As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.
from Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
In Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Isabel Wilkerson details why she believes the United States has a caste system based on skin color. It's a bold premise and for many people, one that can be tough to accept but Wilkerson backs it up with historical documentation – a lot of it.
My first reaction to Wilkerson’s suggestion was skeptical. In comparison to the rigidly defined caste system in India, I didn’t think the label applied to the United States. While reading Caste, I was impressed by how much research Wilkerson offered to support her theory. Laws from the times of slavery, reconstruction, and Jim Crow paint a stark picture of institutionalized racism. And the inclusion of scenarios from the modern era rounds out a compelling argument.
Throughout the book Wilkerson uses terms like dominant, privileged, and subordinate caste to describe Americans. In each scenario she presents, it is perfectly clear which group she’s referring to.
Caste draws comparisons between the United States, India, and Nazi Germany and identifies eight pillars of caste that are central to each of the three governments. She describes the caste system as a defining factor of the United States rather than an anomaly and compares it to an untreated condition like cancer or alcoholism.
Wilkerson points out that while slavery is sometimes referred to as a dark time in our nation’s history, it was accepted practice in parts of the American colonies and the nation from 1619 to 1865, during which time many African Americans were forced to labor for the dominant caste, earning nothing for themselves or offspring. In the process, they were often brutally treated, sold as commodities, separated from family, and kept intentionally uneducated.
Into the 20th Century, terror tactics like lynching were used to keep the underclass in line while the perpetrators faced few legal repercussions. For nearly a century after the Civil War, Jim Crow laws further secured the caste hierarchy. Until 1968 discriminatory lending practices like redlining further restricted the subordinate caste's ability to acquire generational wealth.
Wilkerson precedes her book’s impressive bibliography with a final chapter that sums up the current situation while offering hope.
“Once awakened,” she writes, “we then have a choice. We can be born to the dominant caste but choose not to dominate. We can be born to a subordinate caste but resist the box others force upon us. And all of us can sharpen our powers of discernment to see past the external and to value the character of a person rather than demean those who are already marginalized or worship those born to false pedestals.”
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