Angie Powers’s Reviews > Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents > Status Update

"Caste is more than rank, it is a state of mind that holds everyone captive, the dominant imprisoned in an illusion of their own entitlement, the subordinare trapped in the purgatory of someone else's definition of who they are and who they should be" (290).

If this sentence would have had a semicolon or colon, my heart would have exploded.

I found the story about Cotton Mather, a Puritan minister, really interesting. He had an enslaved African who told him of a practice from home that was basically similar to vaccination. Despite a major smallpox outbreak, colonists refused to try the procedure just because it was "African." I couldn't help but be frustrated that people's racism kept them trying something that could have saved lives!

"This was the thievery of caste, stealing the time abs psychic resources of the marginalized, draining energy in an already uphill competition."

The 8 pillars of caste was a hard section to read...but the very last sentence brought everything together so well. I can't help but admire the beauty of her writing amidst the horror of the topic.

I learnrd that the word "race" is derived from Spanish "raza," which was originally used to refer to the "caste or quality of authentic horses. " Oh, and the Nazis studied some of America's laws when formulating their Nuremberg laws. Ouch.