Excerpts from The NY Times Magazine, July 5, 2020
America's Enduring Caste System, by Isabel Wilkerson
This article is adapted from Isabel Wilkerson's book,
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
On Whiteness From a White Person
“America is an old house. We can never declare the work over. Wind, flood, drought and human upheavals batter a structure that is already fighting whatever flaws were left unattended in the original foundation.”
As Isabel Wilkerson points out in her New York Times Magazine article, on “Whiteness and Caste,” we are like people who inherited a house built on unstable land. We may think we have nothing to do with our inheritance but as long as we continue to benefit from it, we do. Further deterioration is up to us to stop.
“Racism is over attention to externals.” This is Ron Buford’s definition, used by an organization he founded, called Racists Anonymous. I use this definition to add to the familiar definition of power plus privilege.
Here I begin to speak as a white person: our house still looks good on the outside, but it is rotten and rotting on the inside.” I make the rest of the points enumerated and briefly. I am sure I am part of the audience for your work on caste and only a part.
You are right. I need not justify the lack of care I have taken to our house. I need not focus on the whiteness or your rightness. The question is repair: Can the House be saved? I vacillate. Why not just tear it down and start over? As long as we tear it down, in a way similar to the way we play tennis when we are all but out of court time. We start the set at 3 – 3. We start evenly.
The old house was actually built UNEVENLY. Lucille Clifton, poet, says that “the Atlantic is a sea of bones.” Slave labor built the house and then others took the credit. Slaves had seen half of their fellow passengers thrown overboard. They had been yanked from their lands, languages and families. They started out in a psychological deficit and ended up in a wage chasm 400 plus years later.
What other explanation, besides caste, is there for these numbers? Two out of every 100 registered historical landmarks are places of people of color. Ninety-eight are white folks self-congratulating and taking up all the space true story deserves. The median income for Black families is $24,000, for Hispanic people, $36,000, for white people $142,000. When Covid hurt so many, it hurt people of color disproportionately. On just about every measurement, including the average age on which people died or die, Black people had twice as much trouble as white people.
“The average Black family with children holds just one cent of wealth for every dollar that the average white family with children holds.” Thank you, Ms. Wilkerson. You call this the wealth chasm. There is no better language than that language.
Of every 100 people white people know, on average, two are Black. Of every 100 people Black people know, 18 people, on average, are white
If you are not convinced of caste or the old house yet, you should probably just stop reading. But if you are and you are hoping somebody will say something restorative or reparative, consider this, especially if you are white.
Notice and grieve and weep over these matters. Don’t act like they don’t exist. You live in the house that these facts built. You live there. You don’t live in a suburb far away. It doesn’t exist, except when it exists in caste’s rich imagination.
Imagine yourself in a raffle, not a lottery. You get to buy 10 tickets by waking up white in the morning, other people only get one chance.
Indeed, the only way to fix this severely rotten and broken house is to tear it down and rebuild it. What a grand project. What a fun project. What an interesting project. All you have to lose is your wealth – and your impoverished spirit. Yes, you live on theft. Your theft has created a chasm. Realize that. Repent. Get forgiveness. Begin the art and act of repair.
Spiritually support the cash reparations, the legal reparations, the nervousness you have when everyone at your child’s birthday party or your graduation party or your anniversary is white. Deal with it. Invite – and before you invite, get yourself a few Black friends.
Every time you win another raffle, give some of the money and power away. If you give speeches, give them with someone else, preferably of color. If you are a member of Rotary, examine the guest list and the speaker list. If you are a consumer, stay away from Home Depot, Whole Foods, and other companies that supported the most recent President’s astonishing racism. If you have a fancy job with a good salary and good working conditions, consider giving it up and living in another way. Do little things. Do not exotify. Do not use. Do not objectify. Treat people like people. It’s not that hard. And it is so much better than invisibilizing them. You might even learn something.
Anti-racism is a spiritual practice. It is less about how the house looks from the outside and more about what the house holds inside itself. Racism is an over–attention to externals.
Dream of a new home. You deserve it. This one has already fallen down and is going to collapse even more in the coming days and years. The great reckoning of right now, the way Black Lives really do matter, is yours to join. Or yours to fret. Belong to it? Why not? What have you got to lose but your privilege and your phony power and your money? There is so much to gain internally. It might even rebuild the house.
Rev. Dr Donna Schaper is senior minister at Judson Memorial Church, co-founder of New York City New Sanctuary Movement and Bricks and Mortals: RemoveThePews.com. Ashe is the author of 35 books, most recently, I Heart You Francis: Love Letters from a Reluctant Admirer. She also grows a good tomato.
