We’re living in a time plagued by deep divisions. But I think most of us would agree, we’re in for some huge challenges ahead. Trouble is, there doesn’t appear any clear path forward. One that would point us toward a brighter future. 

We’ve got a soaring “affordability crisis,” several poorly-planned military incursions into foreign countries, and even conflicts with some of our closest allies. On top of it all, we’re struggling with the effects of more frequent and intense natural disasters that we know are triggered by a warming climate. Those deep divisions aren’t helping either. 

Now is the time we need to pull together so we can find that path toward a brighter future. Social scientists have forever studied the forces that sabotage our efforts to unify around possible solutions to our problems. Sociologists tend to focus on America’s differences involving three major social constructs — race, class, and gender. Only recently, I happened upon a deep dive into a different perspective on social division.    

In August, I discovered a book entitled “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” written by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson. In it, she examines our culture through the lens of caste, something we seldom talk about. Probably because we normally think that caste is something solely about India. That is in part true, but definitely not the whole story. India’s hierarchical social system has shown up in other societies as well including, according to Wilkerson’s research on the subject, our own. The U.S. also has a strong social hierarchy that in many ways mimics caste, but we seldom call it that. Our social hierarchy operates a little differently but with similar results.

In India, caste systems are designed to divide people into strictly defined groups ranked in value by their caste.  Caste directly influences a person’s expectations for their future, their living conditions, and their degree of freedom and personal agency. Caste also determines their inherent worth in society. One’s caste is pre-ordained, often by the interpretation of religious scripture by the dominant caste, and passed on through inherited bloodlines. Caste position in India’s hierarchical structure of power and control is imposed at birth and lasts one’s entire lifetime. 

We Americans, steeped in our belief of national exceptionalism, have trouble imagining that our social structure, built on notions of freedom and choice, could ever resemble anything like that found in India. But Wilkerson’s analysis is an eye-opening treatise that defies that assumption and is well worth our consideration.  

India’s caste system is out in the open and well understood by most of its society. Consequently, it garners complicity from most of its population. It’s an ancient system that grants power to a dominant caste to impose or limit the personal aspirations of those assigned to a lower caste.  The dominant caste also sets rules of social contact between castes. Some interpretations of sacred texts grant permission for higher castes to strictly enforce these rules that have maintained India’s social power structure for countless generations. 

Wilkerson’s work examines American history especially in relation to race and its roots in America’s social structure. Starting in its colonial era, America began its elevation of race as a defining factor in its social order. This fact continued to show up throughout Wilkerson’s study of the earliest period of our nation’s social development. Our nascent republic began to exhibit signs and patterns in its stages of policy making regarding a social order of inequity that looked something like its own version of caste. 

As the economy of the United States grew, so did the demand for free labor, especially in the agricultural south. That need seeded America’s African Slave Trade. As the number of slaves increased so did the use of caste-like controls to dehumanize black slaves, strip them of their freedom and dignity, and reduce them to property-status. The American caste system would be based primarily on physical appearance. Black skin became the identifying feature of America’s lowest caste. African slaves were subjected to as much or more brutality than their lowest caste counterparts in India, the Dalits, also known as “Untouchables”. America’s despicable system of control, with its excessive maltreatment of those bound into slavery went on for centuries aided by a manufactured belief that black Africans did not feel pain. Once normalized, that false notion fostered a system of abuse and terror employing the worst forms of cruelty to maintain control, including rape, unrelenting public beatings, and lynching.   

The institution of slavery would become a cornerstone of white propertied male dominance in southern society, successfully keeping the reins of power in the hands of the dominant caste. Generally speaking, this hierarchical system of control, though not institutionalized nor nearly as brutal, still remains active today in many settings across America.  Special privileges bestowed on the basis of preferred class, race and gender are still not readily distributed throughout our society. A contemporary example of caste could be the image circulated in January of 2025 of a group of mostly white male billionaires prominently positioned on the dais behind the newly inaugurated president. The visual display of power was clear and very effective. According to Wilkerson, caste in America is alive and well — hidden discreetly in the fine print of our system. 

Wilkerson points to demographic information that predicts a likely shift in our nations ethnic and racial composition. Recent census data show a decline in population among self-identified “White” Americans. This data suggests that by 2045 we may witness a change resulting in America’s majority population no longer self-identifying as White.  She asks, might some of the extreme social divide we are witnessing today be related to pent-up, underlying fears surrounding these demographic predictions. 

America only knows itself as a white dominant society.  These kinds of demographic changes would upset the racial and cultural status quo, and likely fuel resentment, hatred, and discrimination.  “Othering” behaviors are endemic to our society, and most often directed at “minority groups”, America’s label for members of our lowest castes. Whether people of color, people with disabilities, or low-wage workers or anyone different from the social mainstream.

Even the thought of demoting the current dominant caste may feel like an existential threat to some in our society, on par with climate change that threatens our extinction, or AI “agents” that may take control over civilization as we know it. Contemplating any of these scenarios could trigger heightened anxiety and the need to defend one’s identity and personal territory. 

Wilkerson warns of worsening divisions. She wisely takes a compassionate approach toward our human tendency to fear the unknown. If a radical change in the American caste hierarchy resulted in members of lower castes assuming the power and influence once wielded by members of the previous dominant caste, it may trigger, in some, an irrational fear of some unthinkable disaster. 

Many of society’s beliefs and attitudes about “differences” related to race, class, and gender are as false as the notion that African slaves felt less pain than their white masters. Misinformed ideas must be eased out of our collective consciousness if we want to move forward as a well-functioning united society.

 In her final chapters, Wilkerson provides steps that could help reduce our divisions and preserve our fragile republic. The effort to build a more equitable society where we all can belong sounds like a worthwhile endeavor to me. 

Wilkerson’s message makes sense. Her vision offers hope. 

Caste is a provocative and profound analysis. I highly recommend checking it out. And then, let’s start offering a hand and talking to each other again.