Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

[Kathy Ahlers (kathy]

Sharon, I'm also in the process of reading "Caste" by Isabel Wilkerson.
Has anyone else on this list read it, or would like to soon start? Maybe we
could form an online book group and meet via Zoom to discuss it, and how
it relates to cohousing.

Kathy

Kathy Ahlers
President, board of directors
Twin Cities Cohousing Network (MN), a 501c3 organization
pronouns: she/her/hers
tccoho.org
Follow us on Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/TwinCitiesCohousing/?ref=nf>



On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 6:44 PM Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <
cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:

> Just started reading "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents" by Isabel
> Wilkerson. The paperback has just been released:
>
> https://amzn.to/3yNl0Rv
>
> “Caste" is incredible. I’ve only begun reading and have listened to
> interviews with Wilkerson, but important to me is that she has explained my
> own resistance to viewing racism as _the_ problem. Since race is an
> invented social construction, why do we keep enforcing it by discussing it?
> Efforts to eradicate it have failed miserably — on all sides. As many cling
> to it as a definition of self, others think it should be just canceled. But
> we can’t seem to educate people out of it. Approaching it as a “class”
> issue is only substituting another social construction that is as subject
> to interpretation as skin color.
>
> Wilkerson defines the issue straight on as a caste system. Race or the
> idea of race, black and/or white, was invented to enforce a
> self-perpetuating caste system that is pervasive and all of encompassing.
>
> We avoid looking at history and don’t even know our history because caste
> is so fundamental to all our lives. She goes deep into history and reveals
> more than most of us, even those who have read extensively, have known
> about the who, what, when, why, and how.
>
> The first Africans were brought to the US _before_ the Puritans arrived,
> for example. There was no government, no America. When the government was
> formed African Americans were Americans as much as anyone else. The legal
> documents were written to change that. Thus our national identity was
> structured from the beginning to justify and retain the caste system of
> free labor. “White” is also a social construct and was necessary to
> establish and enforce the caste system. Until we understand the
> complexities of that — the way it defines and limits everyone, we won’t be
> able to unhinge the system.
>
> That is the key that I’ve been missing. I’ve studied how the British
> embedded and reinforced the caste system in India and North Africa. They
> use the “whites” to “control” the "blacks.” They had to create white in
> order to define black. Some white populations are living in fear of losing
> privileges that they actually don’t have and never had.
>
> Wilkerson defines this so well and has such wonderful metaphors and
> illustrative examples that I’m stunned as I reflect on my life from this
> perspective. It’s like reading David Graeber and rearranging everything
> I’ve learned about pre-history and oppressive states.
>
> The effect of analyzing how caste plays out in cohousing, I think will be
> in very different ways than we have imagined race playing out. It is a more
> fundamental identification of the problem allowing us to approach it
> differently.
>
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
>
>
>
>
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