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My home city of #Seattle recently passed an ordinance that bans caste discrimination. The Indian diaspora in the Seattle is split.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/us/seattle-bans-caste-discrimination-cec/index.html
There are two main viewpoints:
1. People are excited - caste has been a complex social structure that has persisted for thousands of years for a majority population of the world. These are members of the #Indian #Bahujan population in the US.
2. People fear that this legislation will further the stigma immigrants already face. These are #Hindus and other #Indians.
I can understand both viewpoints. Fundamentally, I agree with the first. #Caste has to be annihilated. I grew up in a #caste society in India and this was in New Delhi - the capital city. Talking about #caste was common. #Reservation was a very very sticky issue. My (faulty) perception as a child was that I didn't get into an #IIT because some undeserving person took my seat.
Having met and worked with #Dalit #Bahujan people since, I couldn't have been more wrong. And, I am ashamed.
However, I do understand the second view.
Unfortunately, the comment section of the various news articles coming out about this story is rife with #xenophobia. A number of people are saying that the foreign, Indian culture is destroying egalitarianism in the US. Or, that people are bringing in a 'third-world' mentality to a 'first-world country'.
#US is NOT egalitarian. No culture really is. Each culture has figured out its own way to stratify people in hierarchies.
#racism, #casteism, #xenophobia, #sexism, #religionism - are all the same. The all stem from our desire for a set of 'rules' that explain our infinitely complex world.
#Egalitarianism and #Merit are myths that we have created to sustain our inherently #tribal thinking.
Recognizing various ways of #discrimination and #implicit and #explicit biases are the first steps in moving towards a culture that is sustains all people.
My advice to #Hindus and #Indians is to stop being fearful of #xenophobia and acknowledge that #caste permeates our culture and is still sustained in a variety of ways.
Look inward instead of outward.