Lightly edited copy of a blast email Debi and I sent out last month to members of our congregation, Peace Lutheran Church of Springfield, in advance of the third meeting an adult faith formation discussion of the book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson. We call the group Sundays@6, and it meets over Zoom Sunday evenings at 6 p.m. I archive these emails here so I can find them later if I need them. Link HERE for an explanation of why I use the blog as an electronic filing cabinet.
Hi everyone —
A handout is attached for our next session of Sundays@6, Sunday, Oct. 8, at 6 p.m. (we’ll be online from 5:45 p.m. to chat and work out technical glitches). We’ll be going over Section 3 of Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” which outlines “eight pillars of caste” (identified as follows: Divine Will and the Laws of Nature; Heritability; Endogamy and the Control of Marriage and Mating; Purity and Pollution; Occupational Hierarchy; Dehumanization and Stigmatization; and Terror as Enforcement, [aka] Cruelty as a Means of Control).
As always, we’ll meet over Zoom. A link will be available today (Friday) in Peace Lutheran’s online newsletter, News You Can Use. You can also join the session by using this link, meeting ID and passcode:
- [deleted]
If for some reason you can’t get this link or the one in the newsletter to work, you can reach Pete and Debi at xxx-xxx-xxxx.
Section 3 is a deep historical dive into the development of caste systems — which Wilkerson defines as society-wide systems of social stratification characterized by notions such as hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, and purity — especially the history of chattel slavery and its aftermath in the US. Pete, who read a lot of William Faulkner in grad school, was reminded throughout of what the novelist said about history: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
We don’t want to get into a lot of partisan politics here, but the recent controversy over Florida’s new K-12 social studies standards suggests Faulkner was absolutely right!
Florida’s middle school standards note that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Gov. Ron DeSantis, ever unnecessarily combative, drew fire from Republicans and Democrats alike when he defended the standards, saying, among other things, that some enslaved people “eventually parlayed, uh, you know, being a blacksmith to doing things later in life.” (A fairly objective brief ABC News summary of the controversy is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtSUrJhW6Hs ). It’s true enough that in isolated cases Black freedmen were able to practice craft or professional skills, especially in segregated Black communities after the Civil War. But, as Wilkerson points out, Southern whites took active steps to limit the occupations open to Black people. She cites an 1865 South Carolina law that mandated:
[…] no person of color shall pursue or practice the art, trade or business of an artisan, mechanic or shopkeeper, or any other trade, employment or business (besides that of husbandry, or that of a servant under contract for labor) on his own account and for his own benefit until he shall have obtained a license from the judge of the district court, which license shall be good for one year only.
Those licenses cost $100 a year, which would be equivalent to $1,500 at the time of writing; they were not required of whites (Wilkerson 132-33). Is it any wonder that until the mid-20th century members of America’s subordinate caste “were primarily restricted to the role of sharecroppers and servants — domestics, lawn boys, chauffeurs and janitors?”
Last week’s discussion was just great! We’re looking forward to seeing you all again Sunday at 6!
— Debi and Pete
[Published Oct. 19, 2023]
Ordinary Time 