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In this important and beautifully written book, Isabelle Wilkerson attributes the racial problems in this country to an invisible caste system. Similar to India's caste system, as well as that used by the Third Reich in Nazi Germany, it is a method of retaining social order by raising one designated group above another; it is the desire to preserve the purity of the blood of the ruling class. Wilkerson's carefully researched treatise leaves no doubt in this reader's mind that a caste system does indeed exist in this country. Whether it is the liberal's deeply embedded cultural racism or the overt actions of white supremacists, it is apparent. "It is like a cancer that goes into remission only to return when the immune system of the body politic is weakened."

Racism in this country is not new, nor did it begin with the Civil War or during the Jim Crow years. Wilkerson informs us that Ben Franklin was concerned with the influx of Germans into Pennsylvania twenty-five years before the Revolution. He believed they would Germanize the Anglicans and not accept their language and culture. Through waves of immigration this same fear has been seen: the Italians, the Japanese, the Muslims have all been feared and at times maligned. Most groups have completely assimilated, dispelling those worries. However, this assimilation and acceptance has not happened with African Americans. The author believes the reason is the history of slavery - once the master always the master. She also makes the point that people have an easier time accepting those who look like them.

Is the situation hopeless? Is it just human nature to want to feel superior to someone or some group, to think your religion, your ethnicity, your gender or sexual orientation is better? Wilkerson remains optimistic, more so than I am. There is work to be done."It is not the despot but the people's inactions that keep the mechanisms of caste going." She quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an anti-Nazi dissent and theologian who was murdered by the Nazis. "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." We, as a nation, need to eliminate the "them and us", the"good guys vs. the bad guys"- the denial of shared humanity.

Caste is one of the most powerful and relevant books I have ever read. As dire as the current racial situation is, we all can do our part to alleviate it, but first we must admit it does exist.

"A caste system persists in part because we, each and every one of us, allow it to exist - in large and small ways, in our everyday actions, in how we elevate or demean, embrace or exclude, on the basis of the meaning attached to people's physical traits. If enough people buy into the lie of national hierarchy, then it becomes the truth or is assumed to be."