Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Surprisingly, I DNFed this title after getting 42% through it.

At first I was intrigued by the notion and usage of caste and the comparison to India, the Nazi Regime, and the history of slavery and African-Americans in the U.S. but at almost half way through I had just had enough. For any person even slightly educated or familiar with these harrowing matters, nothing new is being said, and I just kept having to listen about the pain and horrifying events done to so many people, with a huge emphasis on my black ancestors. It hurt for me to listen to these stories. I was sticking with it for educational purposes, but switching out “black” and “white” for caste-coded pseudonyms, wasn’t enough to teach me anything new, it was just me having to hear these horrifying stories all over again.

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morethanmylupus's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative slow-paced

5.0

This was such a difficult but important book. My family is from India and people talk to me about caste like it's a purely Indian thing that gives them the right to scorn my culture. I'm in no way in favor of caste, but it's always been hard for me to articulate that this isn't a structure that's only relevant to Indians. This book really drove home the point that America not only has a caste system but it's been integrated into so many systems throughout our history that persist today. This should be required reading for everyone.

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tanyafrey's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative slow-paced

5.0

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atamano's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative medium-paced

4.75

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sydapel's review against another edition

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informative reflective slow-paced

While I don't know that I completely agree with the fundamental hypothesis of this book (for may reasons, some of which I can articulate and some I can't), Wilkerson's ability to combine storytelling and and commentary on systematic racism in this country is done incredibly well. I do wish more time was spent on detailing the complexities of the Indian caste system, but that's a personal thing I don't think it detracts from the power this book has. (read as Part of SFCM's anti racism book club)

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f18's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

Even going into this after reading reviews and therefore knowing it was more US-centric than international, I found it disappointing. The writing structure is multiple anecdotes per chapter followed by a sum-up of what Wilkerson was wanting to illustrate with those stories. It was not very intersectional and rarely mentioned groups outside of black and white when discussing the United States. While the anecdotes definitely have value it read more like a pop-social science book to me, which I suppose is the author's intention but not to my taste in nonfiction.

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fromjuliereads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative inspiring slow-paced

This was definitely a dense read but so important. It had some really interesting insight and comparisons between the caste systems of India, Nazi Germany, and the United States.
There were anecdotes from the author's own experiences which lended to proving the points outlined. And some of the information provided was interesting, important, difficult, brought forth a lot of thoughts. I especially found it interesting when Wilkerson discussed the Black anthropologists who went to the South, as this was not something I had heard about previously. And I liked having some of the references to things I had studied about or seen in Germany.

The one thing I will say is that sometimes the switches between the three caste systems felt jarring, as it flipped from one to another in a single paragraph or page. I think it could have been laid out more cleanly where it didn't feel like a tangent.
But all in all, definitely a book that should be read widely.

(I'm not adding a rating for non fiction because I never know how to rate them properly.)

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