Empathetic and Humane Exploration of a Tough Subject
4 stars
This overall did a much better job than the movie of explaining why the central thesis MATTERED, although I think I may have enjoyed the illustrative stories more if I hadn't already seen the movie.
Most importantly, it gave me several mental tools for thinking about race and caste that will be very useful going forward. I think the tallness/shortness metaphor as a way of addressing unconscious bias will stay with me for a long time.
Some parts were less rigorous than they could have been and I think overstated causation, but that's a social science problem, not a this book problem.
Among many other insights, I was especially struck by Chapter 14, in which Wilkerson presented examples of upper-caste people "overriding the rightful role of lower-caste parents & their children." We see this caste power play in the current spate of book bans, curriculum reviews, & "parental bills of rights" (which parents' rights?).
Incredibly well written. While the information is heavy and dense, I found the book to always be digestible even when uncomfortable. Truly an essential read.
I am pretty much aligned with what the author portrays as the central organizing feature of life in this country over hundreds of years. It helps me to appreciate the distinction being drawn between caste on the one hand and race and class on the other, as a specifically constructed classification. I knew something about the administration of caste in India from the Piketty book I read, but that work did not go into lived experience because it concentrated solely on economic aspects. I expect that some people might want to dismissive of the anecdotes used to illustrate the points being made, but to me it is just a matter of writing as a reporter, not as an academic, where the convincingly told human story is everything to the reader. I started listening to the book before the most recent manifestations of the divide, with a recent mass shooting in …
I am pretty much aligned with what the author portrays as the central organizing feature of life in this country over hundreds of years. It helps me to appreciate the distinction being drawn between caste on the one hand and race and class on the other, as a specifically constructed classification. I knew something about the administration of caste in India from the Piketty book I read, but that work did not go into lived experience because it concentrated solely on economic aspects. I expect that some people might want to dismissive of the anecdotes used to illustrate the points being made, but to me it is just a matter of writing as a reporter, not as an academic, where the convincingly told human story is everything to the reader. I started listening to the book before the most recent manifestations of the divide, with a recent mass shooting in Atlanta and a closely followed criminal trial in Minneapolis reigniting passions on the subject, but that's where I finished it. The saving grace is that the account takes an optimistic turn in its concluding sections, pointing out how well de-Nazification transformed German society along with stories where members of "the dominant caste" (as she terms it consistently throughout) display a willingness to change in behavior and from there perhaps into attitudes. Without that I think I would be taking away a heavy sense of despair at how much ground needs to be covered to get to something which feels like justice. These days it's commonplace to hear a lot of scorn for Baby Boomers and their antiquated notions, but I remember what happened when we were ascendant in the culture through such significant shifts in attitude from the immediate post-war years, things that would be nearly impossible to put into effect the way things are done now. Maybe we're still hanging around partly to tell the younger generations that these kinds of things can still be possible if enough people do their share. And the way I look at it, I don't think the elites really have that much to worry about if we come to our senses and keep equity in mind. It shouldn't take a second Civil War, I think.
I listened to the solid audiobook narration by Robin Miles which I felt added to the persuasiveness of the vignettes presented. Even if sometimes they can feel like slight acts, microaggressions at times, the voice lends an emotional context that helps legitimize the point being made.
