Lydia M.

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Lydia M. is currently reading

Fox

by Joyce Carol Oates

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Jun 07, 2026 08:11PM

“So the real question would be,' he said finally, 'if people were given the choice between democracy and whiteness, how many would choose whiteness?'

- Taylor Branch, as quoted by Isabel Wilkerson in Caste”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

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“That summer and into the fall and in the ensuing years to come, amid talk of Muslim bans, nasty women, border walls, and shithole nations, it was common to hear in certain circles the disbelieving cries, “This is not America,” or “I don’t recognize my country,” or “This is not who we are.” Except that this was and is our country and this was and is who we are, whether we have known or recognized it or not.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

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“The Nazis were impressed by the American custom of lynching its subordinate caste of African-Americans, having become aware of the ritual torture and mutilations that typically accompanied them. Hitler especially marveled at the American “knack for maintaining an air of robust innocence in the wake of mass death.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

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“We are responsible for our own ignorance or, with time and openhearted enlightenment, our own wisdom.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

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“You know that there are no black people in Africa,” she said. Most Americans, weaned on the myth of drawable lines between human beings, have to sit with that statement. It sounds nonsensical to our ears. Of course there are black people in Africa. There is a whole continent of black people in Africa. How could anyone not see that? “Africans are not black,” she said. “They are Igbo and Yoruba, Ewe, Akan, Ndebele. They are not black. They are just themselves. They are humans on the land. That is how they see themselves, and that is who they are.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

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