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Liked this book for its blunt discussion of racism and caste discrimination, though at times its analysis felt rather simple or superficial. In terms of positives, I appreciate Caste for its international perspective. A lot of books on race write about race within the context one country, whereas Isabel Wilkerson compares and contrasts the United States, India, and Nazi Germany. Wilkerson does a great job too of showing how many anti-Black racist events within the United States occurred not too long ago. In part because of the myth of a post-racial society, we often believe that things like slavery and segregation occurred way back when, when in reality those racist events happened relatively recently and still manifest today through mass incarceration and voter suppression. I appreciated Wilkerson’s more provocative or deeper insights, such as how a lot of people in lower castes will try to assimilate and desire proximity to upper castes (yikes), as well as how these issues of caste extend into arenas ranging from disenfranchisement in academia to nastiness in interpersonal interactions.

Sometimes I wanted more from this book’s structure and its recommendations about challenging the caste system. The book’s thesis and argument style feels a bit simplistic in that early on Wilkerson establishes the idea of castes. Then, she describes several racist events, and at the end of each description she comments about how the event exemplifies the presence and maintenance of castes. I desired more innovative, less repetitive writing that delved deeper into the systemic, international mechanisms that perpetuate castes. ŷ������ reviewer Chetana raises issue with the simplicity of Wilkerson’s international analysis in her review, which I agree with. The solutions and action steps toward the end of the book felt pretty surface-level too. While radical empathy and recognizing each other’s humanity is great, I’m additionally interested in specific, systemic, actionable ways we can dismantle white supremacy and caste discrimination.

I do think it’s important that the racist events Wilkerson describes in this book are acknowledged, though I’m not sure those more familiar with racism will learn much from reading Caste, aside from some of the introductory international analysis. I’d be curious for writers to include more about how Asian and Latinx individuals fit into the American caste system as well as how intersectionality plays into it. In terms of books about racism and anti-racism, I’d still recommend Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Longe, and So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo.