Book Review Blog |Only after reading the book, Caste, by Isabella Wilkerson, did I understand the most haunting photograph I ever took. A second book, Lige of the Black Walnut Tree, by Mary Othella Burnette, helped me to understand what was going on behind the child's despairing gaze.
I was in South Asia working with an organization that funds community development activities through monthly donations to "sponsor a child." The organization's technical experts took me on a field trip to see community improvements they had initiated. A few of the sponsorship staff rode along to take photos and gather letters from sponsored children as part of the periodic feedback the organization provided to child sponsors back in the U.S.
We were walking along a dusty path and the staff stopped to admire and photograph a little girl who was a beneficiary from the program. As you can see in the photo she was smartly dressed and equipped with school supplies. Beside her, another little girl, the same age, stared at the camera. She was dressed in rags and holding an under-nourished sibling. She was not heading off to school.
The sponsorship staff took several photos of the school girl and commented cheerily about the positive changes in the child's life. I was stunned that no one seemed to notice the girl on the right. When I asked about her, they said she was an "untouchable." I was horrified. I took a photo of both children standing inches apart and hung it in my office. I have looked at it every day for fifteen years.
An important side-note to explain is, that since that time, these organizations have shifted from investing in individual child sponsorship, to a more equitable community development approach that benefits all the children in a targeted community. Substantial investments are made to improve education, health, and livelihood in communities marginalized by ethnicity, disability, religion or gender.
My work in parenting education, for example, addressed inequities in care of female children compared to male; helped mothers gain more status in the home and community; and fathers to become more engaged in childcare. Together, parents in disadvantaged communities learned how to stimulate learning and promote physical and emotional well-being for their girls and boys.
Back to the story behind the photo. Twenty-five years ago when I first went to South Asia I discovered that there was a group of people viewed as "untouchables" or Dalits. The children, who picked through trash heaps for food, and their parents who did the most menial tasks in society were seen as less than human. They were born into a fixed hereditary caste for which there was no escape. They performed duties that the dominant Hindu caste could not do due to their religion. For example, slaughter of animals, leather tanning, and shoe making.
At that time, I had the naïve understanding that our American society was different. I explained my astonishment to my South Asian colleagues in this way. "In America, anyone, who works hard and gets an education, can get a good job and rise from poor to affluent class." I had accepted the American dream myth and could see that it had been realized within my own extended family. Like many children in my blue collar neighborhood, I was encouraged to work hard, get an education and make something of myself. Because I could.
Over time I realized that this scenario was more true for white children than black. Having a strong work and study ethic did not change their status in the way it might for me. As a youth I still assumed that blacks could also change their status in society through hard work and education. I am embarrassed by my naiveté and the cultural myths that blinded me from seeing reality.
At an early age, I was aware that opportunities for blacks were not the same as for whites. Even as a child, racial disparities disturbed me. I did not like the way white people spoke about blacks behind their back. I had relatives and neighbors with unshakeable beliefs about the inferiority of black Americans, and any evidence to the contrary made no dent in their fixed belief system.
I absolutely could not understand how "pillars of the community" could speak about others in this way. One thing I noticed, however, was that it happened most in regard to an African American who "didn't know his/her place." The white people were judging black people strictly by the color of their skin, not their merits, and punished them when their achievements were above their designated low status.
Since this behavior toward another human being did not fit with any Christian code, there had to be something more sinister going on. How could racism and Christianity go together? You have to visit the civil war and Jim Crow Era to see how the savage treatment of blacks by Southern Christians was justified. Read about the alignment of southern Christianity and racism in the cult of "The Lost Cause."
My dad was raised in poverty. He was a hard worker and positive thinker who built a small business. Regardless of any evidence to the contrary, he voiced the myth that black people are lazy and less intelligent than whites. In his mid-thirty's he became a paraplegic and lost his business. Our family survived on public assistance and the kindness of others. While his condition was now similar to the struggling African Americans living just down the road, his entrenched racial beliefs did not change.
I am so ashamed of this legacy. Instead of hanging a photo of the little girl excluded from society in South Asia, I could have hung one of many photos taken in the 60's in America. Perhaps the one of a thirsty African American child gazing at a water fountain and its warning sign, "whites only." That photo may have moved me closer to the truth.
Isabel Wilkerson's book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020) helped me to finally understand American racial bigotry for what it is, a system of caste. A caste system is defined as a social and human division that uses "inherited physical characteristics to differentiate inner abilities and group value." Wilkerson explains that race in America, "surpasses all others – even gender – in intensity and subordination."
In a caste system, there is a presumption of inborn superiority of the dominant caste and the inherent inferiority of the subordinate. Wilkerson explained, "It was not enough that the designated groups be separated for reasons of "pollution" or that they not intermarry or that the lowest people suffer due to some religious curse, but that they must be understood in every interaction that one group was superior and inherently deserving of the best in a given society and that those who were deemed lowest were deserving of their plight."
According to Wilkerson, "The greatest threat to a caste system is not lower-caste failure, which is expected and even counted on, but lower caste success, which is not." Lower caste achievers go against the 'script' handed down to us all. It undermines the core assumptions upon which a caste system is constructed and to which the identities of people on all rungs of the hierarchy are linked. Achievement by marginalized people who step outside the roles expected of them puts things out of order and triggers primeval and often violent back-lash."
Wilkerson thinks that the tyranny of caste is that we are judged on the very things we cannot change – the superficial differences that have nothing to do with who we are inside. Her goal in writing Caste, was to cast a light on its history, the consequences and its presence in our everyday lives, and to express hope for its resolution. Caste is a must-read book to explain the history of inequality in America today and what we need to do to form a more perfect union.
While reading Caste I developed an interest to know more about African American communities just after the civil war and during the Jim Crow Era. I had the good fortune to come across a book, Lige of the Black Walnut Tree, thanks to my friend Barbara Garrity-Blake, an anthropologist. Lige was written and self-published by Mary Othella Burnette, at 89 years, in August 2020. It describes a settlement of African American families living in Black Mountain, North Carolina, after the end of the civil war.
Burnette felt compelled to tell her life story because so little has been documented about African Americans living in Sothern Appalachia. She shares delightful anecdotes about her family and community from early childhood to mid-1940s. She provides a rare glimpse into the lives of several freed slaves including a grandparent and a great grandparent who purchased small tracts of land in 1865. Some of her tales will make you laugh and others will make you cry. But overall you close the book with respect for this small African American community's high moral values, hard work ethic and kindness to one another.
In this anthropological treasure trove of stories, we see the community's optimism and faith in their own future and in that of the country. In spite of oppression, they had unwavering belief that they would see better days by working hard and helping each other. She remembers her father saying, "The promise will come."
In three chapters, near the book's ending, Burnette talks about the pain of racism in her childhood. Her enduring spirit of hope carried her through life and she speaks about how encouraged she is to see the number of white people joining the Black Lives Matter movement today.
In an interview with Brian Palmer for the New York Times (December 12, 2020), she said the following: "When I look back on my life, I saw white people who looked at what was happening to us as if this was normal. I’m glad to see people of all races with the courage to stand up and say, 'This is wrong'. I think this is important, because it wasn’t happening when I was a child." Burnette told Palmer that white people should continue supporting the Black Lives Matter movement while also taking time to become fully informed about the history of racism in our country.
Like Mary Olive Burnette, I've seen slow but steady social awakening to the wrongs of racism. Over the years we have seen children from the most conservative households begin to take on inclusive values due to advanced education and actual life experiences working and living in multi-cultural, multi-racial settings.
While racism still exists at all economic and educational levels in our society, it primarily hovers, at the doors of white lower class men who have seen their middle class status evaporate. They suffer from a growing wealth divide that has left them behind and an economy that now requires a skilled and educated workforce. Masculinity is also threatened. Their daughters are doing better in school than their sons and their wives are getting better jobs. Over the past four years, their simmering frustrations were used to light a political bonfire of anti-government sentiment that fueled several dangerous white supremacy groups to do its work.
What can be done to address the suffering behind all this hate? The problem is bigger than all of us but I can think of some actions that will help. We need to diffuse the hate rhetoric by identifying American terrorist groups for what they are and aggressively prosecuting hate crimes. Increase opportunities for skills training and good paying jobs for discouraged white men and under-served black communities, particularly young men of all races. Let's build new industries with good paying jobs in rural communities, increase public transportation, and make community colleges free.
We can also help to build one nation, undivided, by fully integrating our public schools; improving the quality of public schools with equitable allocations and resources to every public school in America; and ensuring that children who are home-schooled are taught by qualified educators with a standardized curriculum. Poverty alleviation programs for both white and black communities can contribute to racial equity. Let's all roll up our sleeves for this national priority so the promise of our constitution reaches everybody.
Wilkerson, like Burnette, concludes her book with optimism. She puts it this way, "In a world without caste, being male or female, light or dark, immigrant or native born would have no bearing on what anyone was perceived as being capable of. We would all be invested in the well-being of others in our species…If only for our own survival, we would recognize that we are in need of one another more than any time before. We would see that when others suffer, the collective human body is set back from the progression of our species."
The little girl, in that photo by my desk, had no hope for a bright future due to the system of caste in which she lived. I did nothing for her that day, and I could have, should have. Over the years, however, her photo compelled me to make the goal of human equality central to my professional work and life. I am one small crusader for justice. We need a marching band.
writeme@deborah-llewellyn.com to share your story.
Beautiful, Deborah.