Kathy Nguyen

“Perhaps it is the unthinking acquiescence, the blindness to one's imprisonment, that is the most effective way for human beings to remain captive. People who do not know that they are captive will not resist their bondage.”
― Isabel Wilkerson

“Individuals were no longer individuals. Individuality, after all, is a luxury afforded the dominant caste. Individuality is the first distinction lost to the stigmatized.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

“Hostility toward the lowest caste became part of the initiation rite into citizenship in America.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

“What humanity learned, one would hope, was that an ancient and hardy virus required perhaps more than anything, knowledge of its ever-present danger, caution to protect against exposure, and alertness to the power of its longevity, its ability to mutate, survive and hibernate until reawakened. It seems these contagions could not be destroyed, not yet anyway, only managed and anticipated, as with any virus, and that foresight and vigilance, the wisdom of never taking them for granted, never underestimating their persistence, was perhaps the most effective antidote, for now.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents