I am 82 and this is the best book I have ever read. The writing, the research and the analysis, our shared history and the humanity of her interpretations and how we get out of the trap we are in of not caring about each other. I wish ever American would read this book and a new enlightenment would occur. It is to the everlasting shame of Texas that the book banners have attacked this book.

This is by far the most well written and thought-provoking book that I have ever read.

It is truly life changing. Devastating. And presented with so much skill and heart that makes it impossible to put down. I feel an immense gratitude to Ms. Wilkerson for creating this masterpiece.

This book could actually save the world.

This is a book all thinking Americans should read this fall: it is well-argued, fascinating and very well-written. I was particularly taken with the consistency of Wilkerson's argument, which I find convincing and on-the-mark.

After you read this, you will never regard American society in the same way. I found that my heart ached when thinking about past encounters I have had (as a white male) and past encounters I have witnessed with black Americans. I have had police officers apologize to me for giving me speeding tickets; they have "adjusted" my speed so that I would not fall into the "wreckless driving" category (much appreciated, by the way); I have been treated in general with such deference in so many contexts, that I never really thought about it. When I do now, I cringe just to think about WHY that deference occurred. I always thought it was because I am a nice guy, not because I represented the dominate spot on the caste hierarchy. When I saw others treated not so well, I dismissed it in my mind as probably grounded in some logical cause, NOT caste position. Boy, was I wrong.

I think this book explains much of the aggressive nature of the Republican political stance, which has revealed itself to be unconcerned with the democratic process (voter suppression), and is hypocritical in its application of the American notion of fair play (imagine Republican response if Obama had Russian connections, or had blown the pandemic response!). It really is about retaining one's dominate spot on the hierarchy in light of changing demographics. I am embarrassed by this Republican hypocrisy and Anti-Americanism, and hope that this will not be the undoing of our country. Hats off to Wilkerson for her militant articulation of a real threat to our Constitutional freedoms, while at the same time expressing a real social dynamic that percolates into all aspects of our daily life.

My one - very minor - criticism would be her discussion of Robert E. Lee (pp. 333-339). I agree with everything she says about Charlottesville, etc., but I would point out that Lee himself was no advocate of the Lost Cause, and would be horrified at the thought of the hagiographic image of him in statues throughout the land. When asked about memorials to the Confederacy and the war, he said forget it, don't mention it again. I think he was ashamed and embarrassed by his Confederate service. Winfield Scott said that Lee had made the biggest mistake of his life by leaving the Federal army, and he was correct. Also, as harsh as Lee was in punishing slaves at Arlington, remember that he never owned slaves, nor did he own Arlington: those were "possessions" of his wife, Mary Custis. Lee grew up in a rented house with his single mother in Alexandria; he attended West Point because it was free. The only home he ever "owned" was the President's house in Lexington, Virginia. Lee himself was a complex and tragic individual; his real conflicted life should not be conflated with white supremacist notions of who he was and what he did. Oh, and that Confederate flag "the size of a bedsheet" that Wilkerson notes (p. 346), is not on the interstate, but on Route 29 outside of Danville, Virginia. It flies in response to the city of Danville taking down a small Confederate flag outside the Sutherlin Mansion a few years ago, and is an embarrassment to most of the citizens of the region. It flies on private property, and its presence sickens us each time we have to drive past it. It will only disappear when the folks who fly it disappear, and that will take generations.

It seems we live in a caste society. This is the message of "Caste: The Origins of our Discontent" by Isabel Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize winning author. She cites a number of sources to support her thesis, the most compelling by historian Nell Irvin Painter, who says simply and succinctly: "Americans cling to race as the unschooled cling to superstition." The author also makes the point that racial prejudice is not healthy. Indeed, she cites clinical evidence that harboring racial hatred can shorten your life, and ultimately kill you. At 388 pages the book is not overly long, and reads quite well. However, as well as the author makes her points, she often overstates the case, with repeated stories that after awhile become tiresome. Having said that there is much here to be learned, and I recommend the book heartily.

Certainly, our nation has been long divided over race, dating back to 1619, when the first slave ship made port in Point Comfort, Virginia, and unloaded about twenty chained Africans, destined for slavery. Up to this point the concept of "white" and "black" people was unknown. The colonies were comprised of Europeans (mostly Englishmen) who did not think of themselves as white. And the arriving African slaves did not think of themselves as black, but as Igbo. Yoruba, Ewe Akan, and Ndebele. White people and black people were concepts that developed over time. Writes the author: "There developed a caste system, based on what people looked like, an internalized ranking, unspoken, unnamed, unacknowledged by everyday citizens even as they go about living their lives adhering to it and acting upon it subconsciously to this day."

She adds, "Caste is not a term often applied to the United States. It is considered the language of India or feudal Europe. But some anthropologists and scholars of race in America have made use of the term for decades." Indeed, the idea of "race", is a recent phenomenon in human history. It dates back to the start of the transatlantic slave trade and thus to the subsequent caste system that arose from slavery.

The word "race" likely derived from the Spanish word "raza" and was originally used to refer to the "caste or quality of authentic horses, which are branded with an iron so as to be recognized," wrote the anthropologists Audrey and Brian Smedley. As Europeans explored the world, they began using the word to refer to the new people they encountered. "Ultimately, the English in North America developed the most rigid and exclusionist form of race ideology," say the Smedleys. "In the American mind (race) was and is a statement about profound and unbridgeable differences (that) conveys the meaning of social distance that cannot be transcended."

Geneticists and anthropologists have long considered race as a manmade invention, with no basis in science or biology. In fact, the term "Caucasian", a label often ascribed to people of European descent, is a word invented by a German professor of medicine named Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who was so taken with the shape of a human skull he found in the Caucasus Mountains of Russia, that he applied it to the people he believed descended from there and settled in Europe.

About two decades ago, an analysis of the human genome established that all human beings are 99.9 percent the same. Concludes the geneticist J. Craig Venter: "We all evolved in the last 100,000 years from the small number of tribes that migrated out of Africa and colonized the world." Which means the entire racial caste system--the catalyst of hatreds and civil war--was built on what anthropologists now call "an arbitrary and superficial selection of traits," derived from "a few of the thousands of genes that make up a human being."

In other words, it is based on a lie.

As slavery took hold in the Southern colonies, slaveholders began looking to the Bible for justification of their "peculiar institution" and, while conveniently ignoring Jesus's Sermon on the Mount, turned their attention to the Old Testament and learned that back in the Middle Ages some interpreters had described Noah's son, Ham, as bearing dark skin, and thus translated Noah's curse against him as a curse against the descendants of Ham--against all humans bearing dark skin.

They took further comfort from Leviticus, which exhorted them, "Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are around you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids." They took as further license to enslave those they considered religious heathens, to build a new country out of the wilderness. Thus, a hierarchy evolved in the New World they created, one that set those with the lightest skin above those with the darkest.

"The curse of Ham is now being executed upon his descendants," wrote Thomas Cobb, a leading Confederate and defender of slavery. "The great Architect had framed them both physically and mentally to fill the sphere in which they were thrown. His wisdom and mercy combined in constituting them thus suited to the degraded position they were destined to occupy."

Writes the author: "The United States and India would become, respectively, the oldest and the largest democracies in human history, both built on caste systems undergirded by their reading of the sacred texts of their respective cultures. In both countries, the subordinate castes were consigned to the bottom, seen as deserving of their debasement, owing to the sins of the past."

It would take a civil war, the deaths of three-quarters of a million soldiers and citizens, the assassination of a president, Abraham Lincoln, and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to bring an end to slavery in the United States. Still slavery would live on in a new form of discrimination--white supremacy.

The white supremacists devised a labyrinth of laws to hold the newly freed people on the bottom rung ever more tightly, while a popular new pseudoscience called eugenics emerged to justify the renewed debasement. People on the bottom rung could be beaten or killed with impunity for any breach of the caste system, like not stepping off the sidewalk fast enough--or in trying to vote.

When Hitler and his band of thugs took power in Germany and focused their hatred toward European Jews, who should they turn their attention to for guidance? To the discriminatory race laws of the Jim Crow south. According to Yale legal historian James Whitman, in debating "how to institutionalize racism in the Third Reich, the Nazis began by asking how the Americans did it."

PUTTING AN END TO CASTE

Writes the author: "The caste system in America is four hundred years old and will not be dismantled by a single law or any one person, no matter how powerful. We have seen in the years since the civil rights era that laws, like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, can be weakened if there is not the collective will to maintain them . . .

"Caste is a disease, and none of us is immune. It is as if alcoholism is encoded into the county's DNA, and can never be declared fully cured. It is like a cancer that goes into remission only to return when the immune system of the body politic is weakened . . .

"To imagine an end to caste in America, we need only look at the history of Germany. It is living proof that if a caste system--the twelve-year reign of the Nazis--can be created, it can be dismantled. We make a serious error when we fail to see the overlap between our country and others, the common vulnerability in human programming, what the theorist Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil."

"What's most disturbing about the Nazi phenomenon," writes philosopher David Livingston Smith, "is not that the Nazis were madmen or monsters. It is that they were ordinary human beings."

Note: While preparing this review, I came across this quote by Nelson Mandela: "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or background or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can learn to be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." Mandela, it will be remembered, was elected as South Africa's first black head of state. Under his watch, the government focused on dismantling the legacy of caste (a.k.a. apartheid) by tackling institutionalized racism and fostering racial reconciliation.

Having read Coates’s “We Were Eight Years in Power” and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s “Globalectics” (see my reviews), I wanted to get a woman’s perspective on similar issues. When looking through recent titles along these lines, I came upon, sampled, and bought Wilkerson’s book. The initial narrative as well as her preliminary remarks comparing conditions in the US with those in India and WW II Germany provoked my curiosity as well as questions regarding inferences and conclusions she would draw. As with the previous books, I was again devastated by the compelling argument relating our American racial/class hierarchy and its explanatory power regarding recent events.

Within the book, the author proceeds to make her case through an Introduction (‘A Man in the Crowd’), some 31 chapters broken into seven parts and an Epilogue (‘A World Without Caste’). The parts are as follows: (1) Toxins in the Permafrost and Heat Rising all Around; (2) The Arbitrary Construction of Human Divisions; (3) The Eight Pillars of Caste; (4) The Tentacles of Caste; (5) The Consequences of Caste; (6) Backlash; and (7) Awakening. There are also Dedication and Acknowledgement along with extensive Notes and Bibliography sections.

Some of the parts that stood out for me began with the author’s framing of her study of caste. For instance, Wilkerson observes (at Location 233 in the Kindle version) that “The election [in 2016] would set the United States on a course toward isolationism, tribalism, the walling in and protecting of one’s own, the worship of wealth and acquisition at the expense of others, even of the planet itself . . .” A little later (Location 276), she adds “Then the worst pandemic in more than a century brought humanity to a standstill.” Her attention turns to questions (Location 280-86) “What had happened to America? What could account for tens of millions . . . [to] ‘vote against their own interests’. . .” After indicating (Location 357) that “Like old houses, America has an unseen skeleton, a caste system that is as central to its operation . . .” along with its imposed racial and power dimensions, the author clarifies her quest across oceans for understanding and explanation (bringing to mind Weiner’s “Socrates Express” and Zakaria’s “Ten Lessons for a Post Pandemic World”---see my reviews).

Wilkerson goes back and forth in place and time between the US, India and Nazi Germany to explore the origins, character and insidious effects of such caste systems. For instance, she relates (Location 1158-59) that “Both countries enacted a fretwork of laws to chain the lowliest group—Dalits in India and African-Americans in the United States—to the bottom, using terror and force to keep them there . . . ‘Perhaps only the Jews have as long a history of suffering from discrimination as the Dalits’. . .” In one of many examples later (Location 1213-14), the author describes that “In the early stages of the Third Reich . . . Nazi bureaucrats met to weigh the options for imposing a rigid new hierarchy, one that would isolate Jewish people from Aryans now that the Nazis had taken control. . . [They studied] how the United States had managed to turn its racial hierarchy into rigid law yet retain such a sterling reputation on the world stage.”

While the book begins and finishes strong, there is much substantiating material in-between to go through to get to the many gems hidden within the text. For instance, Wilkerson indicates (in Location 4754-59) that “The 2016 election became a remarkable blueprint of caste hierarchy in America, from highest to lowest status in a given group’s support of the Republican: White men voted for Trump at 62 percent. White women at 53 percent. Latino men at 32 percent. Latina women at 25 percent. African-American men at 13 percent, and black women at 4 percent . . . The Democratic vote went as follows: White men, 31 percent. White women, 43 percent. Latino men, 63 percent. Latina women, 69 percent. African-American men, 82 percent. [and] African-American women, supported the white female Democrat by 94 percent.” Even while such references and the author’s anecdotes are helpful, I find myself seeking other sources to help spell out minority women’s situation and perspective further for someone like me (e.g., see Angela Davis’s “Women, Race, and Class” and other such works).

As the author expresses the tremendous personal/societal cost and detrimental human impact of our caste system, she admits the limitations of a book such as hers and the challenges in resolving matters. However, her text is well worth reading and offers the possibility of awakening regarding these issues and pursing a vision for a better world. As she states in her conclusion (Location 5553-55), “In a world without caste, being male or female, light or dark, immigrant or native-born, would have no bearing on what anyone was perceived as being capable of. . . we would all be invested in the well-being of others in our species if only for our own survival, and recognize that we are in need of one another more than we have been led to believe.”

Excellent book that draws a thread through the commonalities of Jews during the Nazi horrors, the intricate levels of castes in Indian and the plight of Blacks in America.

If I didn’t admire Einstein before, I now do based on his stand on racism.

This book will be an eye opener for some a validation for others. I highly recommend this amazing book.

Very informative and provides clarity to the miseducation of America’s cultural mindset. This should be a must read to juniors and seniors in HIGH SCHOOL alongside civics.

Thank you and it will be one of the item deemed to certain children in my family.

I am a voracious reader, and Caste by Isabel Wilkerson stands out as the best book I have read in my 79 years of life. Unquestionably it is well-researched. But Wilkerson's art of weaving historical documents and non-fictional accounts of caste and all of its ramifications into metaphors that hit home to our hearts and minds is an art form. Here is one example:

"Just as DNA is the code of instructions for cell development, caste is the operating system for economic, political, and social interaction in the United States from the time of its gestation."

(p. 24).

Wilkerson's artistry with words, for me, is a source of jealousy. It is pure symphony. "As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not. It is about resources—which caste is seen as worthy of them and which are not,..."

Yes, there is more freedom in America than in other countries, especially those under the iron heel of autocrats. But what we have seen in the last 400 years since the White man stepped ashore has never been honestly dealt with: we are a hypocritical democracy-- one in which the White Anglo Protestant reigns supreme, while others fall prey to all manifestations of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I am not into guilt or feeling responsible for what others before me have done, but what we have now is what we inherited over the last 400 years of inequity. All of us are now living in this 400-year old house and it is falling apart because we refuse to acknowledge the major cracks in its foundation, and how rotten some of the joists are in the floors and attic. Separatism and Power are not working in our country. Realizing what is wrong and fixing the ills underlying the pathology of this power-play are necessary steps If our nation can truly become America the beautiful, the good, and the true.

Read and/or listen to this masterpiece. Wilkerson, you have made one heck of a contribution. Congratulations on a damn excellent piece of writing.

Very very interesting read.

Un livre hautement instructif qui propose une relecture de l’histoire vécue par les Afros Américains. Les rapprochements avec les castes de l’Inde et l’antisemitisme nazi sont inédits mais combien instructifs!

Race is a complicated issue, this book illustrates another layer to an already complicated, yet unnecessary situation in our times. Read and learn.

Gran lettura

This is a moving and insightful book with huge topical relevance today. Should be required reading for anyone over the age of 16.