posted about this earlier, but didn't stress that a socialist alternative member was the driving force
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/seattle-becomes-first-us-city-outlaw-caste-discrimination-after-council-vote-2023-02-22/
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/2/21/dalits-are-winning-against-caste-discrimination-in-the-us-too
A Seattle City Council resolution against caste discrimination is an important step in this journey.
On Tuesday, February 21, the Seattle City Council will make history if it votes yes to include caste in the city’s non-discrimination policies. Outlawing caste discrimination would be the culmination of years of Dalit feminist research and organising that has exposed caste oppression in the United States and has centred Dalit healing in the battle to end caste discrimination everywhere.
Caste is a hierarchical social system dating back thousands of years and practised throughout South Asia among people of all religions. It negatively affects more than 1.9 billion people worldwide and at least 5.7 million South Asian Americans, degrading their quality of life.
It determines who can worship where, education and career opportunities, and even personal relationships — in essence, caste shapes entire lives. While caste-based discrimination in the US is not as widespread and overt as in India, where it has its roots, it exists here, too.
South Asian immigrants from Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Myanmar, Maldives, and indentured communities all report experiencing caste discrimination in the US. The Equality Labs 2016 Caste in the United States survey found that one in four Dalits in the US had faced verbal or physical assault and two out of every three said they had faced discrimination at work.
This data is further supported by a forthcoming report from the National Academic Coalition for Caste Equity and Equality Labs, with the preliminary analysis of a new survey revealing that within US higher education, four in five caste-oppressed students, staff, and faculty reported experiencing caste discrimination at the hands of their dominant-caste peers.
Further, three in four caste-oppressed stakeholders did not report that discrimination in their universities or colleges because caste was not added as a protected category, or because their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion departments lacked the competency to address their concerns.
This data is backed by troubling testimonies of caste discrimination in workplaces, schools, places of worship and businesses.
It can no longer be denied: caste discrimination exists in the US and must be fought with civil rights enforcement.
...
I had a family member who worked in tech management and his biggest complaint was that people in higher castes would refuse to work with people from lower castes. Wouldn't even talk to people from a lower class (and treated poor non-asian people like garbage too).
I recommend looking for avoidance/isolating behavior.
This is a well-earned victory , congratulations to everyone who fought for it.
upper caste American-Indians tend to be super fucking reactionary (something about going to America does that to people :thonk: ) and they also export their dogshit ideology to India by funding right wing groups there. So many of them malding over this law.
okay this is at least some good news to keep me sane
I know that the indian expat community was relatively large, but I didn't expect caste discrimination to become an issue so soon. Good job for everyone involved.
There was a report out of tech companies in San Jose about it. Iirc a bunch of hiring managers were only hiring from their caste. Like, not even hiring other races, just hiring other Indians in their caste.
LOVE KSHAMA SO MUCH :fidel-salute:
Will always be in her corner, her work is great, simple as.
Do you stand by her leaving black and brown protesters to get brutalized by the police? What about the not present vote on the eviction mandate during covid? What about just not listening to black and brown people in Seattle and instead defaulting to SA which is full of white class reductionists. Her corner is trash and the opposite of what socialists should be building.
It would really help if they weren't using explicitly concern-troll immediately-antagonizing-and-provoking-people language.
Do you stand by her leaving black and brown protesters to get brutalized by the police?
This kind of twitter-type crap where you make some claim that requires like 5 levels of explanation and then not backing it up with a single sentence of explanation despite the fact that you know all it will do is provoke people because you're extrapolating so much. Without providing any reasoning you're essentially just slandering someone.
I’ve explained on here before and don’t really want to get into the crux of it every single time, but here ya go.
Do remember the protests at the airports during trump’s travel ban? There was a mix of organizers and organizations. She’s like the main organizer for SA. There’s this odd cult like following of her so she has more than a heavy hand in telling them what to do when organizing. Well, she decided to tell SA to leave the airport without communicating with the other protesters there and if you know anything about protesting there’s strength in numbers and so when a wave of SA people left. The remaining protesters were brutalized/arrested by the police, a lot of whom were black and brown folx.
The leaving isn’t the issue. It’s the communication with the people you’re protesting with. Ya know people who are supposed to be your comrades regardless of what org y’all belong to. And this is how SA is ran in general. They don’t care about other orgs. They don’t care about movement building. It’s about them doing what they want when they want. And it’s the worst to try organize with a group like that.
Also, hella odd that that’s your response to what I just told you. Not holy shit that’s awful organizing strategy and a pretty fucked up thing to do.
Yep it was shitty and pretty typical of SA.
Most frustrating thing about them is they're seemingly so close to being a good org but keep faceplanting with unforced errors and alienating people.
Imagine if they just didn't do the offputting stuff.
I think it’s important who we support as leaders in our struggle towards Socialism. Don’t you?
Good advice in general for Internet arguments.
You would know if you follow along in Seattle politics. There’s plenty of black and brown socialist ran orgs. Does she use her platform to uplift those voices or is all about the Kshama show and shitting on them any time there’s a difference in strategy?
Which ones has she actively worked to help build? It’s all about SA. But if you want one in particular Creative Justice.
No, they aren't. They are a very confused liberal that's vaguely anticapitalist.
They also engaged in union busting activity towards their own campaign staff.
How were they union busting towards their campaign staff?
That’s just not true in any way. They ran on a socialist platform.
How were they union busting towards their campaign staff?
I shouldn't reveal too many details. I'll just say that they are kind of notorious for throwing self-centering tantrums and that they happened regularly during their campaigns and that they resulted in favoring non-union advisors, cutting hours of union staff, and yelling at their union staff.
They took the unionizing as a personal attack.
That’s just not true in any way. They ran on a socialist platform.
Kind of sort of and the parts you could argue were acually written up by DSA membets that were unionized staff. They throw around the word socialism but their understanding of it is more or less Bernie soccdemery - or at least it was when I was paying any attention to them. I'll try to remember specifics, but there were many revealing moments during the campaign during their speeches and interviews.
They had a massive blowout after losing their last race. Alienated their whole staff, made everything about them, and skipped town. SA putting out a stupid "this is why they lost" statement didn't help, lol. Really channeling that petty contrarian Trot energy.
They took the unionizing as a personal attack.
It's amazing how many supposedly pro-union people mean that no, unions are good everywhere else but my company. Cenk Uighur comes to mind.
Yeah SA is annoying as shit but the elephant in the room is that nobody else actually steps up and organizes to get this stuff done. Everything else is coalitions of incompetents and liberals.
I invite any socialist alternative to Socialist Alternative.
She’s gotten people to mobilize to get her elected and that’s about it. Getting other socialists in office…. And all of a sudden they’re no where to be found. Oh and the $15 min wage thing a decade ago.
I’m talking about organizing. As a politician she’s done some okay things. I was replying to someone who was claiming this ephemeral love for her. Lots of shitty politicians have passed good pieces of law.
I don't personally have love for anyone in SA, but Sawant isn't running for reelection and in her place there will be a significant void. DSA is incredibly incompetent, also alienated most BIPOC people in it (due to the SA entryists and Reddit brain baby white dude lefties), and every other socialist org has like 10 people in it.
Prepare to watch every aforementioned coalition suck up to backstabbing liberal politicians and commit entirely to the cheerleader model of electoralism.
How is it that she’s been in office for more than a decade, has a pretty big organizing base and yet has no one set up to take her spot? Just pure incompetence. And yeah dsa sucks hard. Also curious on what you think is up with all of these small leftist orgs turning into more or less Venmo centers for people who need money? In theory I like the idea, but there’s so many where that’s all they do.
How is it that she’s been in office for more than a decade, has a pretty big organizing base and yet has no one set up to take her spot? Just pure incompetence.
I have no idea what their internal strategy discussions are. Their external messaging is that they're going to focus on union organizing and labot coalition building. I think they'll fail, as they are even better at alienating unions than they are at alienating activist orgs. I have no idea why they even want to do one to the exclusion of the other. My best guess is that Kshama is tired of doing city council things, the redistricting and polling numbers look bad, and they have no idea how to run anyone else. But who knows.
Like I said, the bar is low. Every other org / coalition is dramatically less effective.
And yeah dsa sucks hard.
Here, here!
Also curious on what you think is up with all of these small leftist orgs turning into more or less Venmo centers for people who need money? In theory I like the idea, but there’s so many where that’s all they do.
Like always it's a lot of things but I think the big one is having no long-term planning, strategy, or even just some kind of plan to build power. Left to their own devices, vaguely left people get absorbed into charity and electoral work that vampirizes their empathy. They have no idea what else they could be doing and at least material aid has an immediate and tangible impact.
And it's better than half of what DSA does lol. Last I heard they were still obsessed with having "debates" that are just people who have no idea what they're talking about arguing back and forth 60 seconds at a time.
That does make sense about charity and electoral work. The latest with dsa is they brought in a state official to defend the war in Ukraine lol
My friends told me they brought in someone whose academic work was DoD- funded.
But even having those debates is so dumb. DSA members, on average, have no understanding of socialism, let alone imperialism, let alone a critical lens towards the actions of and reactions to empire. The only outcome of "debates" like that, in lieu of a politically educated membership, is pointless alienation.
Which is all infinitely more than the aforementioned coalitions of incompetents and liberals. The bar is set low.
Also... what other socialists have run and not been jokes from the get-go? Or been liberals with no idea what socialism is? Or both?
SA is annoying as shit, they try to take ownership of things they were minor players in, they do dumb entryist projects, they dabble in courting reactionaries, and alienate most of the groups they interact with. And they are still the only organized game in town with any impact 99% of the time. The bar is soooooo low.
Since this is generating a lot of controversy, here's some of the context behind this post
BR Ambedkar is smiling
https://www.docdroid.net/v23x9uV/annihilation-of-caste-ambedkar-arundhati-roy-pdf
