Caste (Oprah's Book Club): The Origins of Our Discontents (edição: 2020)

Absolutely brutal and absolutely necessary. Caste is evil. This book is the fight against the evil. ( )

the author wants to be a better caste than she is - not the demolish the caste system ( )

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

“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.”

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. ( )

By talking about caste instead of race, the author abstracts the familiar history. She uses a different vocabulary to make you see clearer the world you think you know by removing words that already have so many associations (race, slavery, discrimination, civil rights).

Some observations that struck me:
-- The stigma and double standard applied to African Americans have accrued to Democrats. This contributed to the unforgiving scrutiny and obstructions faced by Obama and his administration (birth certificate, Benghazi).
-- Confederate status as a warning to the lowest caste of its subjugation and powerlessness. Germany has no monuments that celebrate the Nazis, however many grandfathers fought for them. Germany remembers the victims.
-- The reason we don't have a more benevolent society is the price we pay for the caste system. People show a greater sense of joint responsibility to one another when them see their fellow citizes as like themselves.
-- Radical empathy is needed. ( )

Excellent study of racism in America and how it relates to caste, as in India and Germany in the 30's and 40's. ( )