men and Indians are treated as the acceptable targets for public discrimination
We live in a culture that claims to care deeply about mental health and inclusion, but that empathy comes with a strict terms of service agreement. If you are a man, or if you are Indian, those protections are immediately voided.
If you spend five minutes on social media, you’ll notice that the exact same people who preach about "empathy" and "universal tolerance" have absolutely no problem being openly hostile towards men or casual discrimination toward Indians.
Why? Because of the "punching up" loophole.
Society has decided that because men historically hold institutional power, and because Indians in the West are statistically high-earning, any hatred directed at them "doesn't count." You can make the most vile generalisations about male loneliness or Indian hygiene, and the timeline will just laugh.
Modern society hasn't actually evolved past bullying but it seems to have just unionised it. People don’t actually hate discrimination , they just hate discrimination that has consequences. They still want a demographic they can dehumanise and mock. Men and Indians are the socially approved punching bags for people who want to act like bullies without losing their corporate jobs.
Thus it proves that modern empathy is completely performative. Empathy is an illusion in other words. If it wasn't it would apply in all cases. But it doesn't. Only in select cases.
If defending your demographic doesn't yield social currency, the "inclusive" crowd will step on your neck and call it activism.
So enjoy the last socially acceptable form of cruelty.