DAAS In Dialogue: Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste
Created October 22nd, 2020 by Department of Afroamerican & African Studies
Framing Statement:
This Democracy Café is anchored by a salon-style conversation organized by the Department of Afroamerican & African Studies on Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents with members of the department and the larger DAAS community, who come from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and perspectives. Moderated by Earl Lewis, Director of the Center for Social Solutions and the Thomas C. Holt Distinguished Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, History, and Public Policy contributors includes Aliyah Kahn (Associate Professor of English and DAAS); Karyn Lacy (Associate Professor of Sociology); Magdalena Zaborowska (Professor of American Studies and DAAS); Damani Partridge (Associate Professor of Anthropology and DAAS); and Renée Pitter (a DAAS alum and Research Program Manager for the Center for Sexuality and Health Disparities, UM School of Nursing).
They gathered on October 5, 2020 to discuss Caste, and we are proud to make that recording available as part of this special toolkit. We hope that it will inspire and guide more conversations about this challenging book, which examines the entrenched hierarchies that shape American life. Told through intimate personal narratives and deeply researched history, Wilkerson explores the ties between what she dubs as the American caste system and those in India and Nazi Germany, and points to ways America can move beyond our artificial and destructive human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. The captioned video recording will become part of the department’s DAAS at 50 celebration, and is available here and on the DAAS website.
Journalist Isabel Wilkerson was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama in 2016 “for championing the stories of an unsung history.” The first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, her book The Warmth of Other Suns, a sweeping and intimate examination of the Great Migration, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. Caste has already received much acclaim. The New York Times called it “an instant classic,” and it has been designated as part of Oprah’s Book Club.
Wilkerson’s conversation with filmmaker and storyteller Ken Burns was featured as part of this year’s Penny Stamps Speakers Series (October 2nd) and serves as an important companion to the DAAS Dialogue; a recording of that conversation is also available through this toolkit.
Multimedia:
DAAS in Dialogue (Video Recording from October 5, 2020)
Ken Burns & Isabel Wilkerson: In Conversation (Video Recording from October 2, 2020)
Penny Stamps Speakers Series and Democracy & Debate Theme Semester
Text:
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents Links to an external site. (Random House, 2020).
** Please consider ordering your copy from a local, independent bookseller such as Literati in Ann Arbor
“Caste by Isabel Wilkerson review – a dark study of violence and power,” Links to an external site. Book Review, The Guardian
“Isabel Wilkerson’s ‘Caste’ Is an ‘Instant American Classic’ About Our Abiding Sin,” Links to an external site. Book Review, New York Times:
Karyn Lacy, “Why We Shouldn’t Try to Erase America’s Racist Past: Twitter’s misguided attempts at censorship,” Links to an external site.Public Seminar, August 25, 2020
Questions & Prompts:
- How does Wilkerson’s understanding of caste differ from a typical American understanding of race and racism?
- What does Wilkerson argue caste is designed to do in society? To what extent does the understanding and effect of caste vary from the U.S. to Germany to India?
- Wilkerson argues unspeakable tragedies (slavery, the Holocaust, etc) have unfolded because people were socialized to believe targeted groups were deserving of their fate. What lessons can be drawn from these tragedies to help us avoid these pitfalls going forward?
- What does Wilkerson believe a world without caste would look like? How does she think we should work toward achieving it?
- How does the DAAS in Dialogue conversation, and the Public Seminar article by Professor Lacy, deepen and enrich our understanding of these issues, questions, and concerns?
Notes on How to Have an Inclusive Conversation:
Please use caution with these materials. Practice active listening. Try not to assume bad motives and welcome all perspectives into the conversation. You might want to establish ground rules or guidelines for navigating discussions, especially around difficult topics. Here are some common ways to approach this task. Take a few minutes to discuss these with all of the members of your group. Make changes as needed.
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- Listen respectfully, without interrupting.
- Listen actively and with an ear to understanding others' views. (Don’t just think about what you are going to say while someone else is talking.)
- Criticize ideas, not individuals.
- Commit to learning, not debating. Comment in order to share information, not to persuade.
- Avoid blame, speculation, and inflammatory language.
- Allow everyone the chance to speak. "Monitor your airtime" and remember that including everyone is a shared responsibility that involves us all
- Avoid assumptions about any member of the class or generalizations about social groups. Do not ask individuals to speak for their (perceived) social group.
- Remember that online communication can be even more challenging. If you need to step away use the "chat" function to let the group know, and return as soon as possible. Let people know what's going on to avoid misunderstandings.
Before group conversations take a moment and review the ground rules, and make sure that everyone has agreed to abide by them.