Aakash writes:
Robert
What do you think about the whites in America then? Segregation (the American version of the caste system) was equally rampant and if you ever visit any southern city (say Atlanta). you’ll see that the whites pretty much live in the ‘burbs and the blacks in town. The county where I live (Dekalb) is pretty much black and the northern suburbs pretty much white. White flight is the new version of the caste system. Blacks cleaning toilets in downtown offices and whites enjoying their MacMansions in the ‘burbs. So far, I’ve never seen a white janitor around here. All imported Mexicans or blacks.
At the risk of getting banned, I have to say that you are turning into a (anti) Hindutva yourself. If Gandhi (for all his deficiencies) was a monster, the whites in America are straight outta hell. Jimmy Carter is one of the very few great souls of this country and nobody hates him more than Whites.
Aakash, supporters of the caste system always say that there is caste all over the world, that is, there are class and racial systems of discrimination.
Surely, formal discrimination was horrible, but that is over and done now. Racial discrimination is illegal in the US. The government doesn’t discriminate and there are many civil cases against businesses every year for various types of discrimination. Quite a few of the plaintiffs win these cases, and they have become so costly for businesses that many businesses, especially large ones, now have policies set in place that are strongly anti-discriminatory so as not to get sued. There is still a lot of housing discrimination in the US, but it is no longer legal. Surely housing discrimination has lessened since 1970. The government doesn’t have the money to go after housing discrimination because Republicans have defunded that enforcement arm.
White people engage in White Flight because they don’t want to live around large groups of Black people. This is because when you get large numbers of Blacks in an area, they typically make a Hell of it in short order. So the desire to flee is actually quite rational.
Janitors area all Hispanics now because that is the way employers want it. I lived in an all White town for 20 years, and all the janitors were White people. It’s just that employers would rather hire Hispanics than Whites to do that job because they can exploit them better. Also after a while, the janitorial force becomes all Hispanic, and then the Hispanics discriminate against Whites and others. So the reason for the all Hispanic workforce is anti-White and pro-Hispanic discrimination and not the other way around.
The argument “there is caste everywhere on Earth” is always used by Hindus, typically upper castes Hindus. Almost everyone making that argument is a supporter of casteism. It’s a way of saying that there is nothing wrong with casteism.
Personally I think that there is no way that casteism can be compared with racism or classism in the US; there is simply no comparison. However, it is a good question, and I think we should put it to the readers.
