Caste: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

In 2016, a heat wave struck Siberia—parts of Russia reached above 95°F, and wildfires spread throughout the region. Soon, many people living in remote parts of the area—indigenous herdsmen and their children among them—fell ill with a strange sickness, and a few even died. Scientists soon realized that the heat had melted the Russian permafrost, exposing toxic anthrax particles that had been frozen in the ground for decades. When the pathogen was exposed, it was as toxic as it had ever been.

At the same time, on the other side of the world, the United States was preparing for an election that would become seen as a “psychic break” in the history of the country. Many Americans claimed that they no longer recognized their country—but Wilkerson knew that what was happening in the U.S. was in fact reflective of the country’s long-held values. The first female candidate for president was running against an “impetuous billionaire” who claimed that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing his followers’ support. His base, the country’s Republican Party, appealed mostly to white voters, believed he would “restore [Americans’] sovereignty.”

The 2016 presidential election was an “existential” fight for primacy. It took place in a country whose rapidly shifting demographics threatened the dominant racial caste in an unspoken hierarchy that had existed since the country was founded. Experts predicted that by 2042, white people will no longer be the majority in America—a country that had never known another structure. The 2008 election of the first African American president—a man from the lower, or subordinate, caste—caused some people to declare the arrival of a post-racial world. But it caused others—members of the dominant caste—to fear that there was no more “hope for white people.”

The 2016 election further pushed the United States toward isolationism and tribalism. Members of the dominant caste felt comfortable admitting that they were ready for a return to “a time when everybody knew their place.” Hate crimes and instances of mass violence and police brutality increased: in the summer of 2017, a white supremacist drove into a crowd of “anti-hate” protestors and killed a young woman named Heather Heyer; in the fall of 2018, 11 people were killed while attending services at a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh. Even as the new administration faced claims that the new president was a “malignant narcissist” or an agent of a foreign power, the dominant caste continued to rise in power.

Even after an impeachment trial and the botched handling of the worst pandemic in over a century, the new president retained the firm support of his base. Millions of people in the U.S. and abroad wondered why it seemed that the ground had shifted almost overnight. But what scientists know about earthquakes is that the worst of them are often preceded by longer, slow-moving disruptions, too deep beneath the surface to feel.

Returning to the outbreak of anthrax in Russia, Wilkerson recounts the extensive cleanup and containment process the affected regions of the country had to go through. The military needed to dispose of the reindeer carcasses that were spreading the disease after consuming grass grown out of contaminated ground, bleach the earth, and eradicate a “long-buried threat.” Even then, complete protection couldn’t be ensured—this contagion could only be “managed and anticipated” through vigilance and indeed reverence for its power.