Celebrate our 250 year anniversary by reading CASTE by Isabel Wilkerson!

By Donald A. Collins | 6 July 2026
Church and State

(Credit: Wikipedia)

The author’s name is Isabel Wilkerson.

Here is a review of her acclaimed book, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents”:

Caste is one of the most thought-provoking books written about American society in recent years. Rather than looking at race alone, Isabel Wilkerson argues that the United States has long operated through an invisible caste system—a deeply rooted social hierarchy that determines power, status, and opportunity. To make her case, she compares America with the caste system of India and the racial hierarchy of Nazi Germany, drawing striking historical parallels.

Wilkerson writes with the skill of both a historian and a storyteller. She combines historical research with personal stories, making complex ideas accessible and emotionally powerful. Even readers who disagree with her conclusions are likely to find the book intellectually challenging because it encourages them to reconsider familiar assumptions about race, class, and inequality.

The book’s greatest strength is its ambition. Wilkerson asks readers to look beneath the surface of everyday prejudice and examine the structures that shape society. Some critics have questioned whether comparing the United States to India’s caste system or Nazi Germany is always appropriate, but even those critiques acknowledge that the book has sparked important conversations about history, justice, and social hierarchy.

The author offers many examples of the way in which white people treated black people in the South particularly which could involve not only white revolution and even touching black people but also the results of any contacts which frequently ended in violence toward the blacks. Even shaking hands with a black was not permitted and any contact with blacks for example by children would be considered worse, in one case the mother washing her white girl’s hands with Brillo pads which affected her view for life.

Perhaps to me the most enlighten example of how the caste system works is when Martin Luther King and his wife went to India and went to a community of untouchables whose leader was honored to meet King but said to King you are on an an untouchable which of course shocked him until he realized that that’s exactly the caste he was in in America.

The effect of this caste system was particularly strong even late in the last century and of course despite the fact that we have had a black president and the presence of many black people are now proving some progress has been made, we still have a long way to go. There’re certainly the efforts of the Trump administration to suppress black people and any people that are not white as proof of that statement.

The effects of this caste system remained powerful well into the late twentieth century. While the election of a Black president and the growing presence of Black Americans in positions of leadership demonstrate that meaningful progress has been made, significant inequities persist. Many critics argue that policies and actions taken during the Trump administration disproportionately harmed Black communities and other racial and ethnic minorities, viewing them as evidence that the nation still has considerable work to do in achieving equal opportunity and treatment for all.

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Los Angeles, CA, has spent over 60 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of 17 books: “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote”, “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?”, “Will Choice and Democracy Win?”, “Can Our U.S. Survive 8 Plus Billion of Us”, “Economic Growth: A Cancer on all Earthly Life”, “On the Precipice of Political Disaster in 2024”, “Democracy at Red State Risk”, “Does Trump Go to Jail or to The Oval Office?”, “Trump: Pardon or Punish?: The Nixon Precedence Was Not A Trump Coup Denied!”, “Common Sense: When will Trump be Impeached, Indicted, and Exited?”, “Trump–unrestrained dangerous liar!”, “Our Ethnic Mix May Save Us!” and “Trump will be gone before November 3, 2026!”.

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