Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

by Isabel Wilkerson

dominant group status threat.

Under the spell of caste, the majors, like society itself, were willing to forgo their own advancement and glory, and resulting profits, if these came at the hands of someone seen as subordinate.

A caste system builds rivalry and distrust and lack of empathy toward one’s fellows. The result is that the United States, for all its wealth and innovation, lags in major indicators of quality of life among the leading countries in the world.

This is a brilliant observation

But it was the caste-like occupations at the bottom of the hierarchy—grocery clerks, bus drivers, package deliverers, sanitation workers, low-paying jobs with high levels of public contact—that put them at greater risk of contracting the virus in the first place.