Isabel Wilkerson Instagram – We need to open our eyes to the resurgence of caste all around us — the targeted attempt to block advancement when marginalized people, formally excluded for generations, seek to rise. This is a return of the centuries-old campaign to keep those assigned to the bottom of the hierarchy in their place at all costs.
“It turns out that the greatest threat to a caste system is not lower-caste failure, which, in a caste system, is expected and perhaps even counted upon, but lower-caste success, which is not.
“Achievement by those in the lowest caste goes against the script handed down to us all. It undermines the core assumptions upon which a caste system is constructed and to which the identities of people on all rungs of the hierarchy are linked.
“Achievement by marginalized people who step outside the roles expected of them puts things out of order and triggers primeval and often violent backlash.
“The scholar W.E.B. Du Bois recognized this phenomenon in his research into what happened after the end of the Civil War: ‘The masters feared their former slaves’ success,” he wrote, “far more than their anticipated failure.’ ”
— Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Page 224 | Posted on 14/Jun/2024 01:25:30
