Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents Hardcover – August 4, 2020

I didn't want to read this book. I did very much enjoy Isabel Wilkerson's Warmth of Other Suns, and I've enjoyed countless others historic books on race so I guess I assumed this would be a "preaching to the choir" kind of book that I didn't need. I've also read "White Trash" by Nancy Isenberg and "Hillbilly Elegy" by the now Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance to help me better understand white sentiment and seemingly endless anger. But my sister said I had to read it so I did. Ok I waited over a year . .It's easy reading, candid, engaging and non preachy. There's no angry tone. There's reasoning and methodical stories of caste and comparisons between USA, India and ouch . . Natzi Germany. And still there's no villainizing. Just comparisons and stories.So why was it also uncomfortable reading? Well I like history. It's safe and it's back there, and helps me understand the world today. This is a history book, but it makes the connection and reaches into current times in a compelling, truthful and ultimately disturbing way. Racism isn't over. And it doesn't automatically go away. If a caste system exists, it exists whether it's acknowledged or not. This book presents caste as a neverending story. I'm not sorry that it was upsetting for me or that I had to read in short segments. Do whites really need to have a designated lower black class in our country - or else discontentment (which is a nice way of putting it) sets in and basically takes over? Is this our security? Ouch. Big ouch as in - ouch of a lifetime.What a landmark book. You can't read this and be the same person, whatever race you call yourself. Ok maybe you can. But I'm not. So many good wishes at the end of the book too. "A world without caste would set everyone free." Ms. Wilkerson then exonerates us to "make a connection" across caste. She doesn't use the word love, but that's what this book is all about. Hope and love.

An excellent, well written, educating book that's written in an easy flow of language. ~Don't tell anyone who may be ~scared~ by this, but it's actually Critical Race Theory w/o ever saying anywhere in it that it is, and rarely even mentions the word 'racism'.!~IMO the author very convincingly expounds on her theory that the USA has operated under an extremely damaging race-orientated caste system since the 1600's, and she compares this system with a caste system used in India and also one used in Nazi Germany in the 1930-40's. Some of the details of the USA caste system, what happened (and often still happens) to those on the bottom level of the caste setup, is both eye opening and frightening! This book can forever change how you look at the USA and it's history... An important book for our times IMO!

One of the most well written and insightful books I’ve ever read! Definitely a must read for anyone and everyone.

Opened my mind and perspective on this critical social divide understanding, philosophical, cultural, and economic. Glad I read this after White Fragility. Good companion reading.

This is a wonderful book, well-researched and beautifully written. But like all complex statements, it is not comprehensive enough. There are important topics that must be included in order for the author’s claims to be fully substantiated, and the most important one is the concept of COLOR as the foundation of American untouchability, and the fact that color as the measure of untouchability was introduced, both in India and in America, by the same white Anglo-Saxon forces that established themselves as the superior caste in both continents. The author mentions the Anglo-Saxons only twice, and there is no separate entry for them in the Index. In fact, there is very little research on the fact that this particular group of people, the Anglo-Saxons, seem to have a special animus against people of dark complexions. They are the only ones who discriminate against blacks in both India and America. The Spanish didn’t, the Portuguese didn’t, the Belgians didn’t, the Germans didn’t; only the British Anglos-Saxons did, and with a vengeance. Why? This fact must be researched for the author’s thesis to be conclusively established. The second item is also a matter of fact. While untouchability did, indeed, exist, it was sometimes violated with impunity. This happened often in India among Christians, and in America, among the white owners who raped their black women slaves and did not feel polluted thereby, nor was their superior status diminished. Some research should be devoted to this fact, for, after all, Thomas Jefferson loved Sally Hemmings and did not considered himself polluted by their relationship. I arrived in India in 1951, four years after Indian Independence from Britain. As a foreigner, I would have been untouchable, but the Indian Constitution banned untouchability. I dined with mahârâjas and shook Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s hand. Ambedkar’s mission was in full force then, but untouchability still reigned in the villages, as it still does, more than seventy years after Gandhiji said, “I’d rather that Hinduism died than that untouchability survived.”

Halfway reading it, love it

Race is a complicated issue, this book illustrates another layer to an already complicated, yet unnecessary situation in our times. Read and learn.

Still reading since is quite long. Was advised by some american friends.

Excellent! Thoughtfully detailed work by the author. Can be informative and certainly very beneficial to anyone who may be curious about how “one up-one down/ “Us vs. them” mentality is still working its power and control in the larger society. The author put forth an incredible book.

The story of slavery and what followed in the USA. The author goes back and forth between now and then, and you realize that little has change for a black person today. Very well written and extremely intereting.