- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Saturday that would have made California the first U.S. state to outlaw caste-based discrimination.
Caste is a division of people related to birth or descent. Those at the lowest strata of the caste system, known as Dalits, have been pushing for legal protections in California and beyond. They say it is necessary to protect them from bias in housing, education and in the tech sector — where they hold key roles.
Earlier this year, Seattle became the first U.S. city to add caste to its anti-discrimination laws. On Sept. 28, Fresno became the second U.S. city and the first in California to prohibit discrimination based on caste by adding caste and indigeneity to its municipal code.
In his message Newsom called the bill “unnecessary,” explaining that California “already prohibits discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics, and state law specifies that these civil rights protections shall be liberally construed.”
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Y’all, by banning this, someone who is the victim of caste discrimination has to first prove that caste discrimination even exists.
And every victim will have to prove this every time.
National origin/ancestry: Dalit. Seems covered?
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Yeah, it’s a terrible idea. You want such discrimination to be legally responded to using existing non-discrimination law, not something specific to it.
You completely misunderstood.
Because there is nothing specific to caste discrimination in existing law the victims will need to prove discrimination even exists in order to actually use existing non-discrimination law. Without specific protections the burden is on the victim to prove they were victimized at all.
Without specific protections the burden is on the victim to prove they were victimized at all.
I don’t understand. How would the new law have helped people who can’t prove they’re being discriminated against? How would that work?
It would create a clear burden of proof by defining caste discrimination in exact terms, which they could then use to make their case.
Without specificity, they have to prove caste discrimination exists and then prove that they meet the criteria.
I wonder how much lobbying came from the tech industry where caste discrimination is definitely a thing
I’m in the tech industry, but not in California and I have never seen cast discrimination. How does this happen in California and gore is it not illegal based on current laws as Newsom is saying?
Here is a fun game: Your job probably has an org chart that lets you see the employee hierarchy. Now, realize that Indian last names almost always denote cast. Understand how to discern cast from names and take a look at your org chart.
I am a white tech worker, so I didn’t think much of cast discrimination since I personally never saw even a hint of it at my job. But then I looked at our org cart and oh boy… I now am firmly in the camp that says cast discrimination should be regulated.
I heard about the bill a few weeks ago on The Daily. Shortly after I was on LinkedIn and noticed that some of the devs from my company and a company that mine contracts with would only list a last initial. It made me wonder if the reason for that was because of caste discrimination.
We had some “prince” or something. He was horrible at his job, lost his temper often. He even yelled “How dare you put your feet up in my presence” once. This was a big company to. He was protected by his fellow caste members. Never fired. He eventually went back home instead because he didn’t like not being treated well in the US. Even those who protected him were glad he left.
“How dare you treat me like mere human?!”
Some people need to be reminded that we all bleed the same color.
I work in AAA games now. We don’t have a lot of Indians.
I wonder if it’s actually worse when names indicate how high someone was born or if it just makes identifying it easier. That said, that’s awful and either way I’d be happy if something was done about it.
Remember kids, if the law doesn’t specifically mention something, you can’t trust the implication that it should be covered.
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But at the same time, what exactly does caste discrimination even look like? Just writing a law against it doesn’t make it not a problem.
I get the feeling that someone who is facing caste discrimination (whatever that looks like) is also unlikely to be able to take legal action against the perpetrators due to the cost.
In his message Newsom called the bill “unnecessary,” explaining that California “already prohibits discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics, and state law specifies that these civil rights protections shall be liberally construed.”
Newsom and everybody else standing on this argument is an idiot, look how many categories are in that single sentence alone that didn’t used to be there and had to be added precisely because it was easy to dismiss and ignore discrimination before they were specified.
It’s the exact same argument that conservatives used when voting against gay marriage in Congress
They need an explicit law because many of the perpetrators of this crime are immigrants, and it should be grounds for immediate and permanent deportation.
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Let’s ban Zodiac sign discrimination or scientology thetan level discrimination! No! Giving these things recognition under law, even if negative, legitimized them.
This was a stupid law to begin with and Newsom is right for vetoing it. Stopping caste discrimination is an education and enforcement problem, not a legislative one.
I don’t understand - and I respect Newsom so I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt - what’s the harm in having a specific law?
Because it would imply that this law would do anything to stop the problem. Caste discrimination is already illegal, so why does California need a redundant set of laws?
Sounds like more specificity can only help? I dunno, maybe it’s not worth the red tape and effort to implement.
Wow. He actually does have some common sense.
