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 order to work, caste systems require the inheritance of a rank and corresponding role at birth. In India, this inheritance is patrilineal (inherited through the father), but in the U.S. it has traditionally been matrilineal (inherited through the mother)—and in both places, children generally take on the status of their lowest-born parent. Thus, enslavers in the U.S. could claim the children of their enslaved property and thus create even more property and more profit. No one could earn or marry their way out of their ascribed caste—and this fact is essential in distinguishing caste from class, which is more mutable.
By suggesting that caste is inborn, the “pillar” of heritability makes caste a fixed part of a person’s identity and indeed of their destiny. Caste cannot be outrun or outgrown once others see it as an intrinsic part of who a person is. Thus, the assertion of heritability is one of the most effective ways to subordinate and control a large group of people.
Themes
Throughout American history, Black people have been “ritually separated” from the rest of the population, and nothing they did could elevate them out of their caste. This is, unfortunately, still a present-day reality. For instance, in 2013, the award-winning actor Forest Whitaker was accused of shoplifting from a deli, and in 2015 and 2018, police officers brutally attacked two well-known athletes. These incidents make it clear that no measure of fame, wealth, or class mobility can change the facts of caste.
This passage shows that while a subordinate-caste person living in the modern-day U.S. might be able to achieve wealth and social mobility associated with higher classes, the forces of caste remain unchangeable. The U.S. caste system is designed around making sure a person can never escape the caste into which they were born.
Themes
