Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Caste, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Caste, Race, and Social Division in the U.S.
Caste as a Global Problem
How Caste Sustains Itself
The Costs of Caste
Summary
Analysis
Wilkerson shares an anecdote about a father and his young son who were dining at a restaurant in Oakland after the death of Tamir Rice. Rice was a 12-year-old boy who was shot and killed by Cleveland police officers for playing with a toy gun—in spite of the fact that Ohio is an open carry state, and many young boys play with toy guns. As the father fretted over how to prepare his young son for the realities of growing up in the U.S.’s caste system, the son began crying about wanting to drink some juice before eating his vegetables. A white woman sitting at a nearby table came over and told the young boy—ignoring his father’s presence entirely—that he could drink his juice first.
This instance represents the U.S.’s long history of allowing upper-caste people to control lower-caste people without consequences. Even in an atmosphere of heightened tensions related to caste violence, many members of the dominant caste don’t see their intrusions and violations as products of the caste system.
Themes
Caste can affect even the most ordinary daily interactions. Wilkerson shares several more anecdotes to illustrate how caste interferes with everyday life. She shares an anecdote about a Black woman who went to a neighbor’s house to introduce herself, only to be mistaken for a dry cleaner and handed a bag of dirty clothes. A Black college professor opening his mail in the elevator with his neighbor was mistaken for a mailman and accused of mail fraud. A white engineer dealt with repetitious calls from a white contractor who refused to communicate with a Black engineer at the firm.
The anecdotes in this passage illustrate the conundrum of caste that defines many daily interactions in the U.S. The underlying grammar of caste continues to affect how people see one another—and the dominant caste, used to the supposition of their own power, still assumes that members of the subordinate caste belong in subservient positions.
Themes
Black citizens in the U.S. are disproportionately surveilled and are all too often accused of being intruders in spaces that some feel “belong” to members of the dominant caste. For instance, when a Yale student called the campus police on a Black student napping in the library, the Black student had to prove to them that she attended the school. A Black babysitter driving two white children he cared for around town was tailed by a white woman who called the authorities, accusing him of kidnapping them.
All of these anecdotes show how lower-caste people must contend with their lives being derailed by caste on a daily basis. This is due to the dominant caste’s damaging, deeply entrenched perceptions of who the subordinate caste is, and of where its members belong. The preservation of the dominant caste’s power is at the heart of many of these interactions, whether people are conscious of that or not.
Themes
Wilkerson shares a personal anecdote: after rushing through an airport on her way to an interview following a delayed arrival in Detroit, she was accosted by two white people who told her they were with the DEA and demanded to know what her business in the city was. They demanded to follow her on the shuttle to the airport’s rental car agency, even after she told them she was a journalist on assignment. It was only when she pulled out her notebook and began taking detailed notes about them that they apologized for their mistake and left her alone. Instances like this illustrate “the thievery of caste,” and how caste continues to steal time, energy, and emotional bandwidth from members of the subordinate caste.
This anecdote illustrates the ongoing costs of caste in the U.S. Caste-based power struggles and steal the time, energy, and indeed the dignity of subordinate-caste people. It is wearying to know that one's actions will always be viewed through the lens of caste—and yet everyday interactions like this one reaffirm to subordinate-caste people (like Wilkerson herself) that no measure of success, fame, or social progress will fully erase caste.
Themes
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