In Defiance of Caste
A week ago today, my mother, brother and I went to see “Origin,” based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
Like the book, the film is powerful, deeply moving and revelatory. I was in awe of how beautifully Ava DuVernay brought Caste to the screen.
Caste is not a book one could necessarily imagine as a film, but Ava DuVernay brought Isabel Wilkerson’s life to screen, as well the fact that in the United States, we absolutely do have an unspoken caste system.
I have been examining racism and identity for much of my life. I read Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father the year it was published, when I was 17-years-old. My understanding of the history and perpetuation of racism in this country is profound.
I am also the author of an antiracist book, Strength of Soul. Antiracism has been at the crux of all of my professional work, but aside from my own book, I had never in my life read a book that mirrored my lived experience until I read Caste.
In Caste, I saw the contrast in my experience growing up as the daughter of a white, Jewish-American father versus my experience as the biological, brown-skinned mother of a son presumed to be white. Not only did I see the contrast reflected back, but it is in Caste that I understood why.
It is our unspoken caste system that led people to assume my biological, white father had adopted my older brother and me.
It is caste that leads people to assume I am my biological son’s caretaker.
It is caste that elevates whiteness while simultaneously devaluing blackness and brownness.
It is caste that associates whiteness with privilege, power and protection.
It is caste that associates blackness and brownness with marginalization, disenfranchisement and criminalization.
Caste gave me a different understanding of my life experience, it transformed my approach to antiracism and it gave me new language to use in my writing and in my work.
In “Origin,” Ava DuVernay chose to share Isabel Wilkerson’s dedication in Caste, which reads:
“To the memory of my parents who survived the caste system and to the memory of Brett who defied it.”
Reading those words again, it dawned on me that my parents also defied caste. As my mother, brother and I walked away from the theater, I said to them, “We would not be here without a defiance of caste.”
As soon as I said it, I felt my chest constrict with emotion and tears spring to my eyes. The profundity of that truth had never hit me until seeing Caste brought to the screen.
My Ecuadorian mother and my Jewish-American father defied caste at every turn, including how they raised my brother and me.
We were raised to understand history and systemic inequity, knowing to never conflate it with who we are.
We were raised to know that the casteism we experienced was always a reflection of this country’s history and institutions, as opposed to a reflection of us.
It is because of how I was raised that I am able to raise my son, my only child, to also defy caste.
Because of casteism, my son is privileged, protected and empowered in this society by virtue of his presumption of whiteness.
But rather than raise our son to accept caste, my husband and I are raising him to embrace the totality of his identity and to understand that casteism injures everyone.
We should all live our lives in defiance of caste.
And in deference to our shared humanity.
