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The caste system in America is four hundred years old and will not be dismantled by a single law or any one person, no matter how powerful.
A caste system persists in part because we, each and every one of us, allow it to exist—in large and small ways, in our everyday actions, in how we elevate or demean, embrace or exclude, on the basis of the meaning attached to people’s physical traits. If enough people buy into the
lie of
natural hierarchy, then it becomes the truth or is assumed to be. Once awakened...
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pedestals. We need not bristle when those deemed subordinate break free, but rejoice that here may be one more human being who can add their true strengths to humanity.
The goal of this work has not been to resolve all of the problems of a millennia-old phenomenon, but to cast a light onto its history, its consequences, and its presence in our everyday lives and to express hopes for its resolution.
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The challenge has long been that many in the dominant caste, who are in a better position to fix caste inequity, have often been least likely to want to.
It is a danger to the species and to the planet to have this depth of unexamined grievance and discontent in the most powerful nation in the world.
A 2016 study found that, if disparities in wealth were to continue at the current pace, it would take black families 228 years to amass the wealth that white families now have, and Latino families another 84 years to reach parity.
White dominance has already been assured by the inherited advantages of the dominant caste in most every sphere of life, and in the securing of dominant caste interests in most aspects of governing—from gerrymandered congressional districts to voter suppression to the rightward direction of the judicial branch to the Electoral College, which favors the dominant caste, whatever the numbers.
America. It turns out that everyone benefits when society meets the needs of the disadvantaged.
To imagine an end to caste in America, we need only look at the history of Germany. It is living proof that if a caste system—the twelve-year reign of the Nazis—can been created, it can be dismantled. We make a serious error when we fail to see the overlap between our country and others, the common vulnerability in human programming, what the political theorist Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil.”
What’s most disturbing about the Nazi phenomenon is not that the Nazis were
madmen or monsters. It’s that they were ordinary human beings.”
It is also tempting to vilify a single despot at the sight of injustice when, in fact, it is the actions, or more commonly inactions, of ordinary people that keep the mechanism of caste running, the people who shrug their shoulders at the latest police killing, the people who laugh off the coded put-downs of marginalized people share...
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“Caste is not a physical object like a wall of bricks or a line of barbed wire,” the Dalit leader Bhimrao Ambedkar wrote. “Caste is a notion; it is a state of the mind.”
This program has been installed into the subconscious of every one of
—— Americans pay a steep price for a caste system that runs counter to the country’s stated ideals.
A win is not legitimate if whole sections of humanity are not in the game. Those are victories with an asterisk, as if you were to win the gold medal in hockey the year that the Finns and Canadians were not competing.
The full embrace of all humanity lifts the standards of any human endeavor.
cost us, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, so that every American can know the full history of our country, wrenching though it may be. The persistence of caste and race hostility, and the defensiveness about anti-black sentiment in particular, make it literally unspeakable to many in the dominant caste. You cannot solve anything that you do not admit exists, which could be why some people may not want to talk about it: it might get solved. “We must make every effort [to ensure] that the past injustice, violence and economic discrimination will be made
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known to the people,” Einstein said in an address to the National Urban League. “The taboo, the ‘let’s-not-talk-about-it’ must be broken. It must be pointed out time and again that the exclusion of a large part of the colored population from active civil rights by the common practices is a slap in the face of the Constitution of the nation.”
A caste system spares no one.
Radical empathy is not about you and what you think you would do in a situation you have never been in and perhaps never will. It is the kindred connection from a place of deep knowing that opens your spirit to the pain of another as they perceive
The price of privilege is the moral duty to act when one sees another person treated unfairly.
With our current ruptures, it is not enough to not be racist or sexist. Our times call for being pro-African-American, pro-woman, pro-Latino, pro-Asian, pro-indigenous, pro-humanity in all its manifestations. In our era, it is not enough to be tolerant.
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 in need of one another more than we have been led to believe.
“They believed the entire pool”: Sartre, Reflexions, p. 29. This English translation of the 1954 French edition is cited in Steinweis and Rachlin, Law in Nazi Germany, p. 93. The English translation of Sartre’s 1948 book Anti-Semite and Jew reads: “It seemed to them that if the body of an Israelite were to plunge into that confined body of water, the water would be completely befouled.” Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, translated by George J. Decker (New York: Schocken, 1948),
“This expectation feels fueled”: Hanif Abdurraqib, “Why Do We Expect Victims of Racism to Forgive?” Pacific Standard, November 1, 2018, https://psmag.com/social-justice/why-do-we-expect-victims-of-racism-to-forgive. a black child wanting to hug: Everton Bailey, Jr., “The Story Behind Devonte Hart’s Famous ‘Hug’ Photo,” Oregonian, March 28, 2018, https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2018/03/the_story_behind_devonte_harts.html. Two white women in Minnesota: Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, “Devonte Hart Family Crash: Deceptions, Missed Signals Preceded Deaths,” Oregonian, April 8, 2018,
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