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
In January of 2018, Wilkerson traveled to Delhi, India for the first time. As she wandered the city streets on the way to the conference she was attending, she thought about the differences—and unlikely similarities—between India and the U.S. Both countries are defined by their caste systems, and both employ similar methods of maintaining distinctions between their castes. Though both countries have officially abolished the laws defining their caste systems, those systems live on in both places.
This chapter outlines several similarities between the U.S. caste system and the Indian one in order to highlight the fact that caste is a global issue. Furthermore, one group’s suffering can ripple outward to enable or excuse another group’s suffering.
Themes
Many scholars throughout the years have written about the similarities between the Dalits and African Americans. Both groups were enslaved and confined to a system of sharecropping (or saldari); both continue to occupy the lowest social positions in their respective societies; and both are singled out from other groups based on characteristics ascribed to them by the dominant caste.
This passage illustrates that while the foundational reasons for the dehumanization and subordination of Dalits and African Americans are different, there are many similarities in their histories. While specific caste systems differ from country to country, the methods that dominant castes use to dehumanize subordinate castes have a lot of overlap.
Themes
The Indian caste system is different from the American one in that there are many subcastes, or jatis. Surnames rather than physical features tell others about a person’s caste—though a person’s accent or clothing can also indicate which caste they belong to. The biggest single difference between the two systems is that the Indian caste system is bound by religion—and the Hindu belief that one’s caste is reflective of the good or bad karma they accrued in their previous life.
This passage illustrates how the Indian caste system is bound up in a series of paradoxes and self-fulfilling prophecies. The Dalits were dehumanized, much like African Americans were, based on an arbitrary religious belief. But over time, the simple fact of their ostracization was used to justify their ostracization. By sidelining people from mainstream society, the caste system can then claim that subordinate castes aren’t fit for mainstream society.
Themes
But the members of the Dalit caste do not, as many outside observers might like to believe, accept their position in the caste system. In fact, the Dalits have a vibrant history of resistance, inspired in large part by the American civil rights movement. A 1970s-formed resistance group, the Dalit Panthers, were inspired by the Black Panther Party—and Dalits to this day feel kinship with Black scholars and sociologists who visit from overseas, even welcoming one group of African American professors visiting India with a rendition of “We Shall Overcome,” an anthem of the American civil rights movement.
This passage shows that just as caste is a global issue, its solution, too, must be a global one. When members of subordinate castes from around the world recognize and participate in one another’s struggles, they strengthen one another’s resistance movements and illustrate how arbitrary and damaging caste truly is.
Themes
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