Isabel Wilkerson Instagram – Five years ago today, with the world on lockdown and political upheaval here at home, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents came onto the public stage and managed to find a way into your hearts. It has been the honor of a lifetime to see my second-born book embraced so widely by you.
On this day, no bookstores or libraries were open. You found the book anyway, in part because it helped to explain what had defied explanation, training a searchlight on the ruptures we have inherited as a nation.
It seemed that, after a decade of research, this was the exact moment it was intended to come into the world. You, the readers, kept it on The New York Times bestsellers list for a total of 79 weeks in hardcover and paperback, making it No. 1 in Nov. 2020.
Thank you to every person who turned the pages of this book, who posted on social, who waited on library holds, who read it for book club, gave it to friends, family and co-workers and allowed this history to shape how you see the world.
Thank you for recognizing that caste is not theoretical, but is, in fact, built into the foundation of our country. It is playing out before our eyes as we observe divisions that strain comprehension until you look at the x-ray that caste provides us. As many of you have said, once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
It took decades of synthesis to produce Caste. I did not merely research it as a concept, I inhaled and inhabited it. The book was both historical excavation and prophecy, and so much of what was contained within its pages has heartbreakingly come to pass.
Anyone who has read Caste likely already knows why things around us are unfolding as they are. There could be no more urgent a time to understand the origins of our discontents as we seek to find ways to move forward.
The message of Caste is about love more than anything — love within oneself to emanate to the rest of our species, no matter the rung and role society casts us in.
I am more certain than ever, that, if our species could find a way to transcend these manufactured divisions, a world without caste would set everyone free.
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Scroll to the end to see a few of the “pinch me” moments in the rollout of this book. | Posted on 04/Aug/2025 22:16:45
