Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

Atlanta, Georgia

I read this book while participating in Nathan Shuherk’s (@SchizophrenicReads) February 2023 book club. The book was decent, but I enjoyed the book club more. Nathan makes really great TikTok videos, and I recommend him and his book club to anyone who wants to read more nonfiction books.

Caste is written in an interesting style for a non-fiction book. There are stories and poetic prose weaved together with more traditional nonfiction narration. Some of it feels over the top (especially any time current events/the Trump presidency are brought up (as much as I also hate the guy, the summary of his election sounded so juvenile). Wilkerson attempts to compare the history of overt and structural racism to a caste system. She uses the caste systems in India and the Third Reich as comparisons.

If you are a reasonably well read person that puts in effort to learn about the treatment of minorities throughout America’s history, then the overall ideas behind this book won’t be shocking to you. I learned more details about specific examples of concepts and events I was aware of, but there was very little completely new information for me. This is pretty much on par with what you would expect from an Oprah’s Book Club List: a reach for the “average” 50+ middle class white person but nothing new for most folks under 40.

I don’t think Wilkerson was successful in her goal of describing a caste system in America. At one point she talks about how the word “racist” has been corrupted so that nobody can be called that ever unless you are in full KKK garb and burning a cross. I interpret that Wilkerson uses the word “caste” because it’s easier than changing the connotations behind the word racism. She argues that caste is different from structural racism, but I don’t think she is successful. Besides, America is just as reactionary towards believing that “anyone can make it” in America as much as they’ll react with a: “I’m not racist, my best friend is black.” But even if that overall comparison is not successful, the book itself is still worth reading.

One thing that was shocking to me was reading about lynchings. I thought that they were something that mostly white men participated in as a display of their superiority and masculinity. I assumed they happened in back alleys or wooded places. That it was something if a white woman and her children happened to stumble upon, they lowered their heads and walked away quickly, scared that men in that excited, evil state may turn violent against them. But they weren’t. They were spectacles. They were advertised like a county fair. People came in the masses to watch and celebrate someone’s murder. There were souvenirs and postcards. White people of all ages and classes would come out to watch. It made me think of the gross, backwards European village people described in the now-disgraced and discredited (but difficult to forget) book, The Painted Bird.

I chose Atlanta, Georgia as my location because another tidbit of information I learned about from this book is that there is a Confederate version of Mt. Rushmore (actually larger than Mt. Rushmore) located outside of Georgia. It’s a popular tourist destination open to the public, but I’m not going to include any links to it because I’m not going to support such a gross institution. The continued celebration of an institution created solely for the continuation of enslavement of human beings is embarrassing and beyond problematic.

I’d be more likely to recommend this book to my parents or aunts and uncles than I would a friend or peer. Nathan chose this book because he read The Warmth of Other Suns, which is also written by Isabel Wilkerson and loved it, so that is where I’d steer people instead of this book (although I haven’t read it yet). He also recommended 400 Souls, an anthology book edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, which has a similar type of prose-like narration if that is what people enjoyed about Caste (but I also have not read that book yet).

Review by the Numbers

Overall: 3.5/5

Writing: 3.5/5

Message: 3/5

Plot: n/a

Character Development: n/a

Challenges Satisfied

- Georgia (Reading My Way Around the World Challenge)

- A Book That’s On a Celebrity Book Club List - Oprah (2023 PopSugar Reading Challenge)

- A Book That Sends You Down a Rabbit Hole (52 Book Club’s 2023 Challenge)

- True Crime (2022 Gotta Read ‘Em All Challenge)