Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 17:32:34 -0800 (PST) From: Carvalho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > In short, how much does caste play a role in the day to day lives of Goans today? > By all means let's fight prejudice and discrimination and caste where we find it, but let's also give Goa its due credit in having overcome so much caste prejudice. > Mario responds: > This is what I call the "Yes, but..." approach to a problem that one has transcended personally. Here's how this works: > Yes, its wrong, but, is it all that bad? I mean, people are going on with their lives, so how bad can it be, the matrimonial ads. notwithstanding? Don't take those expressing themselves in PAID and PUBLIC avertising seriously. They are not the tip of the iceberg. Really. Take it from me. I know, because my family overcame their lowly roots and I don't take any c*** from any so-called Bamon. Look at all the progress that has been made. The Bamons have ladders now:-)) So, how bad can it be? > Selma, how would you know how much of a role caste still plays in the day-to-day lives of Goans in Goa, just because it may not play a role in yours? I have seen it split entire families because of positions they took based on caste. Yes, in today's Goan community. I still get calls from Goa asking what some matrimonial prospect's caste is, or the tell-tale question about which village the family comes from. Believe me, my scorching answers have cost me some friends:-)) So be it. > The victims don't advertise. They have no option but to just go on with their lives. > Your facile assumption is because "so much" prejudice has been overcome, we can now all sit back and pat ourselves on the back. This is like telling African-Americans to shut the hell up about discrimination because "so much" prejudice has been overcome in the US that they can now have a candidate for the presidency. > Selma wrote: > In some case it has been replaced by other prejudices, such a derogatory opinions of "Gulfies" and "shippies" (which maybe based along caste-prejudices), an almost xenophobic dislike of fellow Indians referred to as "ghanttis" and "bhaile", the communalisation of Goans along religious lines and the non-integration of gawddas and kunbbis into mainstream society that exists to this day. > To me, these are far more pressing problems than the ogre of caste, which will in another 10-15 years be nothing more than a parlour-joke. To me, it already is. > Mario responds: > Oh, so after 450 years, let's give it another 10-15, eh? > How do you decide which system of discrimination is worse that some other form - given that we're talking about discrimination based on accidents of birth here, which are no different from racism, color-prejudice, or classism-by-birth? > There is a saying in America, "We can walk and chew gum at the same time!" The point you seem to be missing is that any discrimination based on an accident of birth must be opposed tooth and nail, and any claim that one takes precedence over the other is simply additional discrimination in action. >
