What About Isabel Wilkerson's Caste? 1/25/21 Pt. 1

 I made the mistake of suggesting to a black prisoner to read Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (Random House, 2020).  Stupid. Probably showing my own dominant caste tendencies, but we had discussed these topics before, I thought him intelligent, so I would have liked to hear his opinion. I mentioned that I thought Ms. Wilkerson had given me my best understanding of the Trumpers when she discussed group narcissism (p. 270). It comes across as a feedback loop between group leader and group. I said it explains the rabid nature of Trump's followers. He did not understand rabid, which shocked me. He said Obama's followers could be called rapid, and so could Gandhi's. I was too tired to continue the conversation in the hallway of our unit building. I do not recall any other American politician's followers threatening to hand that politician's vice president.

Thing is, I expect anyone reading these notes will have read or know about Wilkerson's book before they read this. If you have not read the book, then do so now. The writing is superb - would Americans pay more attention to their history if it were always written this gracefully?

 Another thing, if we do not pay attention to what Isabel Wilkerson says about caste, then we are screwed by the time you read this. (Yes, I am making an assumption that these notes do not disappear and are seen by someone besides myself, and right now I have no clue how they get seen.) The past month's readings have made me sensitive to Wilkerson's arguments - Raintree County and N.K. Jemison's Broken Earth Trilogy, both about the failure to break a caste system - and for all I could quote, I could fill the remaining pages of this notebook, I want to quote the book's penultimate paragraph:

In a world without caste, being male or female, light or dark, immigrant or native-born, would have no bearing on what anyone was perceived as being capable of. In a world without caste, we would all be invested in the well-being of others in our species if only for our own survival, and recognize that we are indeed of one another more than we have been led to believe. We would join forces with indigenous people around the world raising the alarm as fires rage and glaciers melt. We would see that when others suffer, the collective human body is set back from the progression of our species,

p. 388, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (Random House, 2020).

 Which has me thinking of Jerry Falwell's attack on secular humanism.  To me, Christianity demands we take care of our fellow human beings. The Good Sanitarian parable will be my prime and sole examole. Falwell's moral majority and so much of the religious right dehumanized people. Wilkerson posits dehumanization as a key (more like the key) to maintaining a case system. I see humanism in Christianity. Why don't you? After all, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.

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