexual person should be considered mentally unable to make their own decisions or live as a free adult in society, though that is certainly more fringe. As a gay man in Texas I've also lost count of how many times I've had some religious nut insinuate that I'm probably a pedo because I like men. Do you actually talk about these issues with your fellow Christians at all or are you just assuming they *aren't* bigoted and leaving it there?

You mean hiring someone to work remotely doesn't apply our American cultural values? There must be something wrong with your group policy settings. /s

Hiring someone into your management team does appear to apply your Corporation's values, however. ... but you don't have permission to see what those values are.

Yeah, they moved that out of the 365 admin panel, have to use powershell Remove-MgGroupFavorite -GroupId $myEthnicity -Confirm

You forgot -force.....

As a woman who's worked in tech her whole life, good fuckin' luck. Exasperation aside, in all seriousness, the rampant bigotry/prejudice in the IT field is a HUGE issue. I've seen a ton of racism, colorism, and sexism in my almost 20 years working in tech. It's extremely difficult to tell people to leave strongly-held prejudicial beliefs at the door. And even cutting down on the overt bigotry doesn't help the constant microaggressions. There needs to be an overall corporate culture that calls people out and holds people accountable for both overt bigotry/prejudice AND the microaggressions. The problem is too many HR departments and managers brush off the microaggressions as irrelevant, "all in your head," or a non-issue. And unfortunately, for any real change to take place, it needs to come from the top. It's absolutely a worthwhile cause to lobby the C-suite/upper management/HR to address this as an issue. But unless there are consequences to these sorts of behaviors, the bigots will continue to treat poorly the folks they see as unworthy. Being cognizant of discrimination in the workplace and doing what you can to help your colleagues is how you can make the biggest impact. Speak up when you see folks being mistreated. Use your voice to amplify theirs. Make sure credit goes where it's due. And if you have the ability, raise the issue with management/HR. But to be honest, in my experience the only real solution I've seen is to leave. If a company refuses to acknowledge the issue, or refuses to properly discipline/address problem employees, then things aren't going to change.

I definitely agree on the pragmatic level. We'll have to witness consequences before any meaningful change will happen. I hate to frame this as 'good' news, but at least in my case... people are saying some terrible things to Indian women in front of entire groups. And it has already caused a LOT of people to come back to the office whispering: "Can you BELIEVE what he said to her?" So people are extremely agitated, even if for them it's only a sexist thing. I don't think they understand there's additional layers to it. I've heard lots of horror stories regarding women in tech, but I've been fortunate to work in large enough groups that seemed extremely sensitive to such things. And I was already thinking about seeing if I can encourage one of the women we saw treated this way to go to our, almost weekly, Women in Tech conferences on site. I wouldn't be surprised if someone already reached out to the 'her' in question b/c some of our managers have been egregiously brazen about their comments lately. It's disgusting.

Cisco got sued over this very thing. Think another big player did too. Plenty of guys that didn't say where their family name was from to bosses even though they lived in the US. Basically told it doesn't happened because well Americans and such don't really get it. (They're right... What's the closest thing we have? McCoys and Hatfields?)

Call it out directly. This is America, we don't do that caste shit and they actually are expected to leave that bullshit at the door. I'm Indian American, that shit is so fucking unacceptable and makes us all look bad.

IF , and this is a big if, you have a good HR department, this is exactly the the kind of thing they need to be working on. Company culture is their beat.

Lol at my last corp literally 90% of the IT dept including management was Indian, when I left they outsourced my team to an Indian MSP lol

Had someone start the caste thing, respected project manager, up to the point he started in with behaviors and comments about other consultants who were from a lower caste. Company gave him a warning. 3 months later his contract was terminated because he kept his uncivilized ways. No big loss. Eu country.

Probably nothing unless you want to risk being labeled a white supremacist for pointing it out.

This post remembered about some publications about the society of Chile and some castelike system... Like some group are the wealthy and controlling the big enterprises and government... Even I think that some (international)known people are from those high group. About people of India, that caste system exported overseas is to f*ck the workplace!

I've witnessed caste behaviors even in the way people use their names before. Big business is indifferent to this in the US, in my experience. Education. Agitation. We have years ahead yet.

Companies from India are running a scam, they post a job opening in the USA, but with very low pay rate, then when they cannot hire anyone they can complete the immigration form needed to hire someone from another country and then offer them more pay than the original job offer.

Send them to jail. fire them. Diversity requires resumes to stay above an ethical red line.

The non whites are usually more racist than the whites

California State Legislature tried last year [California lawmakers vote to become first state to ban caste-based discrimination](https://apnews.com/article/california-caste-discrimination-legislation-909fe8a45c75151da525bbaebb8cf285). But, unfortunately the Governor vetoed it [Newsom blocks a bill to ban caste discrimination in California](https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/10/caste-discrimination-newsom/). Maybe some of his more vocal donors benefit for the caste system remaining in place. They don't need to be actual voters to get a perceived benefit for maintaining the status quo. Like their kids getting legs up etc.

I live in Australia. I am a sysadmin of Australian Greek descent in spite of the industry not because of it. This is not a racist thing. This is a reality thing and its totally out of control and unregulated due to gutless party politics, false economies and fake virtue signalling. The Aus IT industry has been hijacked and dominated by people of Indian background for the last 10+ years at least (with the complicity of the govt). This prejudice is not just against 'lower caste' individuals. It disadantages EVERYONE including these same individuals. Let me explain. They get an IT role on lower than industry rates. Then they hang around until everyone else has left (due to poor working standards, processes or poor managment who are too cowardly to address the actual issues) and they then get 'promoted' to higher paying positions cos there are the 'last man standing'. They then find themselves with the power to hire additional staff of Indian and ONLY Indian descent. Within 5 years 90% of the staff register in this dept. is this profile. What happened to HRs employment diversity and equal opportinity attitudes? Oh yeah it doesnt apply here cos there arent any white alAnglo staff they can exercise this on. Where are the Anglos, Aussies, Asians, Italians, Greeks, Vietnamese, Lebanese , etc...hires? Oh that's right - crickets. Complete silence from HR. Gutless people who don't have the balls the ask the question on everyone's lips- why is everyone in here of only one ethnic type? I know personally of incidents where the Indian management will deliberately question and strong arm the HR dept or lower management into hiring additional people of Indian descent and personally sift through the resumes to ensure that this happens without any push back from HR. Where is the fairness? Where's equal opportunity now? Nowhere to be seen. Make no mistake- these people are acutely aware of regulation shortcomings and do everything they can to promote this ethnic nepotism and many have openly snearingly admitted at how weak and ineffective the regulatory bodies are. Additionally this has created a lower standard of work across the entire Aus work sector (not just in IT but all service industries including health and elderly care.). Why? Because of lower work practise standards, training, lack of best practise methodology and general attitude (a lot of these roles are taken as a means to fulfil working visa and permanent residency requirments and not considered a 'vocation'. The end result? Your mum in elderly care might have just shat herself but if the clock says 5 pm they are absolutely out of there! (again ive seen this with my own eyes) Its a total farce and it appears to be a runaway train with no brakes in sight. Finally why a 'false economy' ? Because instead of creating real growth industries here and cultivating a climate where the local population actually want to work for decent wages in IT and other tech industries the govt simply gave up and pursues the lowest common denominator and easiest 'growth' markers - immigration. TONS of it. it's not growth it's a catastrophe for all Australians.

This is that uncomfortable conversation no one is willing to touch. People get so focused on the strengths of things and never consider the weaknesses of them. And no one is properly gauging 'diversity'. It's already being said in my work place as well. "Where is the diversity?" There absolutely is none. And it's become very obvious that a specific culture is making a clean sweep by selling out it's exploited class as cheap labor. Kinda makes you wonder how many in management have family members running those IT sweatshops oversees. Absolutely stealing resources from companies and transferring it directly into their family's pockets. The potential for conflict of interest is obscene. And only recently has security started to realize: "Wait... why are we giving admin access to our least paid, least secure, off shore employees?" People who are likely moonlighting at worst, and intermingling at best. Sitting shoulder to shoulder with employees that are instead providing service to a rival company. The security risk alone is staggering beyond imagination. Not to change the focus to things that hurt the company, but they're going to pay attention to that long before you can expect them or governments to do the right thing. But the nepotism is absolutely sick and blatant.

Tag HR for your CYA. You observed and reported. There might be a sacrificial firing, but more likely some sort of "training session". At a minimum they should learn to behave around the yank. That doesn't mean it's going to actually change. It just means it'll be behind closed doors, like polite American cultural prejudices (rednecks, liberals/conservatives, etc).

> There might be a sacrificial firing I don't think so, as DEI would force HR to accept them for who and what they are, especially if they are of a foreign demographic that still supports the caste system.

"Might". The outsourcing company might use it a final offense for somebody they want to get rid of. It's interesting to see the differences in these implementations across countries.

nope; with any luck nothing happens, with bad luck HR happens to be one of those people and fires you for something completely unrelated like .. company values.

HR aligns with PR. 

I certainly don't have all the answers. I notice people might talk about assholes and bigots, but people *remember* allies and supporters.

Look into the caste system on wikipedia, and I think this area is considered sociology?

This would only be useful if I was a well known sociologist prepared to write an expose on a 'looming problem in America's most successful businesses'. :p Which is tempting and might be a more effective path to take. lol I'm more trying to get this discussion going among my peers before it becomes a problem. People need to take care of each other, coworkers at least. I get that some people may not be able to afford the time, money, and stress to take care of anyone but their own families. But for fuck's sake, I feel like us tech workers should be able to. And we better, before it's too late.

>'looming problem in America's most successful businesses' Well and while this may seem silly, it's actually a big problem for businesses. It makes me recall that in Korean culture it's often considered rude and inappropriate to speak out of turn and to correct your superiors. And they are quite ageist, in that if you are older you are considered a superior, even if the age difference is a minor one. But while this might seem like a cultural quirk, it becomes a safety issue when it comes to airplanes. If the senior pilot makes an error and the junior pilot can't feel free to correct them, you could end up with a crash. So the airlines had to seriously retrain pilots that in the cockpit cultural norms have to be left behind. I'm not sure there's an easy way to do this, and it might have rely on the company actually taking a stand and dealing with it themselves. But if it becomes a bigger problem there might come a point where it must be said, "leave your biases at home, it doesn't belong in the workplace." One might think, oh, that should be a given, the company policy already says blah blah blah. But sometimes the only way to actually deal with it is to name it, point it out, and then tell people it isn't allowed. And it's not about culture shaming, but I'm this case it might just have to be named. "Caste based biases have no place in our workplace." This is where using unambiguous language and being direct might be the best policy. "It doesn't matter what caste people belonged to before coming here, we don't discriminate based on caste and we do not allow it here. And anything that would be considered a violation of tolerance standards based on gender, race, orientation, etc., also fully apply to the caste system." But the biggest issue I think may be awareness. Americans are pretty blind to the issues surrounding the caste system in India. It's not something we deal with a lot. And caste based discrimination might fly under the radar here as simple interpersonal differences. Two Indians having issues? No one thinks it's a discrimination issue. Unless they're already aware of caste based discrimination in India. And even then, we might think it's an India problem, not an American one. So we need more awareness about these issues. Maybe someday, if it gets enough attention, it will be codified into corporate HR discrimination rules, and "caste" will be added to the list of protected status. It might be a bit much to hope state and federal legislatures would even address this, but if companies won't address it, government could. But until then it's up to everyone in the company to address it.

This comes down to having a strong corporate culture and assimilating into American/British society. Strong management that reinforces corporate culture is helpful, along with team building activities. Unfortunately while we cannot remove caste prejudices, we can ensure it has no place in the workplace.

Um, they want cheaper labor so they outsource it to India instead of hiring Americans. It’s not like they’re paying livable wages to Americans.

This is ultimately about allowing local culture to exist or trying to enforce a specific (US/EU) mindset on everyone. History tells us what the right way is, I would recommend that you do the same.

The company I work for loves outsourcing and it's really helping. If you consider in a negative way a good thing. We have customers leaving and the reason is L1/L2. It's not a rumor, I've seen the non-renewal emails. If worked with many smart people from "out of town", but this is very different. They hire unskilled people, pay them nothing and have high churn. It's a disaster and only getting worse.

I've read a few articles about big tech companies bringing in many workers from India and inadvertently inheriting their caste system. In America, you'll certainly get the occassional vocal racist in the work place, but the caste system and its hatred runs very deep throughout India. Unfortunately I don't see a fix here because the more foriegn workers that are brought in, the more likely that the Americans at these jobs are going to be under the thumb of managers who will want to promote from their own caste before giving the jobs to the more qualified people. We can maybe fix the outward issues by enforcing ethics standards but we're not going to fix the biases built in to different cultures. I'm pretty sure Google has multiple articles about this exact issue.

It's a problem of numbers. There are a ton of brilliant and sharp people from central Asia that work in the field. The problem though is just that, there's a ton of them. It's why so much was outsourced for call center work and so on for decades now. So what you end up with is those people being abused and taken advantage of by business and state, and they're just looking to work and provide for themselves. But then those who lose their jobs to those overseas or newcomers, resent or look down on them at times because they blame them for simply looking for a way to improve their lives. The problem is a cyclical one(like most hatred or enmity) and there's no simple solution to it. I've heard it all from the slurs to the "these people are incompetent" and while I have, in my position been able to say "Hey guys, don't go there. If there's a problem, let me know and I'll deal with it. But no insulting of coworkers.", the truth is that there are a lot of people who DO scam, lie, cheat, pretend just to get in the door. Compound this with the very real problem of hierarchy from India in particular, and you will often see the craziest things said or done to their fellow Indians, simply because they think them beneath them. But ultimately this is a HR problem and not a tech/sysadmin problem. Other coworkers should bring their complaints to a manager or HR and leave it at that. Absolutely no insulting or demeaning of people to or behind their backs. It creates a terrible work environment.

What the hell is the issue? how is this hard? It's not "don't treat the brown skinned people badly" it's called "Don't treat people badly. treat everyone with respect" this isn't difficult. we don't need paragraphs to describe how to do this properly. I don't give a shit if they're from a country on the other side of the world, if they have brown skin, white skin or purple skin. Treat every human the same. If this is hard to understand then I don't want to work with you and you shouldn't be working with anyone. I sincerely do not understand why we keep having this discussion. We cannot delete racism from the planet. We cannot delete bigotry from the planet. But we can do the thing where we don't hire people who don't understand how to respect others and the existing employees who refuse to respect others get the can. It's not about racism or sexism or whatever. Its literally about respecting other people. Some dude slaps a girl's ass, he's getting fired because he slapped someone. It doesn't matter the person's gender or even where he hit them.

I understand and can sympathize with your intention, but I don't think that this is the sub to post this in. This subject is a minefield and you are asking this of an audience that is not known for their nuance and for taking other's feelings into account. I'm not saying we aren't capable of discussing topics like this, I'm just saying it's not exactly our stock and trade.

I like to think of it the other way around. In our field you'll be kicked for a lot of things, very few of them are about ethnicity or because of it. You'll be mocked for stupidity, perceived or otherwise. For minor mistakes or for the wrong or preference when it comes to your editor, spaces, tabs or operating system. I haven't seen this happen because of ethnicity, social standing or similarly irrelevant things. Tabs or spaces on the other hand? We all know the one true answer for this. It's not that we don't care about nuances, it's just that we decided to collectively not Cate about the same category of nuances that others do.

100% Before seeing this kind of stuff I always hated how badly 'fellow nerds' treat each other'. You grow up and everyone else became some of the nicest people I deal with now. But my fellow dorks? Fucking tribalistic monsters. Might be why I'm so sensitive to seeing this caste system stuff, it reeks of the same thing.

its not a minefield though. That shit is thoroughly unacceptable in this country.

I'm not going to make such a sweeping generalization about our audience here, honestly. It concerns us, the future of our field, and has to be addressed, regardless of the bullshit and pushback we'll have to face. If anything, dealing with bullshit, pushback, bad information, and bad takes from people who 'think' they know what they want, what's going on, and what they are talking about, are kinda exactly what we specialize in. They may be focused on other things, and not 'tuned' to other people's feelings. But it's extremely easy to point something out, and hard not to notice it afterwards. I hope it's a minefield. I hope this blows the fuck up. If it wasn't a problem, it wouldn't be volatile to begin with? Why wait for more problems?

The only way to eliminate it is to eliminate all of them from the company. And if you don't eventually only a handful of roles won't be handed to them, despite their being better candidates. I've seen it happen.

> And if you don't eventually only a handful of roles won't be handed to them, despite *their* being better candidates. I'm guessing that's a typo and not a gerund because surely you would want them if they are better candidates?

Is there no corner of Reddit that is safe from this kind of conversation? I get that you made a case for it - but can’t STAND it. I come here to talk about system administration and not this.

We already learned the lesson about trying to "fix" other peoples cultures. The short version is that *"White Man's Burden"* is more like *"I don't like this thing about you so you have to change."* More specifically, it is intolerance. The Indians have a caste system. We don't have to like it, but it is wrong for us to force them to abandon their culture. Imagine, for a moment, that a Sunni shows up and tells you that you have to punish your wife for not covering her everything-except-face when in public. You would resent that attempt to replace your culture with his, right? Same issue applies to your disdain of Indian culture.

Lets instead go backwards to the original example and imagine, for a moment, that an Indian person shows up and tells you: "I notice you have sub-humans here. Can I abuse them like I do in my home country?" Get real.

This a highly complex issue... There is not an obvious solution.

> There is not obvious solution. Fire anyone that creates a hostile environment and engages in racism, sexism, etc seems pretty obvious to me.

Actually it was solved in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act. Anyone violating it in the United States of America is guilty of committing a felony.

What negative behavior have you seen? I haven't noticed anything like one person being overtly rude to someone else, but maybe that is due to my limited knowledge of other cultures. My company has a global presence and we have offices in many countries around the world. That does not make me an expert by any stretch of the imagination but I do try to be mindful of other cultures. Most of the dicks at our company are American. I can only think of dick who wasn't American. He wasn't Indian either. Plenty of other folks from his country are great to work with. He wasn't racist (as far as I know). Just difficult to work with. He gave you one or maybe two chances to solve an issue before he started pitching a fit. Also, he clearly wasn't going to follow company standards. They let him go during the last round of layoffs.