Jerry’s Reviews > Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents > Status Update

Seems somewhat repetitive in the dominant caste needs to be superior and ensure lower castes are kept/put in their place.

Despite calling it caste, the book is really about racism, either overt or covert. While there seems some basis, all her anecdotes serve to support her viewpoint even if some of them seem to be stretched to make that connection.

“The issue of caste was, to my mind, the basis of every other ism.”

Pillars of caste merit consideration. Starts w/ justification from religious texts & continues to “separate but equal”.

Wilkerson uses anecdotes of famous black embarrassments as justification for casteism.

Attends caste conference in UK & surprised most attendees UK or Indian. But sees parallels as an “American Untouchable”.

Wilkerson is laying out a structured case. She notes the Nazis studied US anti-myscegenation laws which were only overturned by scotus in 1967! A number of anecdotes are hard to understand today. Some date as recently as the civil rights era. Casteism is not as “in the past” as we might think even if its not as prevalent as its victims might perceive.

This book is problematic for me. I thought it was about class, but it’s about race, which it claims is a social construct, but also the basis for who has or doesn’t have agency in the US.

I’d hoped the book’s claimed anecdotal nature would provide context. So far the few presented seem oriented on proving a US racial hierarchy. There does seem to be some credibility in the caste system concept.