The first form of manifestation, according to Gupta, is denial.
“Saying this doesn’t even exist. That is a form of discrimination. There were messages on e-mail threads that talked about how this isn’t a problem here. If you replace the denial of caste discrimination with the denial of the Holocaust or something like that, it instantly clicks where other people start to realise, “Oh, something’s wrong if people are denying this.”
The second form of manifestation, she argued, is professional treatment.
“Within a team, when you’ve got people who are caste privileged and caste oppressed, the people who are caste oppressed start to be given inferior assignments, get treated differently, left out of meetings, which are certainly things that I heard from Google employees within the company.”
Gupta also brought up the issues of what she calls “coded conversations.”
“If you’re not attuned to what the issue is, you won’t even realise what’s happening. Asking things like ‘What’s your last name? I’m not familiar with it.’ Then, when the manager hears that last name, they’re, like, ‘Oh, so you’re from this caste – no wonder you have these leadership skills.'”
