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

[Leslie Hassberg (leslie.hassberg]

I'm in the middle of reading it and would be interested in the discussion.
Leslie Hassberg
Daybreak Cohousing

On Sun, Mar 19, 2023 at 8:27 PM Kathy Ahlers <kathy [at] tccoho.org> wrote:

> 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 <
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>
>
> 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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