Even in a lifetime of reading, few books radically change one’s perception of the world. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson, is one of those books for me. For many years I have fancied myself a student of American history, especially the founding of the nation and the illumination of our core principles. Democracy, representation, checks and balances, principles we all agree on. I argued that centrist principles could usher us away from the extremes of our political life and the split of the body politic. I still want to believe that, but after reading this book, I am not sure I can sustain that idea any more.
It is remarkable that even with all my reading, I never fully integrated or understood the significance of slavery — especially on the realities of contemporary life. Wilkerson’s book brings it all home. Of course I was aware of racism; I had led South African divestiture events at the University of Minnesota in the 1980s. I knew of racism, but like so many, thought to myself: I am not racist! thereby succumbing to that great self-deceptive northern trope. I had heard of race as a social construct, but I now see that I never understood that phrase.
Wilkerson’s unusual work here is to recast the entire discussion in a way that helps one to see what is really going on. “Race” and “racism” can often blind one as you try to separate yourself from those self-evaluations or accusations. The term “caste” changes the mind. Caste is a social system that one can see operating; it is objective and easier to see, whereas racism is usually understood as a state of one’s own mind or heart.
What is unique in this book is that it no longer let’s one get away with the nifty tricks that let one say: “but that’s not me” or “but that’s not us.” Indeed, it is us.
Wilkerson recounts the story of the Nazis meeting in the early 1930s to try to figure out how to set up their laws to protect the purity of the Aryan race. And what did they take as their primary model for how to do this? The Jim Crow laws of the American south. That is us.
She recounts the lynching in Omaha in 1919 that attracted thousands of spectators, including parents who took their children out of school to watch. It was the lynching of an innocent man. They took pictures, sent them to friends. And this was not the only one. Such pictures became postcards sent through the mail, and there were so many of them that finally, the USPS stopped delivering that kind of postcard. Nevermind, the people said, and they sent them in envelopes instead. That is also us.
What is shocking to me is the depiction of the wanton cruelty of it all, and it’s long history. 246 years of legal slavery, four centuries of a caste system to dominate and destroy people. In the middle of it, and with that as its base, the greatest democracy in the world flowered into being. But it was, and is, a democracy for the dominant caste only. Blacks were counted as 3/5 of a person according to the original Constitution. Their votes were to be aggregated to and cast by their masters. Even among the great words like “All men are created equal” it was never meant to apply to any caste other than whites. Not to the indigenous population, not to free blacks, and certainly not to slaves, for none of them were fully human or fully “man.” Jefferson and Madison, who in large part authored our great documents, wrote only for the highest caste.
And hence, my celebration of their work and constant study of it to find answers to our problems is likely just as unconsciously racist as anything I could do. And more importantly, it is blinding to what I am most interested in.
One of my early books, Call to Liberty, was a search for common American ground based on the principles of our founding documents and the core ideals that most Americans hold and espouse. I carried the notion that the split in the body politic could be healed. Yes, there would always be extremists on the right and the left of the political spectrum, but they could be overcome based on these core principles. Wilkerson helps me see that may be a naïve expectation.
The reason is simple: The core principles in our documents — Constitution, Declaration of Independence — are held by everyone to apply to the upper caste and whites. Far fewer include non-whites as subject to those principles. The allegiance to caste overwhelms allegiances to country and core principles. The “freedom” espoused by caste-conscious whites is their freedom to remain in the dominant caste. It is their freedom to maintain a caste system that puts them ahead of the blacks and prevents them from being the lowest people in the system — a place they are terrified to go. The “America” they celebrate with their American flags, as well as their Confederate flags, is the America that upholds the caste system and their advantages. The guns they tote whenever and wherever they want to are the signals of terror to the lower caste, an effort to remind them of who has the power — the white caste — and the ability to use it, probably with impunity.
In other words, the great principles I thought animated our political discourse do not do so. Our political discourse is animated by caste allegiances. People will engage those great principles so long as their caste position is not threatened, and people will sacrifice those great principles, or any principles at all, to maintain their caste position if it feels threatened.
Today, that fear of loss and allegiance to caste is the animating force of everything. Wilkerson refers to the projection that in 2042, whites will no longer be the majority in the USA. This terrifies the caste conscious and even brought Steve Bannon to articulate what the right wing is up to. His exact words: “We are engaged in a long term demographic reshaping project.” This is why those right wing tropes — freedom, flags, and guns — are carried with such fervor. “Conservative” no longer has the political meaning I once ascribed to it — one of honoring and maintain the stability of the past. Rather, it now means “conserve the caste system,” and that is the only principle or value it upholds.
At its essence, caste is about control, which upper caste white men experience as freedom — but few others do. They are desperate for this control, and therefore extend it into the debate on abortion, which becomes upper caste ability to control others. They extend this control into climate change and science denial, pretending that they can be free to ignore the limits we all face. They extend it into relationships with others, especially neighbors, and act as bullies toward all others. I see this. I know this to be true. But why are these men so desperate?
Politically speaking in the present day, there is a split in the Republican party, and the split is on these exact lines. But it is interesting. Those like George W. Bush who are speaking out a bit more, speak to the older, bigger American principles because they can afford to do so. Their position in the elite will not be threatened in 2042. But whites who are not Bush-styled elites are threatened — their positions will be undermined. They feel themselves to be too close to the middle class blacks to whom they believe they are superior. Yet they know they will lose control if and when whites stop voting as a majority block, and as they see that time coming, they are terrified. Why? Because they know it will move them toward the bottom of that hierarchy, and they know what they have done to people in that position.
Whether there is slavery or not, and whether there is Jim Crow or not, caste persists and drives so much of our American lives and system. I used to say that I believed in the goodness of the American people. That we would figure it out. I can no longer believe that because there is so much in us that is not good, has not been good, and possibly will never be good. While Germany has monuments to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust, we have monuments to the great war leaders defending slavery — Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. While Germany has made reparations to the surviving Jews, America’s federal government made reparations to the slave holders and nothing for the slaves. Who are we really? Lovers of freedom? Or lovers of our freedom to remain in the higher caste while bullying away the freedoms of those in other caste positions?
Our political and social challenges are far worse and far different from what I thought they were. I thought we were locked in a battle between extremist ideation and the great central principles of our country’s founding documents. Given that battle, I could have faith in the eventual outcome for the great principles. But that view is now untenable. The great battle of our time is between the aspiration of a universal application of those great written principles and the unwritten principles of caste. Perhaps this has always been the core struggle and I, in my privileged position, failed to see it. I am grateful to Wilkerson for the opening of my eyes.
Anthony Signorelli authors books and articles on men, #MeToo, postcapitalism, climate, green energy, political history, poetry, and books. He is the former editor of Inroads: A Journal of the Male Soul, co-facilitated men’s groups in the wake of #MeToo, and has published six books.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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