October 16 - 22, 2020

On June 19, 2020, I made a commitment to educate myself on the lingering effects of racism, discrimination, and bias in America. Every day through June 18, 2021, I will read an article or book chapter, listen to a podcast, watch a movie or documentary, view a webinar, or do something substantive to educate myself in these areas. As part of that commitment, I will post to this blog each Friday with a list of what I've done over the past week as well as any pertinent thoughts or reflections.

Today's post covers the week of October 16-22, 2020.

 

Caste 

This week, I read chapters 13-31 (plus the epilogue) of Isabel Wilkerson's book, Caste. The book examines similarities among the caste systems in India, Nazi Germany, and the United States. While many might not recognize the US as having a caste system, Wilkerson argues that the American caste was set up during slavery and has persisted through Jim Crow to the present day.

The second half of the book is filled with specific examples of caste at work in America. Wilkerson shows how caste has burrowed into our subconscious, and the way we quickly size up people conforms to the framework of a caste system. While several of the examples she uses may not appear egregious in nature, Wilkerson encourages us to flip those interactions so that the subordinate caste and dominant caste switch places. In that context, the system becomes more obvious.

Wilkerson also talks about how, historically, the lowest castes have reaped the greatest rewards by ensuring the system stays in place. She uses the example of Black maids who cared for White children in the Jim Crow era being able to sit in the front of the bus, while those who protested the seating arrangement were jailed. She also shows that those of the lowest caste in charge of enforcement are often spared punishment, such as Jewish enforcers in concentration camps or Black slave drivers in America.

Wilkerson discusses the controversies arising from labeling American society as a caste system. She highlights a few studies from the mid-20th century, including Davis and Gardner's book Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class, and Cox's Caste, Class and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics. Cox argues that the Indian caste system was "singular because it was considered stable and unquestioned, because even the lowest castes embraced their degraded lot as the fate of the gods." Davis and Gardner's work was supported by Swedish social economist Gunner Myrdal, who claimed in his seminal work American Dilemma, "the caste system is upheld by its own inertia and by the superior caste's interest in upholding it."

"Caste does not explain everything in American life, but no aspect of American life can be fully understood without considering caste and embedded hierarchy," says Wilkerson. This quote reminded me of a class I took in graduate school on organizational theory. When examining any organization, or in this case a society, you can only thoroughly explain what's happening by using a series of lenses or frames that change your perspective. Those frames could be political; structural; cultural/symbolic; or relational. Wilkerson offers a frame with which to examine inequalities in American life, and she backs up that offering with both fact and anecdote stretching for more than 400 years.

Wilkerson concludes the book with a recommendation - radical empathy - through which, she believes, real progress can be made. Radical empathy, "means putting in the work to educate oneself and to listen with a humble heart to understand another's experience from their perspective." It isn't enough to not be racist or sexist - Wilkerson asks us to be pro-humanity through this approach of radical empathy, and move ourselves to a place where we can celebrate all of humanity with wonderment and astonishment.