Caste

Perhaps there is nothing new under the sun, and yet as writers we have to “make it new,” as Ezra Pound said, “make it new.”

~ Patty Dann

By Isabel Wilkerson

When I began reading Caste, I felt a little disappointed at the narrative I had heard many times. The horrifying stories of the black experience in the United States. I was a teenager when Alex Haley’s book Roots: The Saga of an American Family became a mini-series and brought this history vividly into our living rooms. (By the way, August 17, 1976 was the publication date for the book’s first edition. I am realizing, with a bit of shock, how long ago that was!) But as I read further into Caste, two things occurred to me. First, of course, we need and must hear the stories told again, told by the next generation and told for that generation. And second, we need to continue to hear and elevate the narrative as told by black women.

I loved the literary device Wilkerson used of comparing America to an old house. She said:

America is an old house. We can never declare the work over. Wind, flood, drought, and human upheavals batter a structure that is already fighting whatever flaws were left unattended in the original foundation. When you live in an old house, you may not want to go into the basement after a storm to see what the rains have wrought. Choose not to look, however, at your own peril. The owner of an old house knows that whatever you are ignoring will never go away. Whatever is lurking will fester whether you choose to look or not. Whatever you are wishing away will gnaw at you until you gather the courage to face what you would rather not see.

We in the developed world are like homeowners who inherited a house on a piece of land that is beautiful on the outside, but whose soil is unstable loam and rock, heaving and contracting over generations, cracks patched but the deeper ruptures waved away for decades, centuries even. Many people may rightly say ‘I had nothing to do with how this all started. I have nothing to do with the sins of the past. My ancestors never attacked indigenous people, never owned slaves.’ And yes. Not one of us was here when this house was built…but here we are, the current occupants of a property with stress cracks and bowed walls and fissures built into the foundation. We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it. We did not erase the uneven pillars or joists, but they are ours to deal with now.

Wilkerson opens and closes the book with this truth. And in between she reminds us, as we need to be reminded, of the devastating destruction racism continues to wreak on our home. Of the comparison between the racism in America and the Caste system in India. A bold comparison, I believe, because it is far too easy for me to say ‘well that happens over there….’

And she doesn’t just point out the cracks in the foundation, but offers ideas for repair. Real, plausible ideas that wind their way both through our every day lives and relationships as well as offering resolution on a national scale. She shows us how the house is crumbling. But she also makes valid and reasoned suggestions for how we will be able to repair it and continue building. For the next generation, Wilkerson offers hope.