Location
7:00 Book Discussion
(Zoom Meeting Opens at 6:45)
Everyone is welcome to join our discussion, even if you did not have time to read the book.
Join LWV ABC Book Club Zoom Meeting
- Meeting ID: 924 7032 1268
- Passcode: 854158
- Dial in: +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) or +1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020)
by Isabel Wilkerson
Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.
Library Availability: Multiple books, ebooks and audiobooks available at Hennepin County and Anoka County libraries.
