We came across Equality Labs’ caste survey recently & I have to say it is quite possibly the WORST example of statistical & methodological rigor I’ve ever seen in my life!
How multiple outlets & politicians rely on it is beyond me.
Let’s take a look together. First let’s see the results.
They are very damning of Indian-Americans characterizing caste discrimination as a widespread phenomenon & lower castes generally feeling unsafe in America due to said discrimination.
With results like this, Equality Labs has many recommendations such as:
– Reeducation seminars in K-12 schools & universities
-HR workshops in corporations & caste catalogues to address diversity
-Linking caste oppression to white supremacy for South Asian activist organizations
But here’s the issue – sampling.
Equity Labs used advocacy orgs that were dedicated to Dalit activism & caste consciousness as you’ll see below. Not just that, but they focused on certain ethnic & caste groups over others in their sample that is non-representative of SA Americans.
And this is the crux of the problem: An extremely unrepresentative sample collected by activists who were fishing for a certain type of response. Equality Labs contoured the survey to tilt the results in exactly the way they wanted. Complete statistical dishonesty.
Highlights of the sampling are below:
-Wildly off caste distribution
-The age range is not representative
-The sexual orientation is even less representative And again, activists goaded specific targeted people into these surveys like goats in a corral.
Years later, we had the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace conduct a survey on Indian-Americans which completely contradicted Equality Labs’ report, as one would expect with more professional & representative methodology.
Carnegie ofc did the basics of a representative ethnic, age, & geographic random sampling Tho caste identification was only asked to Hindus. Only 47% of Hindus identified with a caste. Lowering to 34% of US born. Of those 47%, 83% identified as GC, 16% OBC, 1% each for SC/ST.
Equality Labs mentions across their report how lower castes aren’t included in South Asian circles & organizations. Yet Carnegie notes how caste has near nil effect on social networks, even when the results throw out people completely unaware of caste.
Now for the coup de grâce
Only 5-6%(!) of Indian-Americans experienced caste discrimination Of that 5-6%, only 1/3 say *Indians* discriminated against them. What the hell right? Well Carnegie says some may’ve misinterpreted the question so discrimination may be even less!
Overall, you can clearly see that @dalitdiva led @EqualityLabs is a malicious & deceitful organization that is spreading lies targeting the Indian & Hindu-American community & apparently even minting plenty of money & influence while doing so
I encourage you all to not trust my word, but read BOTH reports below and come to your own conclusions. Equality Labs
If you want to read more about the emerging “Critical Caste Theory” hypothesis that is furthering a lot of misinformation & hatred towards Indian & Hindu-Americans, read my piece here.
(This article has been compiled from the tweet thread posted by @TheEmissaryCo on July 13, 2023, with minor edits to improve readability and conform to HinduPost style guide)
