As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not. — Isabel Wilkerson, Caste*

Isabel Wilkerson—author of The Warmth of Other Suns—will join children’s author Jacqueline Woodson for an online discussion of Wilkerson’s new historical study CASTE: THE ORIGINS OF OUR DISCONTENTS, which “examines how America has been shaped by an unspoken caste system and the impacts of this rigid hierarchy of human divisions on our lives today. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, she explores eight pillars that underlie these systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more.”*

The conversation is presented by the California African American Museum, and a signed copy of CASTE is available to order. See links below for details.

ISABEL WILKERSON and JACQUELINE WOODSON IN CONVERSATION*

Monday, August 10.

5 pm on the West Coast; 8 pm East Coast.

*Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (New York: Random House, 2020).

See Eso Won Books to order a signed copy.

From top: Isabel Wilkerson, courtesy and © the author and Minnesota Public Radio; Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020), cover image courtesy and © the author and Random House; Jacqueline Woodson, courtesy and © the author and the photographer; Woodson, Red at the Bone, cover image courtesy and © the author and Riverhead Books.