Re: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: JoAnna Allen (jowooallen![]() |
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Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2023 08:53:33 -0700 (PDT) |
I read Caste a few years ago and with Sharon's excellent remnider, I
need to re read it. The suggestion by several others to have a
discussion group is very welcome. I myself am in a minority (Asian)
which is now under threat with more and more attacks and enmity. I have
been tempted to jump in during all the discussion about diversity in
co-housing but life takes over :-) My community in Oakland was
described in Senior Co-housing by Sherry Cummings + as the most diverse
she visited. My own experience growing up was in Milwaukee where there
were so few Asians that we were more a curiosity rather than a threat.
We pretty much ignored what we now call microaggressions. Growing up
different was actually empowering for me. I will watch for further
discussion of this mind-changing great book.
JoAnna Allen Phoenix Commons On 3/16/2023 4:43 PM, Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L 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 _________________________________________________________________ Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: http://L.cohousing.org/info
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Caste by Isabel Wilkerson Sharon Villines, March 16 2023
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Re: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson Kathy Ahlers, March 19 2023
- Re: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson carol collier, March 19 2023
- Re: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson Leslie Hassberg, March 20 2023
- Re: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson JoAnna Allen, March 21 2023
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Re: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson Kathy Ahlers, March 19 2023
- Re: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson Jude Foster, March 17 2023
- Re: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson David Heimann, March 21 2023
- Caste by Isabel Wilkerson Sharon Villines, March 22 2023
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