Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations. Through stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied American racial systems to plan their outcast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.

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