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by daswerth
989 days ago
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> very nuanced problem fanned by vested interests and hence passing a blanket bill without understanding the issues involved can actually do more harm than good I'm very interested to understand the "more harm than good" part, but the firstpost article you linked doesn't touch on them at all. The article seems to be focused on how the special interests groups are pushing their special interests. |
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There is a concern that Hindu and Indian employees will now be looked at with suspicion because employers simply won’t want to deal with frivolous lawsuits.
From the get-go, CoHNA made it clear that they abhor caste discrimination. Dalits and “lower” caste members of CoHNA were vocal that this law would institutionalize the very thing Equality Labs claimed to be fighting.
CoHNA made the strong case that although the language of the ordinance identifies caste among many religions and ethnicities, Hindus are most closely associated with caste. It very clearly paints a target on the backs of Hindu Americans and Indians and creates a presumption of guilt. There are no clear ways to identify caste or implement anti-caste discrimination laws in America.
Sara Nelson voted “No”. She asked whether the Seattle City Council had any data to support Equality Labs and Sawant’s claims of “widespread and systemic” caste discrimination. She also made the point that without ways to identify caste, there would be no way to implement it properly.
How exactly do you determine who is an “upper” caste and who is a “lower caste”? And if you can’t determine what caste someone belongs to, how do you litigate that case?
Even if you could identify someone’s caste, what would the city do if someone from a “lower caste” attempted to sue someone from another “lower caste”?
If someone chooses not to identify with a caste and someone accuses them of caste discrimination, will the city of Seattle force a caste upon them?
Thankfully, we can reference a rigorous study from the Carnegie Endowment which largely disagrees with Equality Labs’ findings.
Instead, they found that there is very little caste identification among Indian Americans, especially in those born in America and that there is even less discrimination actually experienced. It is very far from widespread and systemic.
This study acknowledges Equality Labs and criticizes the findings and methodology, most notably that Equality Labs simply removed responses where people did not identify with a caste at all.
Without guidelines on how it will be implemented, it has the opportunity for great misuse. Hindu children will now be looked at with suspicion in college admissions if they choose not to identify as caste because Equality Labs says that this is a mark of privilege and indicates “higher caste” or “oppressor caste”. Hindu and Indian employees will now be looked at with suspicion because employers simply won’t want to deal with frivolous lawsuits,
And finally, it paints the entire Hindu religion in the way Equality Labs would like – as irredeemable and worthy of dismantling as Soundararajan has stated in multiple interviews and tweets.