Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents peels back the murky bureaucracy and many layers of socioeconomic relations in America to state her simple truth: America does not have racial relations; it has caste relations. She proclaims, “America has an unseen skeleton, a caste system that is as central to its operation as are the studs and joints that we cannot see in the physical buildings we call home. Caste is the infrastructure of our divisions.”
This book contained accounts of situations from American history that eerily resemble those found in Nazi Germany and India, the two caste-system archetypes she uses. There are some differences: while the Indian caste system relies on the Hindu religion to justify its immutability, the US’ caste system relies on cultural programming in childhood to internalize biases and conservatively maintain societies rooted in inequity. One of the most jarring points made in the book is that the American eugenic enthusiasm directly inspired the architects of the Nazi social system. A failure, the Nazi experiment lasted 15 years, and the Indian and American caste systems developed along with the countries.
The American caste system existed in the US in a formalized manner until Jim Crow ended. I do not believe, though, that current racial relations in America are that of a caste system. While looking at current race relations in America through the lens of a caste system is an incredibly illuminating thought experiment, Caste oversimplifies the current system in trying to slice it into clean caste divisions. America’s caste system has been dissolving for hundreds of years and will continue until, theoretically, it is gone (whatever that entails).
I have two sticking points in accepting Wilkerson's thesis: How can there be two caste systems in a single population – race and age? And how was a Black man elected and reelected president?
In 2015, panic arose because two Princeton University economics found that the life expectancy for white Americans was lowering. They posit that it was caused by the despair of losing one’s established white privilege in the societal hierarchy – now poor white families were just poor, not poor but white. Black people were rising up in companies, and white people were forced to work under them even though they still believed in their racial superiority. With the election of Obama to the Oval Office, there was a panic; a racial upheaval. Suddenly, a black man was the highest ranking American – above all white people.
Wilkerson uses Germany as proof that one can move past a caste system, and she is tentatively hopeful for the future of the US. Notably, a Black man ran the U.S. for four years – and then was reelected to another four. She uses the 2020 election as proof that the temporary mishap of voting Obama president boomeranged public sentiment “back to their senses” in a way, with huge backtracking to the caste system. This backtracking, however, does not erase the fact that Obama was elected and reelected.
Most significantly, Wilkerson acknowledges that age, race, ethnic origin, and location influence interactions between Americans throughout history and today. She explicitly classifies ageism as a parallel caste system that affects all individuals. How can there be two caste systems in a single population – race and age?
While at one point, no matter how old and/or poor a white individual was, their identity as a white person trumped them over all Black Americans, we don’t live in that world anymore. We don't live in a rigid system - even if we are ridiculously far from parity.