Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
By Isabel Wilkerson
Wilkerson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist from the New York Times. Her earlier work, “The Warmth of Other Suns” also gained widespread attention and acclaim.
She argues that many of America’s problems elsewhere labelled as Racism, or Systemic Racism derive from an unacknowledged caste system. She suggests that we, as Americans have an unwritten code of conduct imprinted on us by centuries of history and that this code instructs our assumptions, behaviors, and values.
Looking to other countries with notable and notorious histories of caste hierarchy Wilkerson went to India and met with people from high and low castes, and she studied the Nazis’ attempts to copy American law to create their own short-lived racial hierarchy.
From her studies and travels Wilkerson derives eight pillars ungirding caste systems and gives examples of each. Her explanations and examples pull from American history, long before the US was an independent country, all the way up into Trump’s term in office.
I find Isabel Wilkerson’s argument persuasive because I am an American. I know that very few people would identify as racist. And that the great majority would deny it vehemently if ever called racist. But replace the term racist with inheritor of centuries of caste-based culture and history, and the charges become much harder to deny.
At the same time, negative out-growths of cultural imprinting may be easier to prune once identified.
The value of Wilkerson’s book is that it asks questions that go beyond the idea of racism. It compares the US to other countries with their own distinct histories and traditions, and manages to identify certain similarities.
If Americans can look to other cultures and how they attempt to improve their caste-based divisions, suddenly America is no longer alone and progress becomes imaginable.
Wilkerson’s book is easy to understand. The ideas are simple and accessible. There are personal stories from Wilkerson’s life, as well as anecdotes from the lives of well-known people like Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. These allow the reader to better visualise the somewhat abstract notion of caste hierarchy.
Those first getting their feet wet in the ideas of systemic racism would best profit from reading Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Those who like American history should also venture in.
Did you read Caste? What did you think? Please leave a comment below.