Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwawayuuid | Hacker News Reader

I am just a regular unhyphenated American at a FANG, and I've never gotten a job offer when any of my interviewers were Hindustani. Coincidence, maybe? I think this particular nepotism is not exclusively internecine.

View on HN

I think this is a controversial reality that often gets silenced. Even between different cultures and castes from the Indian subcontinent there appear to be clear and discriminate striations[1] that few people in my experience talk about. I think it's a serious issue with the millenial and younger generations of non-Indian American citizens.

Once I worked with a group that was run by a brahmin hindi speaker and a group of Tamils was under her. It was really weird to see them speak English to each other since neither spoke each others' native tongue. She was not very nice to the Tamils and spent most of her time planning for ostentatious Diwali celebrations in the office.

The US has no place for this kind of discrimination. We strive to be (I hope) a meritocracy.

1: https://www.brightworkresearch.com/enterprisesoftwarepolicy/...

I'll take this opportunity to state that the word "meritocracy" was originally a bit of a joke taking the piss out of the idea that an aristocracy would couch itself in the language of merit without actually changing much.

Aristocracy itself literally means "rule by the aristos, the best".

...Hindustani? You can just say Indian or Indian-American, thanks.

Based on the language in this comment, I can't help but imagine you somehow let your internal biases affect your behavior and language during these interviews.

No, I've had similar experiences. I check the "two or more races" category where applicable.

What would be a property of the language in the comment that would lead you to this conclusion?

If someone told me they failed 10 interviews, and suspected that the race of the interviewers was a driver of that, and then extrapolated that to others of that race, I would guess that correlates to a number of other beliefs that I would care to avoid hiring for.

Guessing the phrase "regular... American" implying that other not hyphenated Americans are not "regular"

You'd be surprised I guess.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com