Caste: The Origins of our Discontents – Isabel Wilkerson

HAPPY PUB DAY!

Isabel Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Suns) presents a look at American racism through a unique lens. Wilkerson posits, with significant authority and research to back her up, that the US has a caste system that is one of three of the world’s most stringent  (the other two being India and Nazi Germany).   This take on American racism provides a re-framing that helps to explain the enduring nature of racism in this country, the systemic purposefulness of racial discrimination, and how racism must be approached to be dismantled.  As in The Warmth of Other Suns, her research and writing is impeccable and she presented many stories that I did not know.  For example, the reliance of up and coming Nazi’s in the 1930’s modeled much of their laws and tribunals on American systems, because the US had already achieved what they were hoping to emulate in Germany (only directed toward Jews rather than African Americans).  Wilkerson also introduced me to anthropologists Allison and Elizabeth Davis and their work in Mississippi during Jim Crow.  An important and compelling addition to the Black Lives Matter oeuvre, I expect this book to soar to the top of bestseller lists.