MC Book Club featuring Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson- 2/22/2021
Conversation Overview
Please join us for a MC Book Club featuring Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson with Elaine Parker-Gills and Kirsten Grimstad.
Guest Bios
Dr. Elaine Parker-Gills is an adjunct professor at Antioch University Los Angeles, and has been teaching African American Studies courses in the Undergraduate Studies division for three decades, as well as courses in the graduate Education Department. Dr. Gills also served as Vice-President of Community Engagement at Community Build, Inc. and is the founder of the W.E.B. DuBois Academic Institute. Additionally, Dr. Gills is a guest lecturer, consultant, and community activist.
Kirsten Grimstad, Ph.D. is professor and co-chair for Undergraduate Studies at AULA. The focus of her current project, The People’s Guide to Berlin, examines the role of grassroots civic activism in establishing a sense of public awareness of and accountability for the murder of the Jews of Europe. How the Germans have faced up to their racist national history holds lessons for us for confronting the legacy of white supremacy that we are grappling with now.
Additional Resources
Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (Author)
Published: 2020
Summary: "As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power--which groups have it and which do not. In this book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people--including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball's Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others--she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of America life today."--Provided by the publisher