The Beginning
The book quite literally begins with imagery. It is a description of a photographic image. And within that description is found the root of rebellion that has the power to destroy the evils of a caste system:
“There is a famous black-and-white photograph from the era of the Third Reich. It is a picture taken in Hamburg, Germany, in 1936, of shipyard workers, a hundred or more, facing the same direction in the light of the sun. They are heiling in unison, their right arms rigid in outstretched allegiance to the Führer . If you look closely, you can see a man in the upper right who is different from the others. His face is gentle but unyielding…surrounded by fellow citizens caught under the spell of the Nazis. He keeps his arms folded to his chest, as the stiff palms of the others hover just inches from him. He alone is refusing to salute. He is the one man standing against the tide.”
What is Caste?
A great question and a necessary one to ask for many Americans. Caste is far more easily understood in certain other countries—India especially comes to mind, of course—than it is here. Understanding that Americans don’t tend to view their society within the concept of caste, the question is answered—to a fault, almost—through a repetition of metaphors that together serve to become powerful imagery:
“caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater…caste is the underlying grammar that we encode as children, as when learning our mother tongue…Caste is a living, breathing entity. It is like a corporation that seeks to sustain itself at all costs…Caste is more than rank, it is a state of mind that holds everyone captive, the dominant imprisoned in an illusion of their own entitlement, the subordinate trapped in the purgatory of someone else’s definition of who they are and who they should be.”
Dehumanization
Dehumanization is also given the power of imagery through recurrence. So essential to the systemic operation of a caste system is dehumanization that an entire chapter is devoted to explaining the intricacies of how it works. The opening paragraphs quickly situate this necessity through the power of imagery that initiates for the reader an immediate understanding of just what is really meant by the term:
“Dehumanization…is a war against truth, against what the eye can see and what the heart could feel if allowed to do so on its own. To dehumanize another human being is not merely to declare that someone is not human, and it does not happen by accident. It is a process, a programming. It takes energy and reinforcement to deny what is self-evident in another member of one’s own species…It is harder to dehumanize a single individual that you have gotten the chance to know. Which is why people and groups who seek power and division do not bother with dehumanizing an individual. Better to attach a stigma, a taint of pollution to an entire group…A caste system relies on dehumanization to lock the marginalized outside of the norms of humanity so that any action against them is seen as reasonable.”
When Tolerance is Intolerant
The author makes a strong point about semantics when it comes to understanding the damage created by a caste system. With the precision of a prosecutor destroying a witness seemingly beyond all reach of lacking credibility, the author efficiently destroys the argument that sympathy is the same as empathy on the way to a stunningly simple demonstration that tolerance can sometimes manifest itself as covering up intolerance:
“In our era, it is not enough to be tolerant. You tolerate mosquitoes in the summer, a rattle in an engine, the gray slush that collects at the crosswalk in winter. You tolerate what you would rather not have to deal with and wish would go away. It is no honor to be tolerated. Every spiritual tradition says love your neighbor as yourself, not tolerate them.”
