Caste: Key Terms | SparkNotes

Caste

Caste is a ranking of human value that assigns superiority or inferiority to people based on ancestry and other arbitrary but immutable traits. India, with its now abolished system of explicitly defined caste hierarchy, is the culture most commonly associated with caste, but Wilkerson argues that the United States is also organized along a caste system based on race.

Race

Wilkerson argues that race is a fluid set of categories imposed on people based on their physical characteristics, including skin color, hair texture, and eye shape. Though many people in the United States believe race to be fixed and rooted in biology, scientists and social scientists across numerous disciplines have shown race to be a purely social construct. American race categories emerged as a way to designate certain people as slaves and others as enslavers and became the visual marker for caste in America.

Dominant Caste

The dominant caste is the highest-ranking tier of a caste system. A caste system deems its dominant caste inherently superior, at the expense of a subordinate caste that is deemed inferior and consequently dehumanized. Wilkerson says that, in the United States, people considered “white” compose the dominant caste. In India it is the Brahmins, and in Nazi Germany it was the Aryans. Throughout Caste, Wilkerson also uses the terms ruling majority, favored caste, and upper caste to refer to this caste ranking.

Subordinate Caste

The subordinate caste is the lowest-ranking tier of a caste system. A caste system deems its subordinate caste inherently inferior and dehumanizes its members as a way of granting disproportionate value and power to the people in its dominant caste. In the United States, Black Americans are the subordinate caste. In India it is the Dalits, and in Nazi Germany it was the Jews. Throughout Caste, Wilkerson also uses the terms lowest caste, bottom caste, disfavored caste, and historically stigmatized to refer to this caste ranking.

Middle Caste

The middle caste is a ranking within a caste system that falls neither at the very top nor at the very bottom of the caste hierarchy. Wilkerson says that, in the United States, people who are neither African American nor considered white fall into the middle caste rankings, such as Asian Americans and Latinx people. People in the middle castes are rewarded for proximity to dominant caste traits and, in Wilkerson’s view, can experience higher levels of anxiety and uncertainty because their position is more prone to fluctuation than those in the subordinate caste.

Dalit

Dalit is the subordinate ranking of India’s historical Hindu caste system. The Dalits are not part of India’s four named castes, but rather fall below and outside of caste ranking. Before Dalit anti-caste leader Bhimrao Ambedkar introduced the term Dalit, meaning “broken person,” to describe his fellow members of the subordinate caste, this group was known as the Untouchables. In Caste, Wilkerson enumerates many similarities between the Dalits and Black Americans, from their poor treatment by the dominant caste to their respective activist movements.

Dominant Group Status Threat

Dominant group status threat is a phenomenon named by American political scientists to describe the fear, desperation, despair, and insecurity that members of the dominant caste experience as a result of successes within the subordinate caste. According to Wilkerson and other social scientists, dominant group status threat is to blame for the increase in mortality among middle-aged, working-class white people in the United States, which was recorded in 2015 for the first time since 1950. Wilkerson’s examination of the 2008 election of Barack Obama and subsequent backlash is a case study of the large-scale consequences of extreme dominant group status threat.

Radical Empathy

Radical empathy is the act of educating oneself and humbly listening to the experiences of others, particularly those with less privilege, without imagining one’s own behavior under similar circumstances. Wilkerson distinguishes radical empathy from ordinary empathy, which she likens to roleplay because it requires imagining how one would act in another person’s position. Radical empathy, on the other hand, demands empathy despite the inability to fully understand another person’s reality. In Wilkerson’s view, the practice of radical empathy across caste lines, particularly by the dominant caste, is an essential step in the fight against caste inequity.

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