After that, Prime Ministers questions. Then, the texas 21st Congressional District debate. Guest the main thesis is that we live in an old house. We focus on what we think we can see, but the may not be for focusing may not be focusing on the structure underneath. We may have inherited a torarchy that harkens back enslavement and live today with the consequences of that hierarchy in which people at the very beginning were put into assigned categories, that were part of creating what would become the United States and that we live with the aftereffect of this day. When we think about the United States, the word caste language apply to other civilizations, human creation that give us away viewing ourselves in a different lens. Host you write in the acknowledgments, this was a book that i had to write in the air that we find ourselves. Can you talk more about that . Caste ining the word which i was writing about the migration of 6 million african americans, i came to realize through my research that i was not running about leaving, but they were defecting a caste system. I use that to describe the jim crow south and in doing so, i i would find that readers would truly understand and see what people were living under in the jim crow south from a for much of the 20th century. It was after writing that book and going on and talking about the book that i then begin to think about the idea of caste. Then, trayvon martin, the young man in florida who was killed as he was coming back from the store wearing a hoodie. He did not fit in that suburban division in florida. He was suspected based on what he looks like. About how these assignments and assumptions about who people are, where people belong, whose expect it and viewed as worthy, and so i castea piece connecting to that experience and i have been aching about that ever since. We have seen a metronome of names of people unarmed People Killed at the hands of vigilantesomegrown who have taken upon themselves to take the lives of people, unarmed people in places where they were not expected to be. This became an era that seems to suggest that there was a way of looking at what we were going through through a different lens. You write about the two conferences that you attended at amherst and london, coalescing the ideas. Can you tell me more about that . Amherst wasase in when i was invited to give a keynote about caste and race. Of people result beginning to hear that this africanamerican woman was researching this topic, have been in india and they had heard about it and invited me to the conference. It was there at amherst that i began to test out some of the thinking that i had come to recognize as a result of the research. Were quite fascinated with the idea that i had written about the africanamerican experience in the south without using the word racism, a word that does not appear although people would assume that, the word that i used was caste. It was a moment to explore and share the views that i had come to recognize, not only is someone who has researched it, but also was experiencing it as well. All of these things came to coalesce in that space and as i talked about it, it turned out that i had a deep connection to formerly known as untouchable. The conversations came with the record should have shared experiences across time, across oceans, a shared experience. Thee were some of experiences that led to my feeling that this actually was something that needed to be written. About warmth of other sons celebrating its 10th anniversary. You think the secret sauces for that book . Peoplei think that to a muchl drawn phenomenon in our country that does not get much attention as it should. A time period between the end of reconstruction to the civil rights movement. That era does not get as much attention as they might otherwise. This is a way for people to understand it. Of our sonswarmth reflects that. It is the process that a reader will get to being another person. Getting to know three people, very deeply, providing them with getting to know them deeply and being able to share their experiences from a well of deep understanding because they share so much with me and being able to go along a journey with them and in going along in that journey, you get to experience what they experience. Which a humann being response to the circumstances that they might be born into and they may have to this pivotal decision. These are uniquely human circumstances and a human being can identify with the yearning to be free, the learning to break from the restrictions that they might have been born into. The hopes and dreams that they might carry as they make it across the country. Story thatuniversal is in our background no matter where we might come from, to experience some type of migration, so i think that is what speaks the people. Is theve nonfiction closest we might get to being another person. That fiction allows us to build empathy as we get drawn to the characters we are learning about in experiencing that unfold the story of a novel. Nonfiction, wee seek to allow the reader to experience that journey that comes from that we often associate with fiction, but it is true, it is real, it is verifiable. This gives people the best chance that they ever will get to be another person, to be inside the heart and mind, the spirit, the dreams, heartbreaks and setbacks that people might go through. One of the reasons why people are drawn to it. People whonces of ,ere survivors of jim crow their experiences become deeply familiar to those of us who may see what happens with george floyd and many others. A lot of people look at the so there sons suns, is the combination of story and truth unfolding before us. Describe theld you style of caste . It is very different in your approach. Pcs there are many pieces that i explored and. Esearched anthropology, all in order to better understand the phenomenon that is very old and an ancient phenomenon, one that can surface in other cultures where we might not be looking for it or expecting it to be. I was pulling from different many previously written works, many different ways of looking at it, references to the old testament, to einstein, pulling all of this together in order to create a quilt that would give us another way of looking at ourselves. Host how did you decide on the subtitle . The subtitle was actually the working title for most of the time that i was working on it. It was the immediate purpose and , and that wasrk to understand what was unfolding around us. In the recent years, to understand what was unfolding around us and to try to wheretand how and why and understand ther origins of our discontent. That is the goal, the purpose to try to get underneath the divisions and tensions that we are living in now. That the word caste is one you are wanting readers to use to change the lexicon, but other race andt you use our racism, which you write as one of the most contentious and misunderstood words in american culture. What are you saying there . I am saying that racism is a word that is a phenomenon that is real and has affected our country for as long as there has been a country. There is no question about that. What i am saying is that that word has become so contentious and i think a lot of everyday people may not even realize that there are formal sociological definitions that any scholars have created their lifes work to understand this phenomenon, but because it has so many meanings tomes different people, it is a misunderstood term that has come to be confused or conflated with hating someone or just or all these words i get pulled together. Together. T pulled what this book is saying is that underneath all of that is the infrastructure of a division to begin with. The originating hierarchies, the greatest ranking of human value that has been assigned to people based upon where they were born. What group they were born to. From a timerchy that was even before the country was founded, owing to colonial virginia. Because those hierarchies have them with us all the time, what i am doing is shedding a light on, holding up an xray to the country to show what is underneath these divisions. What is underneath what you call racism, that there is an infrastructure of division that predates race as a concept. Race has a concept is a fairly new one in history, dating back years, before there was this coming together of people either by choice or by force onto this line. Ofan beings did not think themselves in terms of what we now call race. Irish, they were lithuanian, were they were from the area known as gambia, but they were not identified primarily based on what they look like. In europe, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, you would not have needed to identify yourself as a basis of your skin color. It was not the identifying characteristic. It was only when people are , and what weher states, as the united the new world, do these external characteristics that would have been neutral or had very little meaning or then have meaning here, once people came together. This is a creation. We also hear that race is a social construct, and this is a way of understanding how it became a social construct. How it became an arbitrary characteristic to use to rank people in a hierarchy that was requiring that there be people to do the work, to build a colony, and then the country. And there had to be people to do that, of course the great tragedy is that the people who were here, the Indigenous People whose land this was was driven off the land and numbers estimated. Decimated, and then they brought in africans to be enslaved, to build this country. In doing so, they created a what was really a bipolar caste system, the africansrom brought in as slaves to be at the bottom. The Indigenous People were excluded and out casted in their own land. This was the framework for how the country, the hierarchy that we had lived with throughout the centuries. That you write in caste the human impulse to create hierarchies runs across societies and cultures. What did you learn in your research about the genesis of that human instinct . Ofst i came to the process eight different characteristics, pillars of caste. Thread, the common point of introspection in the occurringthat i saw wherever it happened. I would say that one of the originating characteristics, which is pillar number one, would be world religion. Finding the laws of nature, the way that culture must find or chooses to find justification from the laws of nature or from received wisdom from on high to degradation, the positioning of putting people. Eneath your group there is this desire to find justification for these things that are arbitrary. One of the goals is to remind ourselves of how arbitrary these divisions actually are. But to overcome the recognition and natural recognition that one come about a culture needs to have some justification, that is one of the things that i found and made reference to that as a pillar because that is the essential convincing entire groups of people that they are above others and that others are beneath them, and from that, all of the other characteristics and mechanisms that are then used to keep other groups in a particular position so that the group that deems itself above and thetain resources primacy that they have been told or come to believe are their birthright. Producer tod our put those eight pillars onto a graphic that we can show to our audience. The question that i have as we look at them, do all castes share all these characteristics . Are they necessary to form a caste . Guest it is my contention that that is the case. Ould say that in order to there was a tremendous amount of work to be able to make the case its underpinnings, that there is an infrastructure of caste in order to make that case. I identified these eight pillars, which are present in any such hierarchy. They are present. I would say that sadly, they are present because some of them are very difficult to accept in many ways. Host in order to understand how function, your research took you to two places. India and germany. Exist inst castes other places. Guest the entire book is really about us. Countryout america, our , and a better understanding our country. In order to better understand our country and these longstanding, these long shadows under which we still live, why are these things still happening . Goal,as the originating to better understand ourselves by looking at other places that had experienced what i am describing is caste. The first place you would think of would be southeast asia, particularly india. Goal, tothe original try to understand better how there,work, originated frameworkerstand the for the caste system there historically. In the process of working on this, charlottesville happened. After charlottesville, we all could see the symbolism of the United States, the confederacy, and nazi germany in the symbolism that the protesters used, brought together themselves as they were protesting the potential removal of the statue of Robert Ely Robert e. Lee. We saw the symbolism of another culture and another time reaching over to nazi germany in a way that we might not have seen before in such a big way because in recent times it was there that charlottesville where the protesters brought the symbols together and it was then that i began to think to myself about what is it that germany had been doing in the intervening time . What is it about germany and the protesters would see themselves in what we saw in charlottesville were questions about memory, questions about history, how do we remember our history . How have we absorbed our history . We are not on the same page about what our history has been. That is what set me on a course to look at germany and the 12 year concentrated creation of a caste system there, but the nazis did during that time. Obviously, the most terrifying, horrific crime against humanity that ultimately was called was culminated, and i wanted to understand how the german how did the germans work through their history . Thatid they reconcile history . How are they atoning for that history . My initial goal was to see how they were dealing with history because we are dealing with history very differently. I tried to look into how they were dealing with it and then i came to realize that i had no idea one of them was that it turns out that germanys genesis was turning to dialogue with an american genesis leading up to the third reich, i had no idea about that. It turned out that america you ists were eugenic writing books that were popular among the nazis and nazis were using these american books as their textbooks. The nazis needed no one to teach them how to hate. They needed no one to teach them how to hate. But it turned out that the nazis had researchers go to the United States to study exactly how the United States had subjugated africanamerican. The nazis sent researchers to that forbades marriage across racial lines in the United States. Out that there were 41 of the United States that had hard marriage across barred marriage across racial lines, not just blackandwhite mama but also asian descent. They sent researchers to study how the United States had laws,ated with jim crow segregation in public facilities, they looked for all of the ways. All of the laws in the United States and jim crow and segregation as they went back to debate those laws as they were forming what would ultimately become their laws. I had no idea. That is how i ended up focusing in on these three places because idea of spoke to this hierarchy and creating these artificial boundaries and artificial rankings that would have such horrific for what the nazis did, obviously. Host i am sure many readers will be surprised about the parallels between the jim Crow Development of the nazi code. Of course, the nazis ultimate the elimination of a group of people. Book the subtitle of the was the origins of our discontents. With an emphasis on the origins. The focus for what i am looking at is where are the originating points for introspection and what can we learn from them . The focus when it comes to the germany wouldzi 1920s,years of the interaction with the theyicists in the 30s as were forming a government. And creating that was the interesting thing, to your can bethe 12 year reign instructive for all of us wayuse it started out as a to begin to look for ways of legitimacy in the United States. But also, the fact that they took a group of people who were among the most successful and accomplished people in these countries and then converted a subordinated caste. [indiscernible] with each decision that they made, and ultimately the final decision that came later in the war. This is an effort to look at the origins of these hierarchies, with an emphasis on the origins so that we can somehow learn from them and obviously, to make sure that these things never happen again. Host thinking about indias caste system, it is still very different from the 12 year nazi rain reign. What did you learn about its structures and permanence in society and how that impacted your evolution of thinking about the american caste . Guest i wanted to understand this because it is such a complex, ancient system that is based upon four main armors dharmas, brahman at the very top thesubcastes within each of four. And then the outcast of the people at the very bottom, the untouchables. That an Additional Group are potentially exiled in a different kind of way, similar to how Indigenous People in our country were treated. There is a complex system for exactthere are not analogs because they are so aretruct but there points of introspection and things that we can learn as a result of the ways in which that up puttingm, ended its people at the very bottom, using some of the mechanisms that were shocking to me that all three of these systems ended up using, independent of one another, across time, across space, cross ocean. There were continents that ended up using similar mechanisms and that was one of the things that actually reinforced this idea that caste as a phenomenon is something that can be applied once someone understands what caste is to begin with and the ways that it manifests along these different characteristics. One of those would be the idea culturesne of these made in terms of purity of the dominant caste. That was a prime signature of their hierarchy, meaning that to protect the purity, caste became a main focus to protect the dominant caste from presumed pollution by products by proximity or interaction with those beneath them, assigned to the bottom. Across these three civilizations, these cultures, water became the central symbol of purity. Water being an element of life itself on our planet that humans require, and yet, each of these cultures, water became the controlling factor. Untouchablesthe could not use the same well. They could drink from the same cup. It would be unimaginable. There were restrictions in terms of spacing that the lower caste people, many thousands of subgroups that were considered part of the lower caste, but there were some who could not be within 96 paces of someone of a higher caste. Many rules and laws and restrictions. But when it comes to water, the nazis as well restricted jewish citizens from access to water in schools that id have been near their own homes, so that water became a central feature and manifestation or symbol of. For the nazis as well. Thingsthe many horrific but the nazis did, but they took the time to make the distinction there and in our country, the focus of this book, water became whereral dividing line the many features were not africanamericans were not theitted to go to beaches, pools that were controlled by or ,ntended for the dominant caste there are many examples of could who actually it be a matter of life and death in many cases if you were to reach this central principle of caste. There was a case in 1919 were a young man, an africanamerican off of awas swimming beach in Lake Michigan in chicago and he was waiting in in theer and wading water and he waded into the whitewater. Death forned to having done so, and that set off of of the many race riots that summer in which many, many right,perished and not in that riot. The idea of water is one of the intersecting point of introspection that was characteristic of all of these different cultures across time, across space, not necessarily knowing, but just doing this because that became one of the principles that seemed to be so important for maintaining the primacy of one over another. Host you tell us that Martin Luther king visited india. We found an archival clip of him telling that story in 1965 to the los angeles World Affairs council. It is audio, but lets listen. One afternoon, i went down to speak in the southern part of india, in a school that was by youngby and large boys and girls who were the children of former untouchables. I remember that afternoon that the principal got up to introduce me. As he came to the end of his introduction, he said i would like to present to you a fellow untouchable from the United States of america. That i would be introduced as an untouchable. He soon, my mind ran back to across america. Started to think about how my living children were still judged on the basis of the color of their skin rather than the content of the character and i had to say to myself, i am an inouchable and every negro the United States is an untouchable. Segregation is evil and sinful because it stigmatizes the segregated as an untouchable in a caste system. Like listeningt to that 60 years later . And researchedd that experience that he described for quite a bit and hear his words and say that is stunning. Yes, dr. Martin luther king himself wrecked as and came to recognize that we in this country live under a caste system. That we inherited caste system and it is self evident him as well. It became evident, the connection between india and stigmatizing phenomenon that has held people back in this country for so long. Parallels, canor you explain the inheritors of the intangible class after it was outlawed and formed the basis of Political Representation in india . How much power have they managed to accrue in Indian Society and continue. Parallels one of the things that i often say is that people often ask why , will what is it that human beings do in circumstances . Similarities are in the way that people are treated, mechanisms for , and soing these groups their system is different from ours. They have a Prime Minister and a president. There are those who manage to to education and go on professions. India, abolished untouchability in the late 1940s, early 1950s, and so that they actually abolished untouchability and outlawed discrimination before the United States actually did in the 1960s. But that does not mean that the laws that the change in the leads to changes in custom that have been in place for so long. What we can learn from both countries is that despite the advancements, there can still be the remnants, the residue of the shadow of the originating hierarchies that have been in place for so long. But they can still be there can still be animated forces in the current day. That is what has happened and so these countries and there was a black Panther Party afterward that the people, many of them saw the connection that created the Panther Party. Has been a call for lives mattering as well. Because of the atrocities that ,till occur, all too frequently in india despite the laws that have an in place. I think that we have learned that despite the truth of many and theons of progress, laws that might have been changed, there can still be this residue, this ongoing, this because wechallenge have not really dealt with what is underlying all of this, which is the underlying structure of hierarchy itself. You remind us of the major recognition reckonings of race in this country. With Martin Luther king, there was a large legislative yardstick, the civil rights legislation which ultimately passed in the mid 60s. Thinking about today in the United States what yardstick can this society use to measure progress and change . Expert inm not an policies. I am like a building inspector who has presented the report. This is what i am presenting in this work. But i would say that the one metric is the numbers that we are seeing when it comes to people who die at the hands of police, mass incarceration, the number that we are seeing with the tremendous wealth gap and again, not rich cap, but wealth gap, meaning assets that are family or household has accrued and gap between africanamericans and their white counterparts where the gap exists regardless of the level of education achievement. The gap is a regardless of irregardless of the professional standing of the individual. The advantages and disadvantages that were not a part of this, that nobody asked for, that you are born into a place of the hierarchy. As a result of redlining and allowedive laws that people in the dominant caste to purchase homes with governmentbacked mortgages which africanamerican families were excluded from, we have those descended from children who have been excluded from the American Dream and the end where is this wealth gap owning a home is one of the most common ways that a family illness wealth and a legacy for their children and grandchildren and this has been denied to africanamericans for veneration generations. The measures would be where we can look at how our people are faring. How are people faring, even factoring in the things that they may be doing to improve themselves . Hoping to education, apply for jobs that are in accord with their education and still not being able to get ahead. There are many metrics that we have to look at now. References three milestone dates. I wanted you to explain more of their significance. 2111. 2022 marks year that america will have been an independent nation for as long as life has been in existence. Host what is your thinking about that . Which of people take away from that fact . Guest people should take away that there was enslavement so it actually went on for so long that the United States has been in existence for the same amount of time that there was enslavement. It lasted for 246 years and one on for 12 generations. Greats do you have to add to the word grandparent to imagine how long enslaved lasted enslavement lasted . It went into the founding of the United States and on for so long that it will not be until 2022 until the United States will have been a nation for as long as enslavement lasted. 2011 date. Guest it means that no window alive today no adult alive today to the point where africanamericans would have been free for as long as they were enslaved. That will not be until 2111. A date that is in our immediate future and frames the latter half of your book is the date 2042. Projected datea when there will be no majority race in our country. The majority race or group in our country that would be white americans will no longer be in the majority. That is the moment of change in the demographics that no one alive would even begin to know what that truly because it has never been the case in our country. In other words, this is a historic demographic change in our country. It has ramifications for everyone because no one has experienced anything different than what we are accustomed to. It means that we have to reckon with who we are as a country ourt we need to recognize connection to people who are descendents from outside of this era, we have to reach across these artificial boundaries and be able to find the things that we have in common. Thing thatcan is the we may say that we have in common. What does that mean to when the american majority is not what it has always been until this point. It is a moment of opportunity if we are willing to ca as that. To see it as that. Host you quoted barack obama and change called his election a change in the caste script. What are the consequences of his eightyear presidency . And the election of Kamala Harris to the democratic ticket . Guest these are tremendous historiansents that will be studying for generations to come. This was the first time that someone who is not from a historic dominant group was elected to the white house, elected to the presidency. If you think about the symbolism of that, there have been enslaved people who built the white house. Asicanamericans who worked butlers and servants in the white house, but to have them come in in this way is just historic, obviously. Was a change originating from the originating hierarchy in our country, what i call the caste system. When there are changes in a caste system, there are affect that occur throughout effects that occur throughout. One metaphor in the book is the idea that there are many ways that caste in our language. One of the ways that it is used is a cast in the play. You have everyone in their assigned position and everyone lines toipt, their speak. The roles that they play. As long as everyone stays in their assigned role, but if there is a change in that script, something that happens that is not expected, then everyone has to figure out what does that mean for them . Do . What is it that we that is what happens when you rolesabout a cast, where and expectations and assumptions that are assigned or approved in a caste system, in a hierarchy. We have seen with this presidency, we also the pushback all saw the pushback and resistance that were put in place, that would in some ways not be unexpected when you look at it through a lens of caste. Host let me look at outcomes in the few minutes we have left. The goal of this work is not to resolve all these problems, but light on our history and everyday lives and express hope for resolution. Let me think about your metaphors. Thebones of the body, ahouse. Ae of house. Those are impossible things to change. This pessimistic, that of caste system cannot be changed . Guest i would not have written it if i thought that this could not be changed, if there were not ways to pushback these artificial boundaries. That is why i wrote it. I have another metaphor dealing with you go to the doctor. Before you even see the doctor, you are handed this sheet. Out, and ofto fill the doctor wants to know before he or she sees you, they want to know your history. Not just your history, but your parents, your grandparents history. The doctor needs to know your history in order to better diagnose your situation, in with thatelp you situation, in order to resolve whatever your problem may be. That is what this work is asking. We look at the history because you cannot fix it, you cannot repair something unless you know what is going on. You cannot fix what you cannot see. This is asking us to finally see, to be able to know our history. One of the things i would hear time and time again after they read it was, i had no idea. I had no idea. I heard that from all kinds of people, from all walks of life, people who are introspective with that overlapped with the time period in question. They have no idea. That means that we have a lot of work as a country in order to fully learn the full history of what is before us. Understand what we are doing with now, but has happened, what we are dealing with now to work toward a place of healing. Divisions,s, these these fissures that we are dealing with now. We cannot do that unless we get on the same page with what our actual history has been. Economic downturn, protests large and small, height frame ofhip, is your mind optimistic about this countrys future or are you concerned about the shortterm . Yes, butam concerned, i have no choice to be optimistic. Because then, i wrote this book in hopes that those who read it and those who take it in with an open mind and a willing heart will be able to see where we have come from and the origins of how we got to where we are. I am hopeful that people approach this with an open mind and a willing heart that we will see very much how we have things in common and we will be able to reach beyond these artificial barriers and to do this not just for ourselves, but for our families, our children, our communities, our country, and for host Oprah Winfrey selected it toook and has sent Public Officials across the United States. What is the impact of that going to be do you think . Guest i do not know. I can only help it will illuminate these truths to people who can actually be in a position to really do something about it. All of us has a role to play, but the more influence one has, the greater the responsibility and the greater the calling. I hope that all of this will come together to make this a better place for all of us. In theou write acknowledgments about all the personal interactions you had with readers over the years after the publication of warmth. People sending you letters and emails. What did they want . What was the genesis of their connection with you . Are you anticipating that this book will have the same personal reaction from readers . Guest it already has. I have heard from people who are saying that this is opening their eyes in ways that they had never been opened before. Said are people who have sending it out to people that they know and love. That was a similar response to warmth of our suns. Descendent of a migration, but also people who were descendents of immigration from other parts of the world. It has a special place in the hearts of many people because it was a chance to tell their story, to hear their story told that it hasnt been before, because we often look at history with the big h. This is a chance to look at history the people who have lived it, through their perfect. Ask,f the things that you one of the things that is so deeply touching to me that i hear more often than you would imagine is that people were telling me with tears of gratitude that this was the last book that their mother or their father or grandmother had read before they passed away and these are often children or descendents of migration, and the reason they say that is because the people who endured this and survived jim crow often did not tell their children what they endured. They did not hurting their children with the had experienced. The posttraumatic stress, they did not speak about it. This book for many people ended up being the last book that they read before they passed away and that allowed them to come to a place of healing, a place of validation for all that they had gone through. It is a profound honor to be told this by the children of people who had spent the last days and hours with their loved ones with this book and feeling a sense of gratitude for. That is one of the highest honors anyone can ever receive. Wilkerson joining us to talk about her new book, caste. The occasional bandwidth challenge, we apologize for that would for that to our audience, but thank you for spending this hour with cspan. Guest thank you so much. Programs arel q a available on a website or as a podcast at cspan. Org. Announcer the president , available in paperback, hardcover, and ebook, from public affairs. Presents biographies of every president , inspired by conversations from noted historians about the leadership skills that make a successful presidency. As americans go to the polls next month to decide who lose our country, this collection offers perspective into the lives and events that forged each president s leadership style. To learn more about all of our president s and the books featured historians, visit cspan. Org the president s and order your copy today, wherever books are sold. Announcer as coronavirus cases newe in the u. K. And lockdown and research ands are enforced, Prime Minister Boris Johnson took questions on Financial Support for the unemployed. Notably in hospitality and event planning. Party leaders also pressed the Prime Minister on his governments handling of the coronavirus and access to testing sites. This is taking place. Prime ministers, the prime mi
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