The term caste is usually tantamount to the Hindu caste system but Wilkerson dismantles the assumption by addressing the hidden American caste system. While the caste system in India entails a number of castes, the American one revolves around people of color and race. She connects the Third Reich’s racial policies to the United States' racial laws that would determine their social stratification. The larger argument in the book is the exclusion or inclusion of a social group to certain privileges as per the perceived hierarchy or superiority. She highlights this dynamic that has seeped into the social fabric of society dictating race relations and social status.
To expound on the concept of the American caste system, Wilkerson divides it into eight pillars to break it down. Divine Will, which is essentially believing in the system as a natural law beyond the control of humankind, is one basis. It falls close to the idea of heritability that America and Nazi Germany utilized to determine social status by ancestry. She goes on to explore endogamy—practiced by most known caste systems—which is the deterrence of marriage between different castes. In America, it was practiced to prevent interracial unions in order to ensure the “purity” of the dominant social group. Another pillar is the occupational hierarchy that has been used to deny specific occupations to people of color proving the systemic racism since the Jim Crow era. Most importantly, she delves into the dehumanization and cruelty of the lower-caste, case in point, slavery and lynching of black people. All the pillars aim to illustrate the dynamic of superiority and inferiority that dwell in every sphere of American society.
Wilkerson focuses on the history of African-Americans through the laws and systems that dehumanized, oppressed, exploited, and persecuted the black populace. As such, exposes this caste system that runs deep beyond race even though it manifests as race-based discrimination. As a journalist, Wilkerson blends several subjects while connecting her personal experiences to prove the hidden yet obvious caste system. Joshunda Sanders of The Boston Globe stated “Should be required reading for generations to come…A significant work of social science, journalism, and history, Caste removes the tenuous language of racial animus and replaces it with a sturdier lexicon based on power relationships.”
