I think this political cartoon is worth discussing as it is all side that do this

[Loren Pechtel]

..

 

[Rhea]

Thread reopened.

 

[Bomb#20]

Thank you for explaining the details that corrected Rhea's misleading story.

The story was from my memory of when it happened, 30 years ago, reading it in print newspaper.
The point remains the same. He set himself on fire because the government said that the 88% of the population should really get at least 50% of the jobs, right?

Wrong. It's impossible for 88% of the population to get 50% of the jobs. In India about 5% of jobs are public sector. When the government reserves 50% of those jobs to some social category, that means 2.5% of the population get those jobs, not 88%. Being in the same social category as people who got jobs doesn't mean you now have a job. The other 85.5% still have to find private sector work or stay unemployed, same as before. When people get jobs it does not magically transmogrify them into representatives of their social categories. Employment is not a bloody legislature!

And the privilege that made that not happen - that instead made much more than 50% of the jobs in the hands of 12% of the people - was being dismantled.

You appear to have pulled your numbers out of your ass. But let's pretend for the moment that your numbers are right and that 12% of Indians are Brahmin and that Brahmins got all the unreserved jobs. That would add up to about 4% out of the people being Brahmins with government jobs. That would make 8% of the population of India Brahmins with no government jobs. When you claim those jobs are in the hands of "12% of the people", you're telling an untruth about those 8%. You're making believe that being in the 8% without a job qualifies as a good reason to have some ignorant Westerner with an axe to grind run on about how "privileged" you are to have a government job in your hands.

You are treating Brahmins as interchangeable parts. They are not interchangeable parts.

And he burned himself up over the fact that the 12% of the population was nw vying for “only” 50% of the jobs, when they used to be able to dominate almost all of them.

Which means he had mental health issues; and you claimed "it never once" occurred to him "to care about the other 88% of the population"; and you're equating that suicidal guy's mentality with Metaphor's. So, on top of the fact that you have no idea who he cared about or what individual trauma he went through to turn him into the damaged person he was, since Metaphor is saying pretty much what was said by a Brahmin friend of mine who's the one who explained India's job reservation rules to me, this means that, based purely on disagreeing with your knee-jerk ideological opinion about what's the right approach to alleviate India's vast social problems, you are de facto accusing my friend of not caring about 88% of his countrymen. What the heck makes you think you're such an expert on the thoughts of people you know next to nothing about?

The accuracy of the story is diminished in the memory of 30 years, but the point is unchanged. He set himself on fire because he was losing privilege. Bomb wants you to think that since the privilege was enacted by custom and not enshrined by law that it was not privilege.

No, I want you to stop insulting my friend.

You really shouldn't pontificate on what other people want you to think -- you kind of stink at it. You don't have ESP, and I don't recall offering an opinion on whether the suicidal guy had privilege. The only privilege my friend says he got from being Brahmin was that a few of his friends hit him up to officiate at their weddings because it's enacted by custom that weddings should be conducted by Brahmins. I'm in no position to say if he's correct about that. But I'm reasonably confident that if you lose out in the competition for a job because you're discriminated against for the benefit of someone who has less of the job's relevant skill set, then being told it was fair because some third party got to have a similar job and you and the third party are lumped into the same category in the mind of some fourth party who regards you and the third party as interchangeable parts is not going to be much consolation; and it's not going to contribute to making you feel privileged.