Those days are long gone. Now, anyone can come to US. Some states in India (Telangana) give you money to study abroad, knowing fully well that those kids emigrate.
> Ofcourse they would. They are mostly those whose parents (or themselves) were privileged enough to make it to the US.
I keep seeing this thrown around, but I am yet to see anyone respond exactly what form this "privilege" takes as it pertains to caste. The Indian constitution was co-written by a very forward thinking Dalit and affirmative action for lower castes is literally written into the Indian constitution. The only "privilege" I know of is that only upper castes can conduct priestly duties etc (at least used to), but I mean cmon that's just clutching at straws...
Privilege is the concept that being born into your social standing, race, gender, etc may confer subtle (and not-so-subtle) benefits. Affirmative action does not solve discrimination toward Dalits, it's one of many reactions & mitigations to it.
Even if you have affirmative action, if you feel like you're going to work or school in a hostile environment, this is a disadvantage to you. Psychological safety is one example of a privilege (e.g. women in silicon valley have inherently less psychological safety than men in the workplace because there are more men, and enough of them make unwanted advances with high enough frequency to force them to think about it).
Dalits have to deal with the stress of potentially being treated differently on the basis of their caste. Even if laws say "you can't discriminate," that doesn't change the interactions they have to have. And even if only a small number (let's say 1%) of people are discriminatory, but you go to a school with 300 people, you're now dealing with 3 folks who you're very uncomfortable around and may bully or hurt you. That's still going to suck. Privilege is not having to think about any of that.
Another example is being gay. You might say "well if you're gay and you live in SF, you are worry free!" But at work, school, or even at the grocery store there could be people who harbor discriminatory feelings and even unconcious biases against you, and it can affect how they treat you. If you're straight, you're lucky (privileged) not to have to deal with that. You also are lucky (privileged) that you can visit Alabama without fearing for your life. I mean, unless you're a straight black man and you encounter police in Alabama. Again, your expectations given that situation are a matter of privilege.
The reason folks harp on privilege so much is that privileged folks often say stuff like "X doesn't happen to me or in my proximity, so it doesn't happen ever." But the only way to know it _really_ doesn't happen is to exist as someone who lacks those privileges and to see what that's like. Since we can't do that, everyone argues about the validity of minority folks sharing their personal experiences.
There are also levels to it, as with anything. Within minority groups, there can be folks who have more relative privilege (e.g. black men vs black women, or dalits vs brahmins, or dark skinned vs light skinned black folks). Most people have some privileges relative to other people, so it's good for us to all understand what those things are when we interact with one another. We already do some amount of this very naturally (e.g. unless you're an asshole, you probably won't tell your poor friend to just buy better clothes if you know they are less privileged than you, and you might not expect your female friend to walk to your place through the city at night).
Ofcourse they would. They are mostly those whose parents (or themselves) were privileged enough to make it to the US.
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