Overcoming Racism and Casteism and Cultivating a Better World

I finally finished reading Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, published in 2020.

I’d started it twice before, but it was so intensely disturbing and thought-provoking that I needed to put it down. In short, it made me too angry to continue. I needed to find other ways to work with this painful material, which I did primarily through my writing here and at East Wind eZine (see references). When I finally completed Caste, I was on the verge of tears for the last 50 pages or so. Caste is one of the most intense reading experiences I’ve ever had.

Wilkerson’s book was gripping in part because of its use of metaphors, which landed like engines of deconstruction in my brain, putting the finger on the ways that culture creates a false sense of superiority in those privileged to be deemed dominant, and inculcates deep bias with tragic sequelae for those it subordinates and thus makes more vulnerable.

Caste in America is based on skin color or the social construct of “race.” Casteism in America has been named and studied by sociologists for most of the last 100 years, and Wilkerson has done great service to bring it further into the lexicon of America’s difficult journey toward equity and justice.

Her metaphors include:

1. Casteism and prejudice are like dormant anthrax in the permafrost, which under the right circumstances, can thaw and wreak havoc.
2. They are like an old house, with foundational problems and in need of great repair.
3. We are actors with assigned, automatized parts in a play that causes harm unless we become aware of the play and narrative we enact.
4. We live in a matrix with an unseen program that turns us against each other.
5. Malignant racial and caste biases are normalized, often act subconsciously, and are quite arbitrary at the root. She imagines a world where tall people are discriminated against by short people and are labeled with stigmatizing undesirable traits.

Modern pop psychology has been taken with the concept of “gaslighting,” and Wilkerson makes it clear that unless we actively deconstruct the “great gaslight,” or what Bob Marley called “the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior,” we will continue to reap great disparity in outcomes for different ethnic and racial groups, promote mindless aggressions upon the vulnerable, and tear our society apart at the seams.

The idea of racial domination sets in motion an arbitrary machine that profited certain European Americans and allowed them to dehumanize and utilize brown and black people for their benefit. From what I know, this strategy allowed early settlers an escape from the ways they had been demoted in European hierarchies, prompting some of them to colonize the American continent. They found psychological justifications to make sure they could dominate and hold dominion in the New World.

Nowadays, the idea of racial domination usually acts more covertly and is noted in the denial, dismissal, and devaluation of the perspectives and possibilities of marginalized peoples, and unfortunately, can be codified into laws, such as Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s actions to limit teaching on race, gender, and sexuality. Many states are moving to eliminate access to abortion.

I encourage everyone to read Caste. Here are ways we might deconstruct caste and forge a better, more equitable world.

1. Nurture curiosity. Try to learn about people from different backgrounds – their histories, perspectives, and humanity, even when it makes you uncomfortable.

2. Don’t try to be right. Be related. And be wary of those who engage in culture wars to eliminate perspectives of minorities rather than relate to them.

3, Cultivate empathy and compassion. This involves valuing the emotions, thoughts, experiences, and identities of others and developing care for the ways they (and we) suffer.

4. Be willing to apologize and make amends. We all can get it wrong, and so many things have gone wrong in society. I usually preface a therapeutic interpretation with “I could be wrong, but here’s what I understand. Tell me what you think.” This opens the door to listening and conversation rather than self-centered pronouncement or decree. The unwillingness to apologize and make amends is a key feature of narcissism and sociopathy.

5. Cultivate the spirit of belonging. This includes safety, appreciation, validation, understanding, gratitude, and respect.

6. Cultivate the qualities of what social psychologist Dacher Keltner calls “enduring power.”

• ​​​Enduring power comes from empathy.
• Enduring power comes from giving. (I would modify this to “sharing.”)
• Enduring power comes from expressing gratitude.
• Enduring power comes from telling stories that unite.​​​​​

7. Cultivate love for self and other. In a world of suffering, recovering our humanity can only come through the process of love. This, of course, means taking a stand against the forces that divide us and create hate and creating a culture of care and mutuality.

Happy Black History Month 2023! When we are aware of and celebrate Black histories and futures every day, our world will be a better place.

(c) 2023 Ravi Chandra, M.D., D.F.A.P.A.