Casteism and Racism

My summer has been consumed subconsciously by a desire to understand how America arrived at the horrendous incidents of May 25, 2020. I recently read a New York Times Magazine article (July 5, 2020) by Isabel Wilkerson.

The article by Pulitzer Prize winner Wilkerson, America’s Enduring Racial Caste System, is adapted from her upcoming Random House book, titled, Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents. I hope to share my own thoughts on casteism and racism at a future date. Here, a few quotes from the NYT article.

“’…My ancestors never attacked indigenous people, never owned slaves.’ And yes. Not one of us was here when this house was built…We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it…And any further deterioration is, in fact, in our hands.”

“Caste and race are neither synonymous nor mutually exclusive. They can coexist in the same culture and serve to reinforce each other. Race, in the United States, is the visible agent of the unseen force of caste. Caste is the bones. Race is the skin…That any of us manages to create abiding connections across these manufactured divisions is a testament to the beauty of the human spirit.”

“In the early winter of 1959,… Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta, landed in India, then known as Bombay, … and were covered in garlands upon arrival, and King told reporters, ‘To other countries, I may go as a tourist, but to India, I come as a pilgrim.’”

“King and his wife journeyed… to the city then known as Trivandrum in the state of Kerala and visited with high school students whose families had been untouchables. The principal made the introduction. ‘Young people,’ he said, ‘I would like to present to you a fellow untouchable from the United States of America.’

“Land of the free has imposed a caste system not unlike the caste system of India…Both countries still live with the residue of codes that prevailed for far longer than they have not.”

A closing thought. The elementary school children with whom I had an opportunity to interact last summer were from a Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) summer Freedom School program. The program is inspired by Mississippi Freedom Schools launched in 1964 under the tenure of late Georgia Congressman John Lewis.

A bit about me.

Growing up in India, I was never aware of the caste of my friends, many of whom remain dear to me even today. Somehow their caste never mattered.