Book notes | Caste
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is Isabel Wilkerson’s first book since her award-winning The Warmth of Other Suns published 10 years ago.
Most people think of India when the word caste is used. However, a caste system also exists in a number of countries, including the United States, and was practiced in Nazi Germany. The latter based its caste system on the Jim Crow laws of the United States and marveled that the United States had been able to maintain these laws across centuries.
To help the reader grasp the development and implementation of the caste system, Wilkerson provides eight pillars: divine will and laws of nature; heritability; endogamy and the control of marriage and mating; purity versus pollution; occupational hierarchy; dehumanization and stigma; terror and cruelty as means of enforcement; and, inherent superiority and inferiority of castes.
Woven with fact and history
Although caste is not an easy topic to explore, Wilkerson weaves her experiences and those of others with fact and history to help the reader grasp the extensive impact the caste system has had, and continues to have, in India and the United States. A brief ending chapter demonstrates a simple strategy—finding a common topic between a caste member and a person from the ruling caste to build a bridge and lessen the impact of the caste system. As she does in her first book, Wilkerson captures the reader so that one cannot put the book down. This book is a must read.
The UMRA book club members had a good discussion on this important book. It was considered well written. Readers acknowledged that there is a hierarchical system in the U.S. like the caste system described in the book. All too often, people try to keep people in their place or, as one person suggested, there is a need for having a scapegoat. One member recommended the book’s use as a textbook in college sociology courses. Several members said they liked the way the author personalized the information with her own run-ins with racism.
—Mariah Snyder, Book Club I member
UMRA Book Club I to meet May 21
Fri, May 21 2021, 2pm
Mariah Snyder will lead the discussion of Caste: The Origins of our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson when the UMRA Book Club I meets via Zoom at 2 p.m. on Friday, May 21. More …
This book club currently has 16 members, a number that works well for our discussions. Contact Pat Tollefson at [email protected] for more information, including suggestions for starting a new book club.
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