Caste Summary and Analysis

Part 1: Toxins in the Permafrost and Heat Rising All Around Summary

Wilkerson begins her exploration of caste with a vignette entitled “The Man in the Crowd.” She describes a famous photograph showing a large group of German shipyard workers giving the Hitler salute. One figure is conspicuous for not saluting, and Wilkerson argues that this man “could see what his countrymen chose not to see.” She asks what it would take to follow the man’s example in the face of modern injustice.

Chapter 1 connects two seemingly unrelated phenomena: the revival of the anthrax virus caused by the thawing of Siberian permafrost and the 2016 US presidential election. She argues that in both cases, “long-buried threats” had surfaced under unusual pressures, and great vigilance was required to contain and understand these threats. In a brief unnumbered section, “The Vitals of History,” Wilkerson likens the handling of historical inequalities to the management of a disease that runs in one’s family, such as alcoholism or depression. It is essential, she says, to respond by learning the full truth, not ignoring it out of shame or guilt.

In Chapter 2, Wilkerson describes her experiences as an owner of an old house. She then begins to sketch out the relationship between caste and race and introduces her three primary examples: the ancient caste system of India, the “tragically accelerated” caste system of Nazi Germany, and the “race-based caste pyramid” of the United States. She argues that in each case, arbitrary, hereditary distinctions determined who had power and authority and who did not. Race, Wilkerson suggests, “does the heavy lifting for [the] caste system” in the United States, but race and caste are not the same thing.

Chapter 3 expands on the origins of the caste system in the United States, which Wilkerson traces to the earliest English colonies in Virginia. She observes that although it may sound unusual to refer to an American “caste” system, there are many precedents for such usage. White supremacists in the early 20th century wrote admiringly of the caste system of India, and anthropologists during the Second World War explicitly applied the term caste to the race-based hierarchy they saw in the United States. In further illustrating the connection between American and Indian caste systems, Wilkerson introduces Bhimrao Ambedkar, a 20th-century Indian caste reformer who corresponded with Black intellectuals and saw his struggle as closely akin to theirs. A brief section entitled “An Invisible Program” concludes Part 1 by comparing caste systems to the omnipresent programs that control the world of the Matrix movies.

Part 1: Toxins in the Permafrost and Heat Rising All Around Analysis

Wilkerson opens her book by juxtaposing images from human society and the natural world. As Part 1 continues, she arguably “medicalizes” the problem of caste by comparing it first to a deadly virus and next to hereditary illnesses such as alcoholism and depression. In doing so, she draws a distinction between guilt and responsibility and suggests the reaction she considers appropriate. Wallowing in guilt and shame will not help someone fight anthrax or anxiety, Wilkerson suggests, and neither will it help the American public in diagnosing, managing, and ultimately ending casteism. A core message of Wilkerson’s book is that understanding casteism is a prerequisite to fighting it, and this cannot be done without facing up to the grim history of caste relations in the United States.

The virus metaphor also underscores Wilkerson’s argument that casteism is an endemic part of American culture, something that emerges in dramatic ways when the “heat rises” but is always present beneath the surface. Although she will continue to illustrate her claims with stories of individuals and events, Wilkerson is insistent that caste systems are all-pervading and should be treated as such. Speaking at once of the Siberian anthrax outbreak and of casteism in the United States, Wilkerson describes “an ancient and hardy virus” with the “ability to mutate, survive and hibernate until reawakened.” To treat acts of caste-based violence as isolated incidents is, Wilkerson says, to misunderstand how the “virus” works.