How beautiful it is that through literature and storytelling, we are able to celebrate and explore other lives and journeys of emotional, challenging, and joyous histories, fact or fiction. While visiting the University of Chicago to celebrate and learn about emancipation on it’s 50th anniversary, Dr. Carter G Woodson saw a need to create a society focused on the preservation and education of African Americans history. By 1926, his society and “Negro History Week”, was well underway, and now a century later we continue to celebrate Black History Month. Many authors in our Book Club Collection and featured on Book Club Spotlight personify Black Excellence, despite a system built against them. Today, we follow Isabel Wilkerson, the first African-American Woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for her work as Chicago Bureau Chief for The New York Times, in her discussion of that system through her book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
What comes to mind when you hear the word, “caste”? Most likely, your first thought is the Caste System in India. Because of someone’s birthplace and familial ties, they are relegated to a subset of personhood that can never be changed. A system that places the “other” not because of their actions, but by seemingly random guidelines and tricks of fate set long ago. To us in the United States, it sounds a little absurd… after all, aren’t “all men created equal”? Or is the problem closer to home than we think? In Caste, Wilkerson addresses racial disparities in the United States, specifically between two of her designated “castes”, Black and white. She takes us through the history of the United States through the lens of a caste system, rather than a strictly racial one. Wilkerson draws from historical examples of this caste system at work, her own personal experiences, and the work done by scholars both in the Indian Caste System, and prominent scholars in the United States by explaining what defines a caste system, what pillars, framework, and subjugation it exists under. Altogether creating a moving and seminal work detailing the otherwise hidden and mislabeled Caste System of America,
“They were punished for being in the condition that they were forced to endure.”
– Isabel Wilkerson
Caste is a stunning and eye opening recontextualization of how racial oppression exists in the US. Not only does it teach the reader a new way to look at our history and our present. But it gives them the tools to understand and grow. Wilkerson did not write Caste to stoke anger or create enemies between these castes we have found ourselves unwitting participants of, but to unite us against the injustices of the past and prepare for a better future. Caste is a book meant to be talked about, making it a perfect addition to any Book Club Group who value good discussion and challenging works. It is important that books that teach us so much about ourselves and our history remain accessible for audiences. Like our last spotlight, The Light of Days by Judy Batalion, there is a Young Adults Edition available for a younger audience interested in the topic.
“We are not personally responsible for what people who look like us did centuries ago. But we are responsible for what good or ill we do to people alive with us today. We are, each of us, responsible for every decision we make that hurts or harms another human being. We are responsible for recognizing that what happened in previous generations at the hands of or to people who look like us set the stage for the world we now live in and that what has gone before us grants us advantages or burdens through no effort or fault of our own, gains or deficits that others who do not look like us often do not share. We are responsible for our own ignorance or, with time and openhearted enlightenment, our own wisdom. We are responsible for ourselves and our own deeds or misdeeds in our time and in our own space and will be judged accordingly by succeeding generations.”
- Isabel Wilkerson, Caste
If you’re interested in requesting Caste for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 8 copies. (A librarian must request items)
Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste. Penguin Random House. 2020.
