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 the 1800s, free Black passengers on a steamboat in the South weren’t permitted to dine at the same time (or even in the same space or with the same utensils) as white passengers. So, these passengers—who threatened the hierarchy of the South—were forced to eat, standing up, in the ship’s pantry. Those in a caste system who rise above their station become “foot soldiers” at the borders of caste hierarchy, breaking down barriers that the dominant caste doesn’t want challenged.
In 2015, a Black women’s book club took a trip to Napa Valley, where they were kicked off of a train for laughing too loudly. And in 2018, a group of Black women golfers were asked to leave a golf course for allegedly taking too long on the green. Wilkerson herself was bullied by a white flight attendant who refused to help her lift her bag into a first-class overhead compartment. On a different flight, she was terrorized by a man sitting behind her who began kicking and punching her seat on a redeye after she reclined her seat just a few inches to get some sleep. And on yet another flight, a fellow passenger leaned on and physically intimidated her while retrieving his bag from an overhead compartment—no one who saw the incident did anything to help her.
The caste system ensures that anyone who deviates from their assigned position is forced back into that category. In all of these anecdotes, Black women who occupied spaces that are typically reserved for members of the dominant caste were swiftly and cruelly punished and removed. Those in the subordinate caste must fight to take up space in places that the dominant caste wants to exclude them from.
Themes
