Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is a nonfiction book by the American journalist Isabel Wilkerson published in 2020. It describes racism in the United States as an aspect of a caste system – a society-wide system of social stratification characterized by notions such as hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, and purity. Wilkerson does so by comparing aspects of the experience of American people of color to the caste systems of India and Nazi Germany, and she explores the impact of castes on societies shaped by them, and their people.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Author	Isabel Wilkerson
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Nonfiction
Published	2020
Publisher	Random House
ISBN	9780593230251

Contents

Pillars of caste

In Caste, Wilkerson identifies eight "pillars of caste", or features of caste systems in various societies:[1]

• Divine will: the belief that social stratification is beyond human control, either divinely ordained or a natural law, as in the Biblical story of the curse of Ham that was used to justify Black inferiority in the U.S.
• Heritability, the belief that social status is acquired at birth and immutable, as codified e.g. in the U.S. "one-drop rule" that detemined Black ancestry
• Endogamy: the prohibition of sex and marriage between castes, as in the former U.S. anti-miscegenation laws
• Purity and pollution: the belief that the dominant caste is "pure" and must be protected against pollution by the inferior castes, as shown in the segregation of facilities for bathing, eating, education, etc. in the U.S. Jim Crow era
• Occupational hierarchy: the reservation of the more desirable occupations for the superior castes, as enshrined in U.S. Jim Crow laws that restricted Black people to farm or domestic work
• Dehumanization and stigma: the denial of individuality and human dignity of lower-caste individuals, as through the various arbitrary punishments and restrictions to which enslaved and free Black people were subject to in the U.S., down to racist carnival games.
• Terror and cruelty as means of enforcement of the caste system and control of lower-caste people, as through the whippings of slaves or the lynchings of Black people in the U.S.
• Inherent superiority and inferiority of castes: the belief that people of one caste are inherently superior to those of other castes, expressed e.g. in restrictions on clothing or displays of status by lower-caste people (such as driving a car).

Wilkerson illustrates these pillars through examples from three caste systems: those of India, Nazi Germany and the United States.

Aspects and consequences of caste

She goes on to describe the "tentacles of caste": the various ways in which a caste system society permeates the workings of a society infected by it. These include the anxious efforts of upper-caste people to retain their superior social status even while their economic status crumbles (hence the "necessity of a bottom rung", or the perceived need to prevent lower-caste success), unconscious biases embedded in a society's culture that perpetuate the caste system, or the function of lower-caste people as scapegoats.[2] In her view, the caste framework also helps explain the participation of lower-caste people (Jewish kapos, Black police officers) in the oppression of their fellow caste members: caste systems self-perpetuate by rewarding those lower-caste people who comply with the system, thereby keeping the lower castes divided.[3]

Wilkerson continues by describing the "consequences of caste", which degrade people of all castes. Among them are the "narcissism of caste", which makes culture revolve around and idealize the dominant caste, or the Stockholm syndrome that serves as a survival mechanism for lower-caste people but helps keep them captive, or the physiological stress experienced by lower-caste people that reduces their life expectancy.[4] She addresses the mechanisms of backlash against attempts to transcend the caste system, as exemplified by the first lower-caste U.S. president being succeeded by one intent on reinforcing the system, and the importance of the "symbols of caste", such as swastikas or Confederate flags, to the perpetuation of the system.[5] She concludes that societies in the grip of a caste system pay a harsh price for it: the distrust between castes translates into brutal criminal justice systems, and minimal or dysfunctional public health or social welfare systems – and as a result, a reduction in welfare for all but the most affluent, compared to other societies. In Wilkerson's view, the comparatively poor performance of the U.S. in the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the high rate at which it impacts lower-caste Americans, are one example of such effects.[6]

Finally, Wilkerson asks whether a "world without caste [that] would set everyone free" can exist. She concludes that it is possible – as in the dismantlement of Nazism after World War II – but that it requires both the bravery of individuals and an enormous effort of collective will especially by the dominant caste, given how deeply caste systems, like a chronic disease, are embedded in and shape societies.[7]

Race and caste

Wilkerson argues that the social constructs of race and caste are not synonyms, but that they "can and do coexist in the same culture and serve to reinforce each other. Race, in the United States, is the visible agent of the unseen force of caste. Caste is the bones, race the skin."[8]

Reception

The New York Times review described Caste as "an instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far."[8] Publishers Weekly called Caste a “powerful and extraordinarily timely social history.”[9]The Chicago Tribune wrote that the book was "among the year’s best" books.[10]

References

1. Caste, pp. 99–164
2. Caste, pp. 171 et seq.
3. Caste, pp. 238 et seq.
4. Caste, pp. 263 et seq.
5. Caste, pp. 311 et seq.
6. Caste, pp. 353 et seq.
7. Caste, pp. 361 et seq.
8. Garner, Dwight (July 31, 2020). "Isabel Wilkerson's 'Caste' Is an 'Instant American Classic' About Our Abiding Sin". The New York Times.
9. "Nonfiction book review: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents". Publishers Weekly.
10. Borrelli, Christopher (August 3, 2020). "Isabel Wilkerson's 'Caste' is about the strict lines that keep us apart — lines that are more than race or class". The Chicago Tribune.