By Sonali Oberg

In November 2020, the DEI Shared Interest Group’s (SIG’s) book club read Isabel Wilkerson’s book, “Caste: The Origins of our Discontents.” Wilkerson’s book is about how brutal misperceptions about race have disfigured the American society. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author believes racism is an insufficient term for the systemic oppression of Black people in America. Instead, she believes America has a "caste" system. She describes this caste system as an artificial hierarchy that determines standing and respect, and access to resources. "Caste focuses in on the infrastructure of our divisions and the rankings, whereas race is the metric that's used to determine one's place in that," Wilkerson says.