Isabel Wilkerson, welcome to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
Thanks for having me.
You came into so many people's lives
and you've stayed in so many people's lives
because of your 2010 book,
um, which really just blew, I think,
the lid off of a conversation
that so many people wanted to have
but didn't know how to have,
and that was The Warmth of Other Suns.
You now have a new book,
which is, um, you know--
Everyone is raving--
everyone from Oprah to every book journalist--
and-and I think for a good reason.
The book is entitled Caste,
and it looks at how society determines
where people should or shouldn't belong
but not just through the lens of race,
which is really interesting.
If we start with that,
what is the difference, in your opinion,
between caste and race?
Well, caste is the...
basically the artificial, arbitrary, grated ranking
of human value on a society.
And, uh, caste determines one's standing, respect,
benefit of the doubt, access to resources or lack thereof.
-Mm-hmm. -Assumptions of competence.
And even of beauty.
It effectively places individuals
in a particular hierarchy based upon their perceived value.
Race, ultimately, is the metric by which in-in the caste system
that I'm deciding here in American hierarchy.
Race becomes the physical manifestation of...
that determines where
uh, one is viewed as being ranked historically.
It's the cue card, it's the signifier
of where a person is placed in the hierarchy.
For many people, they might jump at, you know, at hearing this
and say like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
"How dare you say that America has a caste system.
"Barack Obama was president of the United States.
"And you know, you can be a TV anchor,
"you can be an athlete.
"If you work hard enough,
"the color of your skin is not controlled by the caste system.
"This isn't India,
"this isn't another country in the world
where caste is such a big deal."
How do you respond to that? Because, I mean,
you can understand why people get so defensive.
Absolutely. That's why I wrote a book about it.
-(laughing) -Uh...
Um, you know, even in the original
most recognized caste system in the world,
there are people who have been born
to what are known as "the Untouchables,"
you know, the subordinated caste in India,
who have managed to transcend the extreme barriers
-that they have faced... -Mm-hmm.
and to be able to go forward and to become, you know,
physicians and even a prime minister.
And there are always exceptions to the rule,
but one of the things that I say to help distinguish
between caste and other markers,
other ways of measuring people is,
caste is the bones, race is the skin,
and then class is the accents, the enunciation,
the education and dress, the things that...
the diction, the kind of things that we can control
that can ele... that help ourselves to elevate ourselves
out of the restrictions.
But class does not mean the same as caste.
In other words, if you can act your way out of it, it's class.
-Okay. -If you can cannot act your way out of it, it's caste.
So, if I can act my way out of it, so if I can code switch
or if I can, you know, straighten my hair
or change the way I look, lighten my skin,
those are all the things that you're gonna say
are falling into the class element of what we see.
So how do we... how do we think about caste now?
Is this like a new problem that we have to handle differently
to race and racism and class and classism?
Is this an additional thing,
or is this the foundation that everything else is built on?
The idea of hierarchy and a caste system is the foundation.
It's the infrastructure of our divisions.
One reason why the word "racism" is important
and it's useful, and of course, it is a reality.
But what we're... what this is asking us to do is
to look beneath what we think we can see.
Look beneath what we thought we knew.
And to see that "racism," while it's a fraught word
that can often carry emotion with it,
-emotion, guilt and even shame... -Right.
Caste and... is a focus on the structure
and the infrastructure.
And that takes us away from the blame of anyone.
This infrastructure that we've inherited has been around,
you know, since before the country was founded.
As I describe this, our caste system, uh,
our country, actually, as an old house.
Look at this old house that we have inherited.
We did not build the house,
and we're not responsible for whatever might have been,
um, you know, not so well done in the building of it.
But we now are the inheritors of it.
It's now up to us as the owners of this house--
all of us, not just one group, but all of us--
in recognizing how interconnected we all are
and how we all have to bear the consequences of it.
Whether we are aware of it or not.
We are experiencing the consequences of it,
whether we know it or not.
It's funny. I've been having these conversations
with friends for so long, where coming from South Africa,
where we are now in a place where,
because the country shifted power
from white to black,
and the country is now more representative
within its power structures, we've come to realize now
that caste is now a new issue that we have to deal with.
We thought that race was the thing,
and then it would be finished,
and now you still have a new version
of the haves and have-nots
determined by, as you say, different signifiers,
whether it's language, whether it's culture, whether...
It's really interesting that, like, now we...
There's another monster we have to tackle
on a different level that we didn't think about,
because we just thought "Oh, you just get rid
of the race problem and everything is solved."
And then now, it's like, "Oh, no.
"Here's the root, almost, of the problem,
and race was just the cover that we're dealing with."
I had that-that experience when I was is in South Africa,
about what I all "situational elevation"
that occurs when a person
from a marginalized group in one country,
and then, they go to another country and find themselves,
without any action on their own part, because of perceptions,
elevated accidentally.
And then, you know, when I was in South Africa,
people would just hear the accent,
and I would get invited to parties and receptions
-and all this kind of thing. -Right.
And that's part of what is happening in a caste system, and
one other thing about this kind of situational elevation is
that it allows the country that, um,
that, you know, has had marginalized people
to turn to the newcomers and say--
as to me when I was in South Africa--
and say, "See, this is proof
"that if you just do this and do that,
-you know, you can... you can make it." -Right.
Or it also says that this is proof
that it really is the inferiority of our people.
You know, our marginalized people are,
in fact, uh, inferior.
And so, it works both ways. It works both ways.
And I've experienced both sides of that.
Well, I will say, I feel like, once again,
you've written a piece of work that is gonna make us think.
It's gonna make us uncomfortable,
but at the same time, I think once we get through it,
it will make us more comfortable in understanding
that we are part of a thing that we all have to look at.
And hopefully, we will be part of the people
who "renovate the house" as you so eloquently say.
Um, thank you so much for joining us on the show,
and congratulations on yet another masterpiece.
Thank you so much.