I heard of this book being referred to as an instant classic. I recently read her book The Warmth of Other Suns which I found fascinating and insightful. It was also a history of America that had been covered up. The same could be said for her new book here.
I was talking about Isabel Wilkerson with Katie when we were down at her house last month and she said she had a copy of her new book which she hadn't read yet. She lent me the book.
I read the book over the next couple of weeks. It was one of those books that I had to put down every now and then and ponder what I had just read because it was so disturbing. It was an extraordinary perspective on American history that was both highly personal but also painted a damning and widespread critique of our society. The book describes racism in our society as a caste system of social stratification using hierarchy, purity, inclusion and exclusion. The author compares the American system of caste with the Indian caste system and with the Nazi Germany treatment of their Jewish population.
She goes on to describe the caste system and how it applies to America including the use of bible scriptures to justify Black inferiority, heritability and the one drop of blood rule to determine Black ancestry, the endogamy prohibition of interracial sex and marriage with the US anti-miscegenation laws, purity and pollution as shown by the segregation of laws concerning separate facilities for bathing, eating, water fountains, schools, etc. Jim Crow laws restricted Black people in America to jobs as domestics and farm workers and were dehumanized and stigmatized in social situations, ridiculed in racists ways in popular culture, and then terrorized with beatings and lynchings. I was particularly moved by the many personal descriptions of racism both in this book and her previous one.
It had me thinking about the fight against racism I have seen in my lifetime which has included the segregated drinking fountains and restaurants, school desegregation, the marches and the drive for voting rights, Martin Luther King, the race riots, black power, etc, etc and leading up to the election of the first Black president of the US.
Update: I did finish this book while Katie was here and she took it back with her to Philly to read.
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