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Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson argues that America is built on an invisible, race-based caste system that is responsible for many of the country’s societal problems. Though this includes issues that are obviously related to race, Wilkerson posits that caste’s impact also reaches numerous aspects of American society that don’t immediately appear to have anything to do with race. Wilkerson is aware that associating the United States with a caste system is unconventional, so to make her point, she juxtaposes the United States with two hierarchical societies that readers may more readily accept as being structured by caste: India and Nazi Germany. Over the course of the text, Wilkerson’s position allows her to reframe racial discrimination in the United States, often considered a problem of individual prejudice, as the byproduct of a larger, invisible system of enforced societal stratification. In doing this, she invites her readers from across all caste rankings to consider how caste may affect them so that they can begin working to dismantle it.

Read an brief essay about how Wilkerson presents her argument through anecdotes of metaphors.

Parts One and Two of Caste provide historical and cultural introductions to the caste systems of India and Nazi Germany, as well as an explanation of the differences between race and caste. Wilkerson defines caste as a fixed hierarchical structure that assigns inferior or superior value to people based on arbitrary inborn traits. Race, in contrast, is a collection of physical characteristics. These physical characteristics, Wilkerson declares, have been assigned meaning and value by the American caste system, and so function as the visual marker of caste in American society. A person’s race or the perception of a person’s race clues others into their caste ranking, but it is not in itself caste. This means that societal trends that cannot be easily attributed to race may be caused by caste, a phenomenon that Wilkerson will examine in depth later in the text. Importantly, America’s caste system also makes it possible to find comparable hierarchies in other cultures that have other markers of caste ranking besides race.

Read about Main Idea #1: Race is the visual marker of caste in the United States.

In Part Three of Caste, Wilkerson describes the eight “pillars” that create and uphold a caste system, noting examples from the three caste-based societies she examines. She begins with religion and heritability. Together, these two pillars guarantee that a person’s caste status is inescapable and permanent, decided by forces outside of their control. Next, she theorizes that marriage and procreation work to prevent people from different castes from building families together. In the fourth pillar, Wilkerson explores the concept of purity versus pollution, analyzing rhetoric that people from lower castes are dirty and that they can contaminate the upper castes through touch. In her discussion of occupational hierarchy, Wilkerson argues that lower castes are made to do specific jobs that are less desirable and more servile than those of the upper castes. Pillars six and seven concern dehumanization, stigma, terror, and cruelty. Wilkerson argues that individuals in the dominant caste are rewarded for demeaning and abusing people in the subordinate caste. The final pillar discusses inherent superiority and inferiority. Wilkerson ties all her arguments together, asserting that people in the lower caste must always act inferior, even if it’s just a performance.

Read an explanation of a quote about how caste systems force people into certain roles in society.

With caste now firmly defined, Wilkerson goes on to outline many of its consequences. While Wilkerson spends the most time on the negative effects of caste on the lower castes, she also pays special attention to those at the borders of caste. For example, she cites neuroscientific studies showing that Black Americans of higher socioeconomic status and white Americans of lower socioeconomic status both show signs of premature aging. She attributes this to the unique challenges of people who transgress the boundaries of caste, both at the top and bottom of its ranking. Wilkerson also argues that those in the dominant caste experience negative health effects because of the stress induced by prejudice and status insecurity. Here, she names a concept that is central to the second half of the text, “dominant group status threat,” in which people with privilege suffer physically and emotionally from the fear of losing their societal advantages. Dominant group status threat disproportionately affects people at the boundaries of caste because their caste dominance often represents their only privilege in society. In the United States, Wilkerson believes this causes patterns of increased mortality among white, middle-aged, working-class people.

Read about Caste author Isabel Wilkerson’s background.

This destructive dynamic of caste insecurity carries through Part Six, which delves into American history since the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the country’s first Black president. In Wilkerson’s view, dominant group status threat caused the extreme backlash to Obama’s election, spurring the formation of new hate groups and right-wing political parties, an increase in race-based violence, and obstructionist tactics on the part of leaders of the Republican Party in Congress. Wilkerson attributes the subsequent election of Donald Trump in 2016 to this backlash, arguing that a majority of white Americans voted for Trump because he promised to act in the best interests of their continued caste dominance. This is explicitly at odds with the prevailing view among American progressives that white Americans, particularly in the working class, voted against their own interests in 2016. In presenting this argument, Wilkerson argues that caste can fill important logical gaps that race alone does not explain.

Read about Main Idea #2: Nobody within a caste system is spared its detrimental effects.

The final part of Caste, Part Seven: Awakening, asserts that people can begin to dismantle caste by reaching across caste lines to see the humanity in one another. This reaching-out begins, Wilkerson says, with an awareness that society is built on caste and with a willingness to fight against it, even when it means abandoning one’s own caste privileges. In the Epilogue to Caste, Wilkerson issues an explicit call to action for her readers. She particularly encourages those in the dominant caste to follow up their newfound awareness of caste with radical empathy across caste divisions, especially for people in the subordinate class. In Wilkerson’s view, radical empathy entails humbly listening to the experiences of people with less privilege, trusting their perspectives without trying to put oneself in their shoes. Though Wilkerson emphasizes that awareness and empathy aren’t enough to solve the problems of caste all at once, their ability to undo the damage done by caste’s dehumanization can’t be overestimated. Caste ends on a hopeful note as Wilkerson imagines a world in which caste holds nobody back, and everyone can be free to express their true selves without artificial limitations.

Read Main Idea #3: Most of the responsibility for addressing caste lies with the dominant caste.

Previous section Part Six, Part Seven, & Epilogue

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