CRITICA

Caste, is any class or group of people who inherit exclusive privileges or are perceived as socially distinct. The root of the word caste is from the Latin, castus or chaste, pure, separate.. Caste is about race and class. In my effort to understand Wilkerson’s insightful book on how caste applies to our current historical moment, I had to pause in her description of Martin Luther King Jr. visit to India. It is in India in the 1700’s that the study of Caste as a social system of heredity and class emerged in Hinduism. Dr King travelled to India in 1959,where h e found his inspiration in Mahatma Gandhi’s struggle to end colonialism using non-violent tactics.But he was completely taken aback to find that members of the untouchables, India’s lowest and most despised class, saw him and all African Americans as one of them. It was only upon reflection did he see it was the truth. Now 400 years after captured Africans were taken from their homes and brought to build America the race problem in America finds its origins in this moment with the fabrication of the concepts of “superiority and inferiority”. It is also easy to extrapolate and see similarities with the birth of the Nazi party and the extermination of Jews in concentration camps in 1933. Race emanating from the idea that how a person looks on the outside is substantial to give privilege and priority to one group versus another. The only way to truly heal the damage being done to people, is to learn and to embrace the complete history, to become more conscious of the reality and its consequences and to bring forth a possibility of reparation. Wilkerson identifies several dichotomies in Caste . Amongst them I found of special importance the following. Divine will and the laws of nature, where even slavery can be justified? Heritage including genes, where blond hair and blue eyes are more favorable than black skin and curly hair. Endogamy and the control of marriage and mating, where dating outside of your group is even illegal. Purity versus pollution where civil human rights need to be addressed. Occupational hierarchy, where the dirty jobs are distributed to the “other”. Dehumanization and stigma. Terror as enforcement of control, or what we have witnessed for example with the “Capitol insurgence” January 6 th 2021. Inherit superiority Vs inferiority. In her book, Isabel Wilkerson studies the concept of the “Scapegoat” and takes us to the biblical origin of this concept. “Hebrews used to sacrifice two male goats, only one of which would be killed to appease the lord. The one that remained alive was lavished with the sins of the people and then cast into the wilderness, leaving the people to thrive in peace”, until the next One. It is of concern and it calls for awareness of how this process keeps repeating itself in institutions, including institutions that assume the role of bringing awareness to people such as in Psychoanalytic Institutes. In fact last year PINC institute witnessed candidates leaving the community. To anyone with a racial bias it is not so bad to lose the “other” who is assumed to be of a lower caste. This event has been shocking to the community as a whole and “Prejudice study groups” have been placed at the institute to prevent this from happening again andi to support the “Black Lives Matter movement”. The scapegoating unfortunately is not only in regards to the color of a person’s skin but to a sense of cultural and intellectual “Otherness” that causes fear, and incites the desire to expel the “other”, rather than embrace the other. Having the possibility of learning from each other is an evolutionary step. It is fear of not having power over the “other” that perpetuates prejudice and oppression. The greatest threat to the caste system is perhaps the event that the “Others” succeed. As the book proceeds in its study of these processes Isabel Wilkerson takes us through different historical moments that portray this clearly, including the study of “Nazism” and the devastating consequences that the holocaust brought to humanity. Isabel makes an inquiry to the ways in which the black community has been abused and unfairly treated over and over again in history. It is said that even if you leave the caste, the caste never leaves you. I want to bring forth a more hopeful response, that allows one to envision change by raising our consciousness to the ways we behave towards each other”. An image of an embracing African-American couple emerged in my mind as I was reading how to let go of “Caste” and the impulse to paint it was irresistible. It is a 26 x 30 inch oil painting on gesso canvas signifying a loving couple as the path takes.