Editor’s (admin’s) note. Lightly edited copy of a blast email I sent to prospective members of the online Sundays@6 adult faith formation group at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. (The group meets via Zoom Sundays at — when else? — 6 p.m. First meeting is at the end of September, and this message previews the book, along with some of the themes we will follow in our discussions.
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Hi everybody —
Free copies of “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent” by Isabel Wilkerson are available now in the church office, and we’re looking forward to resuming our Sundays@6 adult faith formation discussions Sunday, Sept. 24, at 6 p.m. We meet, as always, on Zoom, and links will be available via email and on our online newsletter, News You Can Use.
So we thought we’d preview the book with an email and links.
We’re sending the email to everyone we can think of who has joined Sundays@6 in the past; is part of Peace Lutheran’s faith formation program; or who just might be interested. A “young adult” edition (geared for readers 12 to 18 years old) is available, and young people are invited to join us — contact Debi and Pete for details. Please feel free to forward this email to anyone, of any age, who might also be interested.
“Caste: The Origins of our Discontents,” according to Wikipedia, “describes racism in the United States as an aspect of a caste system – a society-wide system of social stratification characterized by notions such as hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, and purity. Wilkerson compares aspects of the experience of American people of color to the caste systems of India and Nazi Germany, and she explores the impact of caste on the people and societies shaped by them.” Dwight Garner, longtime critic for the New York Times, says it’s “an instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.” In his review, he added, “I told more than one person, as I moved through my days this past week, that I was reading one of the most powerful nonfiction books I’d ever encountered.”
Wilkerson is also the author of “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.” She was a reporter for the Times, in the Chicago bureau where she won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994, and she has taught at Emory, Princeton, Northwestern, and Boston University. More information about “Caste” is available in the links below:
- Garner’s review appeared on the Times’ website, under the headline “Isabel Wilkerson’s ‘Caste’ is an ‘Instant American Classic’ About Our Abiding Sin,” on July 31, 2020. “Wilkerson has written a closely argued book that largely avoids the word ‘racism,’ ” he says, “yet stares it down with more humanity and rigor than nearly all but a few books in our literature.”
- Wilkerson discussed the book on the Stephen Colbert show in February, soon after a young Black man named Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by several Black police officers in Memphis (five were charged with homicide and currently await trial). Even though America’s caste system is based on race, or “the metric of what people look like,” she noted, “you do not have to be in the dominant caste to do its bidding.”
Wilkerson cited her father, who was one of the Tuskegee airmen during World War II but studied civil engineering after he was unable to find work as a civilian pilot after the war, as an inspiration for her research. “So he became literally the builder of bridges,” she said. “I take that on as my legacy in everything that I do, to connect otherwise disparate things, and to show that which we have in common that we might not otherwise be seeing.”
One connection she made on the Colbert show was comparing America’s legacy with race and caste to the challenge encountered by people who buy an old house with structural problems. “It’s not personal,” she said. “It’s not about shame and blame. It’s recognizing that this is the situation that we’re in, this is our inheritance as Americans. If [we] take possession of an old house, it’s up to us to roll up our sleeves and get to work and fix it.”
Links
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/books/review-caste-isabel-wilkerson-origins-of-our-discontents.html — Gardner’s review in The Times.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR3rEp_KiC4) — Wilkerson’s appearance Feb. 24 with Stephen Colbert on the Late Show. [Embedded above in this post.]
- https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/653196/caste-by-isabel-wilkerson/ — publisher’s website.
- https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/710575/caste-adapted-for-young-adults-by-isabel-wilkerson/ — young adult version.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste:_The_Origins_of_Our_Discontents — Wikipedia
For more information, please feel free to contact Debi and Pete at this address or by telephone at [redacted].
We look forward to seeing you on September 24!
[Published Sept. 6, 2023]
Ordinary Time 