Isabel Wilkerson

I did a lot of skimming, skipping most of the historical digressions in favor of the three life stories. I can appreciate this as a piece of reporting, but no way is this the second best book of the century. It was so repetitive. Wilkerson will tell you the exact same thing mere pages apart. "She had heard that they strapped women down during delivery" (page 245). "She had heard that up north, doctors strapped women down when they went into labor" (page 267). Within two pages, "their respective corners of the echoing mansion... feeling too small for two people so different from each other," and "that so full a house would come down to just these two," and "marooned in a house that was too big, but not big enough to escape each other." This isn't great writing to me.… (meer)

In this provocative work, Wilkerson makes a compelling case for the existence of caste in the U.S., despite little consideration having been given to that term for historical societal or racial divides up until now. The parallels to other nations in which caste has played a significant role in creating and perpetuating inequalities and inhumane behaviors are staggering.

So many concepts presented in this book are revelatory. To list a few that were especially thought-provoking:
• Nazi Germany was impressed with and inspired by American treatment of Black people — a chilling thought.

• The concept of Dominant Group Status Threat is eye-opening in that it pretty much explains the Republican Party's stance on just about everything.

• This excerpt: "By the time they recognized their fatal miscalculation, it was too late. Hitler had risen as an outside agitator, a cult figure enamored of pageantry and rallies with parades of people carrying torches that an observer said looked like rivers of fire. Hitler saw himself as the voice of the Volk, of their grievances and fears, especially those in the rural districts, as a god-chosen savior, running on instinct. He had never held elected office before."

• This excerpt: "This [the sale of lynching postcards] was singularly American. "Even the Nazis did not stoop to selling souvenirs of Auschwitz," wrote Time magazine many years later."

• This excerpt: "If the lower-caste person manages actually to rise above an upper-caste person, the natural human response from someone weaned on their caste's inherent superiority is to perceive a threat to their existence, a heightened sense of unease, of displacement, of fear for their very survival. "If the things that I have believed are not true, then might I not be who I thought I was?" The disaffection is more than economic. The malaise is spiritual, psychological, emotional. Who are you if there is no one to be better than?"

• I became conscious only as an adult that, despite feeling ethically superior in the aftermath of the Civil War, "The North" doesn't have a lot to brag about in terms of racism. It was never the welcoming utopia commonly depicted, and in fact northern racism was in many ways more insidious than the overt racism of the South because its equally discriminatory behaviors (e.g., redlining, redistricting) were shrouded in obfuscation.

It's difficult to put into words what I took from this book. It has both made me feel both more aware and more hopeless about the state of my country, as so much seems irrevocably broken, and I feel at a loss for what to do with what I've learned.… (meer)

#BookReview #NonFiction
"Caste: The Origins of our Discontents" by Isabel Wilkerson

When my daughter asked me what book I was reading and I replied "Caste", her next question was "Is it by an Indian author?" We all have this idea that India alone grapples with caste-based problems, that the US and other countries primarily face racial or religious issues. This book convincingly proves that idea a delusion.

Let me borrow the introductory paragraph from an article published on "The Print" website on 23rd August 2020, the article that first introduced me to this book.

/quote/
Oprah Winfrey’s book clubs are legendary. So, when Oprah sent out a new book to 100 American CEOs and 400 leaders soon after the transformative #BlackLivesMatters protest and called it the most important book club selection ever, the world had to pay attention. And when that book mentions ‘India’ 136 times, it becomes mandatory reading for us. And yet Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Pulitzer Prize-winning African-American author Isabel Wilkerson, a book that The New York Times calls an ‘Instant American Classic’ is not stirring up Indian public debate or hitting our bookshelves.
/unquote/

When I read this article (https://theprint.in/opinion/oprah-winfrey-wilkerson-caste-100-us-ceos-indians-wont-talk-about-it/487143/), I knew that I had to get my hands on this book. And what a ride it has been!

Isabel Wilkerson deftly uncovers the many layers that caste masquerades under. Right in the first chapter, she declares, "Throughout human history, three caste systems have stood out. The tragically accelerated, chilling, and officially vanquished caste system of Nazi Germany. The lingering, millennia-long caste system of India. And the shape-shifting, unspoken, race-based caste pyramid in the United States."

Using her personal examples as well as historical publishings, Wilkerson builds up a firm case to support her hypothesis that America is a casteist nation. As she writes, "Most people don't look at America as having a caste system but it has all the hallmarks of one." She is scathing about the resurgence of the casteist ideas under the current president of the US. All those sections are a pleasure to read! Every argument is put up by sheer logic and not by any emotional parameters. Wilkerson has established a new benchmark in my mind for journalistic integrity in writing nonfiction.

While she focuses primarily on America for obvious reasons, she does cover the Indian system to a great extent. Historical statements on caste by Ambedkar, Manu and Jyotiba Phule, as well as contemporary insights by Yashica Dutt, Suraj Yengde and VT Rajshekhar, all find a mention in her research. I found it amazing to see how an outsider to our culture has so incisively figured out our complicated social hierarchy. A great part of me feels that she has done a better job of pinpointing our imbalanced framework because of her nonpartisan viewpoint. I now want to continue this journey of discovery by getting an insider perspective into Indian caste problems and will hence pick up "Caste Matters" by Suraj Yengde.

Wilkerson's handling of the topic of the Holocaust and Hitler's twisted idealogies that current Germans are doing their best to erase, deserves special mention.

This year, while I've read a great number of books, the quantity unfortunately hasn't been balanced with quality. Only a few books have stirred me enough while most have been underwhelming. This book is one of my best reads of 2020, if not the best. It isn't just an enlightening book, it must be made mandatory reading, and not just in America or India, in the entire world. Go for it without any doubt.

Leaving you with just a few of the many thought-provoking quotes from the book:

… (meer)