Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball's Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.
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Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball's Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.
Always amuses me when someone criticizes a work for being driven by agenda. Every book has an agenda. That's how the human mind works. If it didn't have agenda it would be very boring and have no point of view.
Terrible book. The research is cherry picked and attempts to draw parallels is often tenuous. This book felt so agenda driven.
Always amuses me when someone criticizes a work for being driven by agenda. Every book has an agenda. That's how the human mind works. If it didn't have agenda it would be very boring and have no point of view.
haven't read the book but did see the film, and it certainly made a compelling case, which made me interested in the book. shame the film didn't get more recognition (and some thought its dramatization vs. documentary-style detracted from a potentially greater possible impact).
picked it up for kindle using no rush shipping credits thanks, op!
I tried listening to the audiobook but found it quite dry and academic; I didn't get past a couple of hours. Far prefer Isabel Wilkerson's other pivotal work The Warmth of Other Suns, which covers the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South and is written in a much more engaging and personal style.
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I could only make it about halfway through. She's a good writer, and I agree with almost all of her arguments, but the book was so repetitive it made me want to stick a fork in my eye.
I only got halfway through the book. She made most of her important points in the first half. But what made me stop reading were the heart wrenching horrors of both U.S. slavery and Jim Crow and the Holocaust. Everyone should read this book to understand the systemic racism in the U.S.
I tried listening to the audiobook but found it quite dry and academic; I didn't get past a couple of hours. Far prefer Isabel Wilkerson's other pivotal work The Warmth of Other Suns, which covers the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South and is written in a much more engaging and personal style.
Strongly agree.
I read The Warmth of Other Suns first, and became interested in following up with her other works bought Caste. After the first 20-30 interesting pages, it became a disappointment, repetitive, and kind of rant-ish.
I tried listening to the audiobook but found it quite dry and academic; I didn't get past a couple of hours. Far prefer Isabel Wilkerson's other pivotal work The Warmth of Other Suns, which covers the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South and is written in a much more engaging and personal style.
Interesting, I listened to Caste first and found it to be incredible. Then I tried the warmth of other suns and found that one too dry.
I am sorry. The world must be very confusing when you're surprised so easily by people disagreeing with you.
Neither I nor the original commenter even said we disagreed with the conclusions of the book. The original commenter felt like the book was "agenda-driven" meaning the conclusion was predetermined, then data/research was cherry-picked to support that conclusion. Many people aren't interested in reading stuff like that, even if they agree with the conclusion.
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Call it a dog-whistle if you want but the combo is pretty blatant. For reference, blackshirts were the action squads in Mussolini's Italy.
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picked it up for kindle using no rush shipping credits
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I read The Warmth of Other Suns first, and became interested in following up with her other works bought Caste. After the first 20-30 interesting pages, it became a disappointment, repetitive, and kind of rant-ish.
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