Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent

I have been intending to read this book by Isabel Wilkerson for months now. It seems that every time there is a bookcase in view during the interviews on the PBS NewsHour, I see this book on the shelf. It felt like a "must read" and, when my book group agreed to read it, I was sufficiently motivated to plow through this very disheartening exploration of how badly humans are capable of treating one another. I will say that, being a highly educated and reasonably well-read person, I felt I knew a lot about discrimination, slavery, the rise of Nazism, caste in India. BUT there was so much here that I did not know. For example how "race" (skin color) became the basis of justifying dehumanization of enslaved Africans after they began to adopt Christianity and were, therefore, no longer "heathens." How the Nazis looked to American laws to build their own "legal" structures justifying the extermination of Jews and other non-Aryans. That a black man was lynched every 3-4 days between 1900 - 1940 ("Jim Crow" era). I could go on and on. I am including a picture of the library book I read, filled with so many post-it notes that I clearly should have bought the book so I could just underline all the things that stood out to me. 

Trump's election, which puzzled me and a lot of other people who felt that many working class white people were voting against their own interests, was actually an attempt to maintain superiority in the caste system of the U.S. Superiority based on anything as ephemeral as race is, of course, a fragile thing and requires the existence and enforcement of an underclass. She clarifies the distinction between racism, class and caste as she draws comparisons between slavery in the U.S., the caste system in India and the rise of Nazism in Germany. The book is extensively researched and filled with personal stories as well as history, and factual information. It is a tough go but I would have every American read this book to better understand what people of color have endured (and continue to endure) in this country.