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A review by thechanelmuse
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
5.0
Isabel Wilkerson has done it again. She has such a way of breaking a topic down, layer by layer, to flesh out every point, as well as creating eye-opening metaphors to make everything fully realized.
“Caste and race are neither synonymous nor mutually exclusive. They can and do coexist in the same culture and serve to reinforce each other. Race, in the United States, is the visible agent of the unseen force of caste. Caste is the bones, race the skin. Race is what we can see, the physical traits that have been given arbitrary meaning and become shorthand for who a person is. Caste is the powerful infrastructure that holds each group in its place.”
I've always known that there is a caste system here in America. But I actually never knew how much it inspired then-Nazi Germany and how it parallels the caste system in India in many ways.
This is one of the most powerful books that should be made required reading in schools and elsewhere.
“The enforcers of caste come in every color, creed, and gender. One does not have to be in the dominant caste to do its bidding. In fact, the most potent instrument of the caste system is a sentinel at every rung, whose identity forswears any accusation of discrimination and helps keep the caste system humming.”
“Caste and race are neither synonymous nor mutually exclusive. They can and do coexist in the same culture and serve to reinforce each other. Race, in the United States, is the visible agent of the unseen force of caste. Caste is the bones, race the skin. Race is what we can see, the physical traits that have been given arbitrary meaning and become shorthand for who a person is. Caste is the powerful infrastructure that holds each group in its place.”
I've always known that there is a caste system here in America. But I actually never knew how much it inspired then-Nazi Germany and how it parallels the caste system in India in many ways.
This is one of the most powerful books that should be made required reading in schools and elsewhere.
“The enforcers of caste come in every color, creed, and gender. One does not have to be in the dominant caste to do its bidding. In fact, the most potent instrument of the caste system is a sentinel at every rung, whose identity forswears any accusation of discrimination and helps keep the caste system humming.”