By Isabel Wilkerson
Netflix adaptation by Ava Duvernay called Origin
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The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions, now with a new Afterword by the author.
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.
Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences peoples lives and behavior and the nations fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Isabel 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., baseballs 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. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.