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#trending | Seattle considers historic regulation barring caste discrimination – ABC News: US
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Kshama Sawant, a Seattle Metropolis Council member, has proposed an ordinance so as to add caste to Seattle’s anti-discrimination legal guidelines. If authorised, it could make Seattle the primary metropolis in the US to particularly outlaw caste discrimination. The origins of the caste system in India can be traced again 3,000 years and has continued even after it was banned in 1948 and enshrined in the nation’s structure in 1950. The controversy in the US round caste has been centered in the South Asian neighborhood, inflicting deep divisions. Over the previous decade, Dalit activism has garnered support from a number of corners of the diaspora, resulting in anti-discrimination legal guidelines and insurance policies being enacted in California, Brandeis College, Brown College, College of California, Davis, and Harvard College. Fairness Lab’s survey of 1,500 South Asians in the US discovered that 67% of Dalits reported being handled unfairly at their office due to their caste, and 40% of Dalit college students reported going through discrimination in academic establishments. The proposed ordinance has been met with pushback from teams such because the Hindu American Basis and the Coalition of Hindus of North America, who argue that it’s going to damage a neighborhood already going through hate and discrimination. Nonetheless, the Dalit American neighborhood is not monolithic on this situation, with some arguing that making a problem the place there is none is solely creating more fractures in the neighborhood. The ordinance has been backed by Amnesty Worldwide and Alphabet Staff Union, and Sawant argues that it doesn’t single out one neighborhood, however accounts for the way caste discrimination crosses nationwide and non secular boundaries.
Considered one of Kshama Sawant’s earliest reminiscences of the caste system was listening to her grandfather — a person she “in any other case beloved very much” — utter a slur to summon their decrease-caste maid.The Seattle Metropolis Council member, raised in an higher-caste Hindu Brahmin family in India, was 6 when she requested her grandfather why he used that derogatory phrase when he knew the woman’s identify. He responded that his granddaughter “talked too much.”Now 50, and an elected official in a metropolis removed from India, Sawant has proposed an ordinance so as to add caste to Seattle’s anti-discrimination legal guidelines. If her fellow council members approve it Tuesday, Seattle will turn into the primary metropolis in the United States to particularly outlaw caste discrimination.In India, the origins of the caste system can be traced again 3,000 years as a social hierarchy primarily based on one’s start. Whereas the definition of caste has developed over the centuries, underneath each Muslim and British rule, the struggling of these on the backside of the caste pyramid – generally known as Dalits, which in Sanskrit means “damaged” — has continued.In 1948, a yr after independence from British rule, India banned discrimination on the idea of caste, a regulation that turned enshrined in the nation’s structure in 1950. But the undercurrents of caste continue to swirl in India’s politics, training, employment and even in on a regular basis social interactions. Caste-primarily based violence, together with sexual violence in opposition to Dalit ladies, is nonetheless rampant.The nationwide debate in the United States round caste has been centered in the South Asian neighborhood, inflicting deep divisions throughout the diaspora. Dalit activist-led organizations resembling Oakland, California-primarily based Equality Labs, say caste discrimination is prevalent in diaspora communities, surfacing in the type of social alienation and discrimination in housing, training and the tech sector the place South Asians maintain key roles.The U.S. is the second hottest vacation spot for Indians dwelling overseas, in accordance with the Migration Coverage Institute, which estimates the U.S. diaspora grew from about 206,000 in 1980 to about 2.7 million in 2021. The group South Asian People Main Collectively experiences that just about 5.4 million South Asians live in the U.S. — up from the three.5 million counted in the 2010 census. Most hint their roots to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.There was sturdy pushback to anti-discrimination legal guidelines and insurance policies that focus on caste from teams such because the Hindu American Basis and the Coalition of Hindus of North America. They are saying such laws will damage a neighborhood whose members are considered as “individuals of colour” and already face hate and discrimination.However over the previous decade, Dalit activism has garnered support from a number of corners of the diaspora, together with from teams like Hindus for Human Rights. The final three years in explicit have seen more individuals determine as Dalits and publicly inform their tales, energizing this motion. Prem Pariyar, a Dalit Hindu from Nepal, will get emotional as he talks about escaping caste violence in his native village. His household was brutally attacked for taking water from a neighborhood faucet, stated Pariyar, who is now a social employee in California and serves on Alameda County’s Human Relations Fee. He moved to the U.S. in 2015, however says he could not escape stereotyping and discrimination due to his caste-figuring out final identify, at the same time as he tried to make a brand new removed from his homeland.Pariyar, motivated by the overt caste discrimination he confronted in his social and tutorial circles, was a driving drive behind it turning into a protected class in the 23-campus California State College system in January 2022.“I’m combating so Dalits can be acknowledged as human beings,” he said.In December 2019, Brandeis College close to Boston turned the primary U.S. school to include caste in its nondiscrimination coverage. Colby School, Brown College and the College of California, Davis, have adopted comparable measures. Harvard College instituted caste protections for scholar staff in 2021 as a part of its contract with its graduate scholar union.Laurence Simon, worldwide improvement professor at Brandeis, stated a college activity drive made the choice primarily based “on the sentiments and fears of scholars from marginalized communities.”“To us, that was sufficient, despite the fact that we didn’t hear of any severe allegations of caste discrimination,” he said. “Why do now we have to attend for there to be a horrendous problem?”Among the many most hanging findings in a survey of 1,500 South Asians in the U.S. by Fairness Lab: 67% of Dalits who responded reported being handled unfairly at their office due to their caste and 40% of Dalit college students who have been surveyed reported going through discrimination in academic establishments in comparison with solely 3% of higher-caste respondents. Additionally, 40% of Dalit respondents stated they felt unwelcome at their place of worship due to their caste.Caste needs to be a protected class underneath the regulation as a result of Dalits and others negatively affected by it do not need a authorized technique to deal with it, stated Thenmozhi Soundararajan, founder and government director of Equality Labs. Soundararajan’s dad and mom, natives of Tamil Nadu in southern India, fled caste oppression in the Seventies and immigrated to Los Angeles, the place she was born.“We South Asians have so many troublesome historic traumas,” she stated. “However once we come to this nation, we shove all that underneath the rug and try to be a mannequin minority. The shadow of caste is nonetheless there. It nonetheless destabilizes lives, households and communities.”The trauma is intergenerational, she stated. In her guide “The Trauma of Caste,” Soundararajan writes of being devastated when she realized that her relations have been thought of “untouchables” in India. She recounts the damage she felt when a good friend’s mom who was higher caste, gave her a separate plate to eat from after studying about her Dalit id.“This battle round caste is a battle for our souls,” she stated.The Dalit American neighborhood is not monolithic on this situation. Aldrin Deepak, a homosexual, Dalit resident of the San Francisco Bay area, stated he has by no means confronted caste discrimination in his 35 years in the U.S. He has adorned deities in native Hindu temples and has an array of neighborhood members over to his house for Diwali celebrations.“Nobody’s requested me about my caste,” he said. “Making a problem the place there is none is solely creating more fractures in our neighborhood.”Nikunj Trivedi, president of the Coalition of Hindus of North America, views the narrative round caste as “utterly twisted.” Caste-primarily based legal guidelines that single out Indian People and Hindu People are unacceptable, he said.“The understanding of Hinduism is poor in this nation,” Trivedi stated. “Many individuals imagine caste equals Hinduism, which is merely not true. There is variety of thought, perception and observe inside Hinduism.”Trivedi stated Seattle’s proposed coverage is harmful as a result of it is not primarily based on dependable information.“There is a heavy reliance on anecdotal experiences,” he said, suggesting it could be troublesome to confirm somebody’s caste. “How can individuals who know little or no or nothing about caste adjudicate points stemming from it?”Suhag Shukla, government director of the Hindu American Basis, known as Seattle’s proposed ordinance unconstitutional as a result of “it singles out and targets an ethnic minority and seeks to institutionalize implicit bias towards a neighborhood.”“It sends that message that we’re an inherently bigoted neighborhood that have to be monitored,” Shukla stated.Caste is already lined underneath the present set of anti-discrimination legal guidelines, which give protections for race, ethnicity and faith, she stated.Laws pertaining to caste is not about concentrating on any neighborhood, stated Nikhil Mandalaparthy, deputy government director of Hindus for Human Rights. The Washington, D.C.-based group helps the proposed caste ordinance.“Caste needs to be a protected class as a result of we wish South Asians to have comparable entry to alternatives and never face discrimination in workplaces and academic settings,” he said. “Generally, which means airing the soiled laundry of the neighborhood in public to make it recognized that caste-primarily based discrimination is not acceptable.”Council member Sawant stated authorized recourse is wanted as a result of present anti-discrimination legal guidelines usually are not sufficient. Sawant, who is a socialist, stated the ordinance is backed by a number of teams together with Amnesty Worldwide and Alphabet Staff Union that represents staff employed by Google’s dad or mum firm.Greater than 150,000 South Asians live in Washington state, with many employed in the tech sector the place Dalit activists say caste-primarily based discrimination has gone unaddressed. The difficulty was in the highlight in 2020 when California regulators sued Cisco Systems saying a Dalit Indian engineer confronted caste discrimination on the firm’s Silicon Valley headquarters.Sawant stated the ordinance doesn’t single out one neighborhood, however accounts for the way caste discrimination crosses nationwide and non secular boundaries. A United Nations report in 2016 stated at the very least 250 million individuals worldwide nonetheless face caste discrimination in Asia, Africa, the Center East and Pacific areas, in addition to in numerous diaspora communities. Caste systems are discovered amongst Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Muslims and Sikhs.Among the many diaspora, many Dalits pushing to finish caste discrimination usually are not Hindu. Nor are all of them from India.D.B. Sagar confronted caste oppression rising up in the Nineties in northern Nepal, not removed from the Buddha’s birthplace. He fled it, emigrating to the U.S. in 2007. Sagar says he nonetheless bears bodily and emotional scars from the oppression. His household was Dalit and practising parts of each Hinduism and Buddhism, and felt shunned by each faiths.“We weren’t allowed to take part in village festivals or enter temples,” he said. “Buddhists didn’t enable anybody from the Dalit neighborhood to turn into monks. You would change your faith, however you continue to can not escape your caste id. If changing to a different faith was an answer, individuals can be free from caste discrimination by now.”At school, Sagar was made to take a seat on a separate bench. He was as soon as caned by the college’s principal for consuming from a water pot in the classroom that Dalits have been barred from utilizing. They believed his contact would pollute the water.Sagar stated he was shocked to see comparable attitudes come up in social settings among the many U.S. diaspora. His experiences motivated him to start out the Worldwide Fee for Dalit Rights. In 2014, he organized a march from the White Home to Capitol Hill demanding that caste discrimination be acknowledged underneath the U.S. Civil Rights Act.His group is at the moment wanting into about 150 complaints of housing discrimination from Dalit People, he said. In a single case, a Dalit man in Virginia stated his landlord rented out a basement, however prevented him from utilizing the kitchen due to his caste. “Caste is a social justice situation, interval,” he said.Like Sagar, Arizona resident Shahira Bangar is Dalit. However she is a practising Sikh and her dad and mom fled caste oppression in Punjab, India. Her dad and mom by no means mentioned caste when she was younger, however she realized the reality in her teenagers as she attended high faculty in Silicon Valley surrounded by high-caste Punjabi associates who belonged to the upper, land-proudly owning Jat caste.She felt unnoticed when her associates performed “Jat satisfaction” music and when a good friend’s mom used her caste id as a slur.“I felt this deep disappointment of not being accepted by my very own neighborhood,” Bangar stated. “I felt betrayed.”___Associated Press faith protection receives support by the AP’s collaboration with The Dialog US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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