Caste

Truly “the lies that divide us”

I would recommend this book for everyone. The oppressed and the not oppressed. We can not change anything about the past but we can change the present and the future. As a black South African reading this book I found it helped shine the light on some reprogramming I may need to do in how I see myself and my abilities. But it also gave me insight on why the constitution says I’m free and yet do not feel free most times. It’s given me the courage to work out my freedom, reprogram my mind with intentionality. It is also helping me understand why some people still behave a particular way. Not to excuse the behavior but to understand it will be a process to unlearn.

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A Serious Study of Race

Caste by Isabel Wilkersin is a study of race, its social, economic, and political manifestations. Unlike "The Warmth of Other Suns" which looks at migration within the United States, "Caste" draws a lot of references from the international experience. I would recommend the book for University level studies, but it does not make for at home listening for relaxation. Race is an extremely vexing subject; it is upsetting, disturbing, and often opens lots of wounds.

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My best non-fiction ever…read/listened to it twice

My best non-fiction ever…read/listened to it twice already and can't stop for the third time

Caution: This review is going to be a tad longer


This was my first book on audible. I only used audible for my child to put him to sleep. Then I realized that I had got some credits to buy some books. I had heard about Caste by Isabel Wilkerson and some rave reviews. So I didn't think twice before buying it in exchange for a credit. That was the best decision of my life! In less than three days, I completed the book. Such a powerful book, with a very strong and fitting narrative on audible by the brilliant Robin Miles (the same reader of Isabel's other book: The Warmth of Other Sun).


So, to start with, I am an Indian. So as explained in the book, Caste is built into the very system of we Indians…no Indian can ever escape Caste or the term. So, it obviously caught my attention. I was all the more curious as I always thought Caste and race are though intertwined, they are very different from each other. Any Indian would vouch that Caste is not only about race, but it is much more than that. Besides, Casteism in India is based on the “Varna System” based on occupation and descent, whereas racism is about skin colour at least from the binary of black and white people. Isabel lifted the veil from my eyes and enabled me to see that it is the same repulsive hierarchy that divides people into dominant and subordinate categories, which in India we would call it Casteism and in USA it is called racism. But it is an inherent problem of dehumanizing other fellow human beings on the basis of superficial physiological traits such as skin colour, with a motive to exploit and rule over them.

When Isabel was narrating one after the other well-researched incidences of atrocities of the African Americans at the hands of the dominant caste/ the whites in America, I could recall exact experiences of the lowest caste/outcasts of India – the "untouchables" or the "Dalits". When she narrates how the slaves in the Jim Crow era in southern America were not allowed to go to schools, to read or write or to read to their own children, not allowed to go to church, not allowed to read the Bible, not allowed to eat/sit/travel together with the “dominant caste”/whites/slave owners/Masters, it sounded as if she is talking about the Dalits /”lower caste” vs the “upper caste” in India. How the restaurants would break the glasses after a black person drinks from it, how the whites demand to empty the swimming pools after a black has entered it, how the innocent love of a black boy for a white girl can be a reason for his lynching, how the crowd cherished the lynching of blacks, how the slaves could be punished with whiplashes at will, how the black slaves were made “guinea pigs” for the medical inventions by white doctors, and many more instances narrated in this book, has uncanny similarities of atrocities meted out to the Dalits for over three millennia in India’s Caste system.

The story of a teacher's experiment about the blue-eyed vs the brown-eyed children goes on to demonstrate how we as human beings can so quickly start abusing the other when the differences in the others are pointed out to us, even at that young age.

Like in the USA, the whites were / are predominantly better off financially, intellectually and otherwise for historical reasons; in India, the so-called "upper caste" constitute a large majority in economics, politics, executive, judiciary, media, education and religious affairs.

The parallels are drawn between the Jim Crow south of USA, the Nazis in Germany and the Caste system of India are brilliantly done. What connects all three different forms of discrimination is dehumanizing a particular community of people to exploit them at will for their own benefit. In all three cases, there is strong internalization of being discriminated against, which makes the victims immune to this inhuman treatment /torture wherein the latter start to think they are destined to this fate of theirs.

The book begins and also ends with the 2016 elections…how the seeds of hatred that were sown years ago and that was suppressed through the civil rights movements erupted when a “conducive” environment was created in Trump’s victory in the 2016 elections. In that connection, the analogy of anthrax released from the Siberian permafrost due to the extreme summer heat impacting the native population is simply brilliant.

The book ends with a strong pitch for a world without Caste.

Get your copy, printed or audio versions, and I bet you will not be disappointed. Do not be carried away by some negative reviews. I strongly feel, most of them would invariably fall into the "dominant caste" category. I would invite them to read another brilliant book on racism, "White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism” by Robin DiAngelo.

Amazing

This book lays bare the systematic building of racism and how human beings have been divided by color alone. Very interesting parallels between the Indian castes and western social hierarchy.

Robin Mile gives a stunning performance with an almost chilling voice as she recounts Isabels experiences 👌🏽

Excellent analysis through the prism of Caste

Isabel Wilkerson's analysis of divisions within America through the prism of Caste is thought-provoking. She methodically details the eight pillars of caste and how the dominant caste uses them to subjugate the subordinate one. As an Indian, I can relate to the comparisons made to the Caste system that has kept Dalits as subordinate and the system of treating blacks as less than human in the USA. This is a must-read for everyone who cares about humanity in the 21st century.

Super powerful book that opened my eyes

Loved it. It helped reframe things and gave me a chance to look at my NZ context through a different lens.

Kind words from a Powerful Book

Isabel masterfully took me through an American History class. It is costly when a majority of Americans do not embrace their country's true past for the last 400 years that has seen the black minority degraded in all spheres of their lives. It's sad to see that the country is still struggling to agree to work on this vice. If America successfully ends Caste. I think you will become unstoppable because all people from all creeds, shape and color will truly be free to become all they were created to be.

Superb

I just finished listening this beautiful manifesto for a better world. Superbly written and excellently documented, this book must be read by anyone wishing to become a better human.

An important and necessary education

Every human being should read this book. The education it afforded me was heartbreaking and entirely necessary. As an Irish woman who had spent a few years in America, I could see and feel the inequality but I did not understand the complexity and depths of it. A change is well over due, maybe this book will be a catalyst.

Life changing

I loved every single peace of this book, its written in such a realistic yet assertive connotation. As a black female ftom central america I acknowledge the struggle my brothers ans sisters battle and I pray to God that we will find the way to overcome for our future generations.