@muiren Ooh...be careful. The stans are going to come for you! I like DuVernay's work and what she does for the Hollywood Black community, but this is a decent critique of the Wilkerson's approach in CASTE. But as I said before the middle class Black folks LOVE this book. Here's the link to an interview we did with a South Asian activist who explains that white supremacy, American racism and caste are NOT the same. https://nubiantigerspodcast.com/complexities-of-south-asian-identity-and-politics/
I don't understand the hate for Isabel Wilkerson, nor do I understand the hate for Ava Duvernay dramatizing her life.
I haven't read Caste (it's on my to-do list), but The Warmth of Other Suns - where she interviews nearly a thousand people to tell their story of the Great Migration - was incredible.
I felt proud to have this part of history told so beautifully, as it's part of my own.
@kat_kime@muiren The Warmth of Other Suns is universally acclaimed. In CASTE, perhaps because the book may have been rushed, she misinterprets some of the teachings on the caste system. In addition, she either failed to read or ignored two decades of analysis of caste versus race written by Black scholars, and Black legal scholars who researched and analyzed how caste and race are different in the American legal system. That's my objection.
@fulanigirl@kat_kime Caste doesn't suffer from a lack of research so much as it appears written to avoid making a white audience uncomfortable.
It offers no critical analysis or solution to ending the racialized class/caste hierarchy. The racialized class hierarchy is a Ponzi scheme only s few can ever benefit from at the expense of a permanent underclass.
A scheme that requires the willing duplicity of the middle class and poor, who fantasize they too can one day be on top, and so defend the status quo of oppression instead of uniting to end it.
The solution to the deliberately created system of caste and racialization, is their deliberate ending, NOT racial equality.
As I have said before, diversity among the ruling class is never progress, it is a bribe that discourages BIPOC elites who gain access, from fighting to end a system they benefit from.
@muiren@kat_kime I can't argue with most of this. But she is missing some research. (as indicated above...I'll try and send you some links). I do think her writing in the book appeals to Black elites who buy into the notion that they are exceptional and don't do analysis that includes more vulnerable Black folks and others of color. That is certainly the case in my circle where I am no longer able to talk about the book without backlash for not worshiping her.
@fulanigirl@kat_kime I was born into a family obsessed with elitism, status, wealth, and power at any cost. An obsession that permanently estranged us.
As late as 2016 my brown bag club father, aunt, and first cousin dismissed my experiences of having my paternity questioned because of my much darker skin, and bizarrely claimed colorism doesn't exist in Washington DC Black culture, that it might rarely happen elsewhere.
That level of denial is virtually pandemic among the most educated and affluent of the Diaspora.
@muiren@kat_kime These are just two examples. I'm sure someone has written on the issues you mentioned. Scholars have been thinking about the issues of race, caste, class and color for a very long time.
And, DC is absolutely the epitome of a place where colorism rules, in the past and still to this day.
@kat_kime@fulanigirl I bought and studied it, but never was able to find anyone local interested in reading and discussing it. I try to ignore people who throw shade and are too intellectually lazy to offer evidence and logic to support their opinion. That isn't the case with Professor Ball's critique.
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