A group of caste equity leaders have been fasting for more than two weeks to convince Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign a bill that would make caste discrimination illegal in California.
A group of caste equity leaders have been fasting for more than two weeks to convince Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign a bill that would make caste discrimination illegal in California.
Newsom is weighing the pros 7 cons. On the pro side, it’ll reinforce his & the Dems image as being anti-racist, anti-discrimination, and pro-democracy. On the flip side, most of the US voters of Indian origin (no matter what generation of Indian immigrants they belong to) are from the oppressor castes and his action might cost him & the Dems their votes. I’m not even joking about how entrenched caste is in an Indian’s upbringing, or how much oppressor castes hate losing their Brahmin-created caste superiority.
In case you are interested, I just posted a long comment on caste in this thread at https://kbin.social/m/world@lemmy.world/t/481152/Caste-matters-South-Asian-activists-hunger-strike-to-ban-caste#entry-comment-2551757
Makes sense. It’s usually the wealthy classes who even have the resources to immigrate to America. The truly downtrodden masses from other countries are stuck there.
The oppressor castes who emigrated to US & other developed countries have happily enjoyed & continue to enjoy affirmative action in these countries while vociferously protesting against affirmative action for oppressed castes in India.
The violence, name-calling, insults, and often boycott of oppressed caste people who have benefited in even the smallest way from affirmative action in India has to be seen to be believed.
The amount of hate oppressor castes have for oppressed castes is truly scary. It is completely misguided, because their rights are not being taken away by affirmative action. Yet their hate is vitriolic, violent, and vindictive. But because 99% of those in positions of power in bureaucracy, police, state admins, and the govt are from oppressor castes, we rarely see justice being done in cases of caste atrocities.
It’s so sad that Newsom will even weigh the political cost of this. It’s such a no-brainer thing to do, especially in California. If he were a real leader he would come out strongly in favor of this and dare any Indians here to speak in favor of discrimination.