You may think that with all you’ve learned about racism over the last few months, you’ve got it, you understand it. You already know how Blacks were dragged over from Africa, how they were made slaves in what became the US, and that slavery wasn’t the whitewashed version you learned about in school; how the system of slavery perpetrated evil, violent, demeaning acts by human beings against other human beings. And if you’re white, you feel bad about that.
And you may now know how, after slavery ended in 1865, Blacks were denied housing, schools, and jobs, both in the South and North, and how those injustices continue to this day. And if you’re white, you feel bad about that as well.
I thought I’d put in the time to educate myself about racism and being anti-racist, too. But I learned that was not enough. I’d like to propose that you read Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent, by Isabel Wilkerson.
It will be worth it. It brought my conception of racism and its effects to a new level, and I suspect it will do the same for you.
Wilkerson combines good writing, engaging storytelling, and inspired insights to relate racism in America to the caste system’s treatment of the Untouchables in India and Nazi Germany’s Final Solution for the Jews in a way that will give you a new deeper empathy for what People of Color continue to face in the US, and of what brought us here.
Why caste? “A caste system is an artificial construction, a fixed and embedded ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups on the basis of ancestry and often immutable traits, traits that would be neutral in the abstract but are ascribed life-and-death meaning in a hierarchy favoring the dominant caste whose forbears designed it.” Wilkerson uses caste as an overarching trope, of which racism is one instance, and thus provides a fresh way to understand and recognize discrimination however it appears, wherever it hides, and whenever it raises its ugly head.
Personally, I found reading Caste, and seeing US societal racism in terms of the concept of caste, as enlightening as if I were a fish and just realized I was living in water. Every prejudicial insult I hear and every racist act or obstacle I see takes on a new meaning. I imagine you will be touched too, including better understanding of the support for Donald Trump by poor whites, police actions toward Blacks, school and housing segregation, lack of job and career opportunities, prison terms, the criminal justice system, and coded racist phrases.
It was not Wilkerson’s mission to prescribe what we all should be doing. For that, you might read another book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism, by Bari Weiss. While this book is not about racism, with the insight of Wilkerson’s book, anti-Semitism is another “artificial construction that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups.” Here are nine fighting recommendations from Weiss.
- Envision and create. Protests have uses in getting a message out, but you can’t protest anti-Semitism or Racism away. Weiss’s prescription is to build what you want, not merely rail against what others are doing. Anti-anti-Semitism and anti-racism are not building, and in the long run are not sufficient. We need to imagine what we want, and then create it.
- Tell the truth, to ourselves even more than to others. Complacency, or willingness to accept the status quo, can be the enemy of the truth. This can be uncomfortable, as it is often easier to just blend in than to call out racism or anti-Semitism.
- Don’t trust people who try to divide us. We are a human race, and when people are making caste-like distinctions in an effort to rally support, it’s actually a sign of fear and weakness. Don’t fall for it, rise up above the division.
- Allow for the possibility of change. All people are capable of changing, and when they achieve a breakthrough, we want to welcome them into our tent.
- Build community; connect, communicate, and act with others.
- Notice your enemies, notice your friends, and be a friend. A thousand voices against you can be drowned out by one voice of support. Be that support for others in their fights, and accept the help of others who come to your aid in your fights.
- Stop blaming yourself.
- Choose life.
- Never forget to love your neighbor.
As Wilkerson ended Caste:
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. In a world without caste, 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... We would see that, when others suffer, the collective human body is set back from the progression of our species.
A world without caste would set everyone free.
Both books are recommended.