The first place I went, or rather felt compelled to go, was Germany—Berlin, specifically—to try to comprehend a caste system that had arisen in a terrifying space of time, in a country that has been wrestling with atonement ever since. I am grateful to Krista Tippett for introducing me to a lovely group of people in Berlin that I otherwise would never have met. My thanks to Irene Dunkley and to Nathan and Ulrich Koestlin for their kindnesses and most especially to Nigel Dunkley, who recognized my mission from the start and shepherded me through the trail of Reich history with keen insight.
For the opportunity to experience India firsthand, I am indebted to professors Ramnarayan Rawat and K. Satyanarayana, who opened the door as I planned my first trip to Delhi, who made a way for me to meet other scholars of caste, and who extended to me every courtesy. There I had the chance to talk with Dalits who had labored against the obstacles in their paths and with whom I felt an immediate kinship, along with people from a range of other castes. Among the people whose perspectives I found especially helpful were Anupama Prasad and Sharika Thiranagama, who were completing research into caste inequities.
Unbeknownst to me, word spread that I had flown to India on this mission of caste. I was soon asked to speak at an international caste conference at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, alongside Indian political theorist Gopal Guru and Indian philosopher Meena Dhanda. I was overwhelmed to later be asked to deliver the conference’s closing remarks.
There, faced with translating the Jim Crow caste system for an audience focused on India, I began to draft the earliest outlines of what would become the pillars of caste. I am ever grateful to Sangeeta Kamat, Biju Mathew, and other conference leaders who embraced me and invited me into their fold and to the many other kindred spirits I met there, including Suraj Yengde, Jaspreet Mahal, Balmurli Natrajan, and also Gary Tartakov, who immediately understood the humanitarian goals of my work and encouraged me onward.
During this quest, I came to know two survivors of the Indian caste system then living in London. Tushar Sarkar gave hours of his time to describe his experiences growing up in India and his disillusionment with caste. Sushrut Jadhav shared with me the parallel burdens, blessings, and exhaustions of living a life in defiance of caste, along with his insights as a psychiatrist and anthropologist. At his home, I had stimulating conversations with his family and with the author Arundhati Roy about the absurdity of caste.
Because this project interweaves the perspectives and insights of multiple disciplines—anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, philosophy, and history—I am indebted to entire bodies of scholarship and to those who have contributed to an archive I sought to learn from and perhaps to build upon. I am grateful for the work of historians of enslavement, particularly Edward Baptist, Daina Ramey Berry, and Stephanie Jones-Rogers, and, in the history of race-based medical experimentation, the groundbreaking work of Harriet Washington. While this book is pointedly not about racism in itself, any book that touches on the subject owes a debt to the scholarship of Ibram X. Kendi and to the mission of Bryan Stevenson, whose memorial to lynching victims sets the standard for reconciling history.
For taking a sledgehammer to the false god of race, I am grateful to the late anthropologists Ashley Montagu and Audrey Smedley and, in the current day, am appreciative of Ian Haney López for his legal genealogy of race in America. For uncovering the parallels between Jim Crow America and aspects of the Third Reich, I am indebted to the definitive research of James Q. Whitman of Yale University. His work decisively connects the history of Nazi Germany to that of the United States and illuminated what I had had reason to believe from the start. I am appreciative of the discerning analyses of philosopher Susan Neiman of the Einstein Forum in Berlin, whose book Learning from the Germans was published just as I completed my manuscript. Discovering their work as I neared the end of my research affirmed the course that I had taken.
Early on, I discovered scholarly mentors from the past, people who had walked this road and whose words I turned to time and again for reassurance and insight. These ancestors in the scholarship of caste include John Dollard, Hortense Powdermaker, Lloyd Warner, Burleigh Gardner, and Gerald Berreman, in particular. Berreman studied and lived in both India and the Jim Crow South and was in a singular position to compare the two caste systems. He recognized the parallels and stood up to the skeptics with the quiet conviction that comes from deep research and firsthand experience.
Beyond these, I consider the late anthropologist Allison Davis to be a spiritual father in the quest to understanding the role of caste in America. The caste system forced him and his wife and scholarly partner, Elizabeth, to live what they studied, and they risked their lives to train a searchlight on the evils of caste.
Seventy years after the Davises completed their fieldwork in Mississippi, I happened to be attending a gala at the New York Public Library. There, that night, I first mentioned to my editor and my agent that I planned to write this book. Minutes later, I was mingling among the thousand or so guests packed together in tuxedoes and sequins, and found myself standing near a man I had never met but who had been a fan of The Warmth of Other Suns. He told a bit of his background and his name, Gordon Davis. I realized, from what I knew of the late anthropologist’s life, that the man I was talking to was all but certainly the son of Allison Davis. I asked if that, in fact, was true. A prominent attorney in his own right, he was heartened that I knew of his father and had held him in such deep admiration. Coming just minutes after committing to this project, I took this to be a sign that I was meant to write this book.
I have been deeply grateful to the many people whose paths I crossed who, knowing of my first book, shared unbidden their encounters with caste as they, too, tried to make sense of it. There were serendipitous moments, like running into former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu just as I was contemplating the role of Confederate symbols. Over the years, I have been continually inspired by my ongoing conversations with historian and dear friend Taylor Branch, whose work and perspective often intersect with mine. I am also ever grateful to Sharon Malone and Eric Holder for the grace and thoughtfulness they have shown me.
The nature and timetable for a book under production in an era of global pandemic required collaboration and commitment on an epic level. Working remotely in a time of uncertainty, the following people at Penguin Random House, in addition to my editor, Kate Medina, made this book possible: Gina Centrello, whose support I have treasured, and publisher Andy Ward and deputy publisher Avideh Bashirrad. In copy editing, managing editorial, and production: Benjamin Dreyer, Rebecca Berlant, and Richard Elman. In the departments of art and design, overseen by Paolo Pepe, I had the pleasure of working with Greg Mollica, who could not have found a better photograph for the cover, who designed the brilliant jacket and wholeheartedly obliged my suggestions, as did Virginia Norey in designing the book’s sublime interior. I am grateful for the support and enthusiasm of the publicity department—Maria Braeckel, Susan Corcoran, London King, and Gwyneth Stansfield; and of the marketing department—Barbara Fillon, Leigh Marchant, and Ayelet Gruenspecht. Noa Shapiro deftly kept me and everyone else in touch and moved the process along.
Given all that this book required, I cannot imagine completing it without the calm and steady stewardship of production editor Steve Messina. His deep commitment, attention to detail, and patience oversaw the conversion of an evolving manuscript into galleys and then into a book that you can now hold in your hands. My sincerest gratitude to him.
Special thanks also to Sarah Cook, acting dean of the Honors College at Georgia State University, who, at a critical moment, made available to me three of her brightest students—Noah Britton, Clay Voytek, and Savannah Rogers. In the final weeks and months of my completing the manuscript, they spent time and energy researching last-minute questions and leads. Noah and Clay further dedicated themselves to additional weeks of fastidious fact-checking and,
by the time the work was done, had taken up the cause of the book as their own.
I would like to thank every reader of The Warmth of Other Suns and all of those who have written letters to me since its publication. Your support enabled the travel and work required for this book, and, while I sincerely regret that circumstances have often not permitted me to reply directly, please know that each and every letter is precious to me and each has sustained and brought joy to me as I continue this work.
Due to the toll that research of this kind takes, I cannot imagine getting through the process without the encouragement of J. Blair Page and of Bunny Fisher, who showed unflagging commitment to this book and to my well-being and who listened separately to drafts or to sections of it, rendering compassionate feedback. I am grateful to the extraordinary Miss Hale not only for sharing her story for this book but also for sharing her unmatched culinary masterpieces, her grace and wisdom, and, above all, her five beautiful children, who spark delight every time I am in their presence. My thanks to Stephanie Hooks for her ever-present optimism and for introducing me to their world.
For the compassion they have shown, I am thankful for D. M. Page and for Todd, Marcia, Leslie, Maureen, Christine, Brenda, and Dahleen; for Margie S., Michelle T., Rosie T., Rebecca, and Michael for their love and support at a time of personal challenge and loss; and, for dear Ansley and Rafe, for the eye-rolling, sidesplitting joy, wit, and laughter they bring. Thanks to the rest of the Hamilton family, and as always to Gwen and Phil Whitt, to the Taylor family, and to my extended family in Virginia.
I could not have gotten through the deepest chambers of this work without the backdrop of seemingly unrelated music that brought either the focus or the uplift I needed at various points of the writing. The nature of the task drew me for some reason to music from before September 11, 2001, and I found myself turning to: Philip Glass (specifically String Quartet no. 5), Parliament (“Flash Light”), America (“A Horse with No Name”), Prince (“7”), the Police, Thelonious Monk and T. S. Monk, and the soundtrack to the classic French thriller Diva. Aside from its gorgeous range of music, Diva is one of the few big-screen portrayals of a woman of my archetype depicted in ways that some other women can take for granted, presented as refined and pivotal rather than as subordinated stereotype or sidekick. Although there have been notable exceptions in recent years, this is a film where I need not dread the woman getting whipped, mocked, hypersexualized, killed off, cast as a servant, or portrayed by a man, a common practice in an industry that long denied black women the chance to portray themselves as they truly are. Diva was the kind of film that perhaps could only be imagined outside of the American caste system.
I received my first lessons in caste from my parents, who never used that word but who came into the world during what the historian Rayford Logan called the Nadir. They grew up under the ever-present threat of the southern regime, found a way to survive Jim Crow and even to flourish despite the obstacles their own country placed in their path. They prayed that their daughter might somehow escape the arrows of caste that they had endured and, although, in our country, that was not to be—it was not, nor is it still, far enough along for that dream of theirs to come true—I am ever grateful for their guiding light, their faith and fortitude, and the highest of standards they set for me and that they themselves lived. In every word I write, I can only hope to bring honor to their sacrifices.
Finally, I am grateful beyond language for the love and devotion of Brett Hamilton, the kindest and most giving husband I could have wished for, a gift from the universe. Many of the observations in this book first found a voice in our deeply fulfilling conversations and in our life together. While it breaks my heart that neither he nor my parents lived to see this culmination of what we, each in our own ways, sought to transcend, I feel his cosmic embrace as I send this out to the world, and I know that all three of them are with me now and always.
Isabel Wilkerson
April 2020
NOTES
Epigraphs
“Because even if I should speak”: Baldwin, Fire Next Time, pp. 53, 54.
“If the majority knew of the root”: Albert Einstein, message to the National Urban League, September 16, 1946. Cited by Jerome and Taylor in Einstein on Race and Racism, p. 146. The National Urban League is a civil rights organization that was founded in 1911 and is devoted to the social and economic well-being of African-Americans.
The Man in the Crowd
recently enacted Nuremberg Laws: Wayne Morrison, Criminology, Civilisation and the New World Order (New York: Routledge, Cavendish, 2006), p. 80.
Part One: TOXINS IN THE PERMAFROST AND HEAT RISING ALL AROUND
Chapter One: The Afterlife of Pathogens
It was the pathogen anthrax: Alexey Eremenko, “Heat Wave Sparks Anthrax Outbreak in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets Area,” NBC News, July 27, 2016, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/heat-wave-sparks-anthrax-outbreak-russia-s-yamalo-nenets-area-n617716; “First Anthrax Outbreak Since 1941: 9 Hospitalised, with Two Feared to Have Disease,” Siberian Times, July 26, 2016, http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/n0686-first-anthrax-outbreak-since-1941-9-hospitalised-with-two-feared-to-have-disease/.
He would boast of grabbing women: Jessica Taylor, “ ‘You Can Do Anything’: In 2005 Tape, Trump Brags About Groping, Kissing Women,” National Public Radio, October 7, 2016. The story was preceded by an editor’s note: “This post contains language that is crude and explicit and that many will find offensive.” Tim Hains, “Parental Advisory for Trump’s Angry Tweet Today,” Real Clear Politics, October 2, 2019, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/10/02/jake_tapper_issues_parental_advisory_on_cnn_im_going_to_be_quoting_the_president.html. Also Al Tompkins, “As Profanity Laced Video Leaks, Outlets Grapple with Trump’s Language,” Poynter, October 7, 2016, https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2016/as-profanity-laced-video-leaks-outlets-grapple-with-trumps-language/.
“so transparently unqualified”: Hari Kunzru, “Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance Review—Does This Memoir Really Explain Trump’s Victory?” Guardian, December 7, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/07/hillbilly-elegy-by-jd-vance-review.
Only weeks before, the billionaire: During a campaign rally in Sioux Center, Iowa, on January 23, 2016, Trump said, “They say I have the most loyal people—did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters….It’s like incredible.” Katie Reilly, “Donald Trump Says He ‘Could Shoot Somebody’ and Not Lose Voters,” Time, January 23, 2016, https://time.com/4191598/donald-trump-says-he-could-shoot-somebody-and-not-lose-voters/.
by 2042, for the first time: Conor Dougherty, “Whites to Lose Majority Status in U.S. by 2042,” Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2008, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121867492705539109; Ed Pilkington, “US Set for Dramatic Change as White America Becomes Minority by 2042,” Guardian, August 14, 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/15/population.race.
“give in to all the minorities”: Melanie Burney, “Bordentown Police Chief Called President Trump ‘The Last Hope For White People,’ a South Jersey Officer Testifies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 23, 2019, https://www.inquirer.com/news/new-jersey/frank-nucera-hate-crime-trial-bordentown-police-chief-trump-isis-20190923.html.
the Electoral College, an American: The Electoral College is a holdover from the era of the country’s founding, when fully 18 percent, or roughly one in six people, were enslaved, concentrated in the southern states, and not permitted to vote. It is a vestige of an eighteenth-century constitutional concession that allowed the southern states to count enslaved people as three-fifths of a free person both for their representation in Congress and for the number of electoral votes cast for president. It allowed slave states to exert more influence than they mi
ght have otherwise, and today it allows conservative, rural, and less populous states to have more influence than they otherwise might have without it. Akhil Reed Amar, “The Troubling Reason the Electoral College Exists,” Time, November 6, 2016, https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/.
there had been only five elections: The presidential elections decided by the Electoral College were: Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden in 1876; Benjamin Harrison over Grover Cleveland in 1888; George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000; Donald J. Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Tara Law, “These Presidents Won the Electoral College—but Not the Popular Vote,” Time, May 15, 2019, https://time.com/5579161/presidents-elected-electoral-college/. In 1824, John Quincy Adams was declared the winner over Andrew Jackson by a vote in the House of Representatives after a four-way race in which no candidate won a majority of either the popular vote or the Electoral College vote. “The Election of 1824: John Quincy Adams,” Bill of Rights Institute, n.d., https://billofrightsinstitute.org/educate/educator-resources/lessons-plans/presidents-constitution/the-election-of-1824/.
“fully functional democracy”: Matt Kisner, the Democratic Party chair in Richland County, South Carolina, said that in a “fully functional democracy,” impeachment would obviously be the right move, but in today’s United States, it would sadly be counterproductive: “It will rile up his base, it will validate all of their concerns that everyone is somehow out to get him, and that will just make it more complicated for us to beat him at the ballot box, which is where we really have to win.” Daniel Dale, “Democratic Leaders Remain Reluctant to Impeach Trump,” Star (Toronto), April 23, 2019, https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2019/04/23/democratic-leaders-remain-reluctant-to-impeach-trump.html.
Caste Page 38
