Caste: Pillar Five

Hello, listeners. Please note that this episode contains strong language. Hi, everybody. Together with Apple Books, welcome to the Oprah's Book Club podcast, episode five in our series focused on Isabel Wilkerson's book, the origins of our discontents. Pillar five is titled Occupational Hierarchy. It explains how the lowest caste, the bottom rung of people, are forced to do the menial or lowest labor.

So Isabel, explain the history of how people from Africa became a target for free labor as far back as, you know, we arrived in 1619. Yeah. That's when it started.

Well, before there was the United States of America, there was this hierarchy, and the basis of that, the foundation of that, was what a senator from the South during that era of the 19th century actually described as the mudsil. The mudsil being the essential... part of the foundation of any structure in which everything else is built upon that and so everything else in the hierarchy was built around and upon this bottom rung of people who were brought in to do

for free starting in 1619, before there was the United States of America. And that meant that there was this delineation of occupations, of roles that one might play in the economy on the basis of what one looked like, one's heritage. one's background, and that's what set in motion what ultimately became a codified formal caste system with laws that controlled what people could do on the basis of what they look like.

Yeah, that's what established the hierarchy, actually. So how has being the laborers for centuries impacted Black Americans today? Because one of the things that we know people have issue with is continuing to talk about the past and not... seeing the connection between what happened then and how what happened then impacted now. That is essentially why I think you wrote the book is because you wanted people to understand the history. And by understanding the history, connect to why.

Black people have it so difficult today. Well, the goal of this is to enlighten all of us as to how we happen to be where we are. These are things that we've all inherited. We're talking about generations of this hierarchy in which for most of the time that there's been a United States.

people who looked a certain way were restricted, often by law, as to what they could do in the society. And it was not until the 1960s with the civil rights legislation that opened a way for people who were of African descent, descended from the...

slave people to do things other than what they were expected to be doing, meaning in their beginning and for 12 generations and 100 years after that, people were essentially tied to the land as sharecroppers or in what we would call the servant class, domestics and people who were.

in the homes or for people who would be viewed as the dominant caste. That literally was the role that people were restricted to for most of American history. And it's only been within the lifespan of many people alive today that people of Africa... African-Americans have been able to actually move into the mainstream and do things that they were not permitted to do before. And so one of the connections is what we've seen with COVID-19.

which is that primarily many of the people who were at greater risk of contracting this virus were those who were essentially black and brown people who were on the front lines doing the work that needed to be done. necessary workers who were stacking shelves at a supermarket or they were driving buses and in contact with the general public, particularly in the early going of this pandemic. And so they were at greater risk of contracting it, greater risk of...

getting sick from it and also greater risk of dying from it. And this is the legacy of the idea that certain people from the very beginning, even before there was a United States, were relegated and expected to be only in certain kind of roles in our country.

I would say that I think a lot of people are familiar with what you're saying because my grandmother was a maid. The only job that she could have ever had was to be a housekeeper working for white folks in Mississippi. Then my mother was a maid, and I remember my grandmother growing up saying to me, I hope you grow up to get some good white folks, because there was no vision.

of anything else I could ever be or do other than be a housekeeper and hopefully have some good white folks, meaning they wouldn't treat me bad, would have let me take food home, because that's what my grandmother was allowed to do, bring food home. hand-me-down clothes. And we all remember seeing the Detroit bus driver who eventually died of COVID, who was complaining on the bus about someone coughing on him, obviously not wearing a mask. And, you know, so many people who are service workers.

working in the public have been subjected to COVID in a way that people who are allowed to stay at home and Zoom were not. Yeah. I'd like to say that something you mentioned is so central to understanding how and where we are and how recent this is to describe your own family lineage as your grandmother and your own mother being represented in this subordinated group. domestic workers. And that means that you don't have to go very far.

into this family story of almost any African American in this country to run into people who were relegated and forced to, had very little in the way of options, but to do the work of domestic work or of somehow working within.

on the land somehow. You don't have to go very far. So that means that within the lifespan of people alive today, you can talk to people who were raised by people who were forced to do this or to themselves. And this is not ancient history then. I mean, with the warmth of the sun is the first place. book that I did, that was not ancient history. It's history, but it's living history. And that's how close we are to the world that I'm describing here in this new book.

Well, Shanna from Washington, D.C. is a principal of both middle and high school students. Hi, Shanna. Hi. I want to know how you have experienced what Isabel is talking about today in your own professional life, because you are a professional. but you still feel the ramifications of the dominant subordinate cast because of expectations about what you should and should not be able to do.

Absolutely. So prior to transitioning to school leadership, I primarily served as a special education teacher and part of those responsibilities. is that you co-teach with your general education counterparts. And I liken these to almost arranged or prearranged marriages and that you are put with another educator and expect.

to deliver instruction together in a seamless way so that an observer would not be able to tell who was a general education teacher and who was a special education teacher. And so oftentimes being... With my counterpart or my colleague, my abilities or my skills were questioned as in how I could support students, how I could deliver instruction, and oftentimes special education teachers.

are relegated to the menial tasks of the classroom. So attendance or taking care of behavioral or classroom management related issues, but you're not trusted enough. to handle the heavy lift, which would be instruction. And so it entailed a lot of proving that you were capable and you were knowledgeable. to support all students and not just the students who were designated, those who had special needs in that classroom. And so constantly being questioned, constantly being.

somewhat dismissed while you are an equal to your colleague in that classroom. And so then transitioning into leadership. that same perceived level of are you good enough continues. And so you find that as the text, there's a reference to Negroes would never be put in authority over white people. This plays out in leadership where you are questioned to a degree that your dominant caste colleague would never be.

And I heard that Isabel's book was so heart-wrenching for you, Shauna, that you had to read some of the passages out loud to yourself. Like, reading them out loud made it more tangible, more resonant. Yes. So like you, Oprah, I've been a reader in my entire life. And so those who read all their life tend to be fast readers. And so... I'm reading and I'm scanning and I'm marking through this book with all these post-it notes that I have.

and trying to enjoy it. But there are aspects of the book where I needed to hear the words out loud so that they wouldn't get lost. in the recesses of my mind. And so I needed to hear it similar to how you can read a poem or you can go and listen to spoken word. And when you hear that spoken word, it resonates with your spirit in a different way.

You might be a good candidate for an audiobook, too. I first started doing that. I'd never done audiobooks before Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi's book. And I found that the combination of listening to it and also being able to read it was easy. even more impactful. You have a question for Isabel about Pillar 5. Yes. So my question for you, Isabel, again, so excited to be able to be in this conversation with you. And so my question is. You share in your book.

about Blacks attaining positions of authority or leadership and how these types of positions have been believed to be reserved for the dominant caste. So knowing that this belief is still held by some people today, how do Black leaders... do the exhausting work of leading in the face of this ingrained belief about our abilities while moving in authority.

Yeah, that is the additional burden that people bear because you are having a job to do, so you need to do the job. And at the same time, you are on the front lines of disproving the assumptions and stereotypes. that a person might carry before you've even shown up. It's the additional burden that people carry. And it means that, you know, if you think about the loss to our country on so many different levels, one of them is just the lost energy that is spent by people who have

a job to do and that they end up having to have this additional almost second way of looking at the world in order to recognize that their job is not just to do the job but also to show and to prove that people are capable and able to do the job.

It's not something that people should have to do. It's something that we have inherited. And the work goes on because this is not something that has been resolved. It's not something that people recognize. Unconscious bias is not something that everyone recognizes that they may or may not have. And again, this is...

unconscious bias is not just about the race of the person. A third of African Americans hold unconscious bias against themselves. That's how deep the programming is. So unfortunately, the situation is that there's a lot of education that still has to happen. Each person, whether we wish to or not, are kind of recruits in the effort to correct the record about what people who have been assigned to the subordinated cast are actually capable of doing. It becomes an additional job that we have.

It's not something that we wish to have, but it's the reality. Yeah, I would say it's exhausting. It is exhausting. Yeah, it's exhausting. But after yesterday's session, I called Isabel. We ended up talking for another hour afterwards. I thought we'd have been talked out, but we talked for another hour afterwards. And you said something during that conversation because we were talking about, Mel, we were talking about you and Mel.

but we were talking about how excited that both of you were here and what that meant to us. And you were saying yesterday that you... and Al Bright, whose story is so poignantly told in Cast, that your generation were not necessarily marching in the street, but because you learned how to play the game and you learned how to be successful, that was your...

way of fighting back. And we were talking about that last night, and Isabel said something that will live with me forever. You said, success is the ultimate resistance. Don't y'all love that? Success is the ultimate resistance, which is what you and so many others accomplished, Mel. I was going to say that

Bringing that up is one thing I wanted to mention today. Just a note about Al Bright, because we sort of left it with the traumatic experience that he had. But I wanted to point out that later, Al became a tenured professor at Youngstown State University. He started and became the head of the African American Studies program at Youngstown State University. And he is a respected artist in Ohio. His paintings hang in museums.

and many of the offices of corporations throughout the state. So that even though the trauma was there, he discovered a way of overcoming it and being successful and therefore throwing back or... rewarding himself and ridding himself of the onus of the cast that he had been forced into.

Yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, I meant to ask that question yesterday, what happened ultimately. Yeah, so that was the ultimate resistance to end up being successful in spite of that horror that had happened to him. Melba, you're raising your hand. Hello.

Certainly when I was attending Central High School with the troops and all of that, there was a tendency at times you'd get beaten so bad. Some of it acted in my eyes. One of us, one of the nine of us, did fight back. And the one thing my grandmother and one thing Martin Luther King would come down, MLK would come down and have meetings with us in his basement. And he would say, to fight back is to last the year.

What I want you to do is to be there in the springtime. And my grandmother used to say to me every single day, there is no greater win than you make it till the end of this year. No matter how you get hit, no matter how many eggs are in your face, no matter what happens, you walk out of there at the end of this semester and you've done it. And so, yes, we were taught, I was taught, so you get slapped in the face, baby.

As my grandma would say all the time, don't call me nigger, call me Dr. Nigger. My mother would say that all the time. She says, call me whatever you'd like. Put the doctor in front of it. And so there was always this push to behave. To behave in a way that you cannot be questioned, no matter what they do to you, is what you do. Because as Martin Luther King would always say, the most important thing he ever said to me is Melba.

You are not doing this for yourself. You are doing it for the generations that come behind you. And when I internalize that notion... is when I began to understand this is a fight not for me now, but for my great-great-grandchildren. Wow.

It's hard to do when you're in the fight, too. I mean, that's the story you tell over and over again in the warmth of other suns about people who were fighting not just for themselves, who migrated to the north, who were not fighting just for themselves, but were doing it for, as Melba said, for... for their children and their great grandchildren.

Yeah, I think that people discover that we're all in a continuum, one generation following the other, picking up the baton. Sometimes reluctantly, we've inherited this. It's not anything that anyone asked for. And yet what we're ending up doing is that we, when you are breaking out...

of the box that a caste system has created for you then there will be resistance and I think that over time people have discovered in previous generations that there will be resistance and yet there is no other option because each of us must become who we are intended to be.

This is about self-actualization of our own talents and gifts and whatever it is that we have to offer the world. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to the world to break free of the box created for us, which means that everyone becomes sort of an unintended warrior in the... effort to dismantle the assumptions that come with caste without our wanting to. But there we are.

What do you say, though, to people who believe that President Obama shattered the whole caste system when it comes to occupational hierarchy because he achieved the highest office in the land? Well, I mean, it's very clear that there are extraordinary people such as yourself. who have everything that they need in terms of talent, gifts, genius, and then discover their ikigai, you know, the very thing that animates them that they're outstanding in, and then require everything that, you know.

breaks, opportunities that present themselves, and then making the most of all those opportunities in order to break free. And there are people who are extraordinary people, such as yourself and him, who have been able to do that. But it shouldn't take all of that.

in order to be able to break free of the caste system, but there are people who are able to do that. One or two, a select group of people who are able to break free does not mean that the caste system barriers are not there. It just means that these extraordinary people have managed to find a way to do that.

It should also be noted that in the originating caste system that seems so fixed, the one in India, there are Dalits who've become, there's a Dalit president. There have been Dalits who've been judges and physicians and professors. So there are people, even in the most rigid...

caste system. There are people who are formerly untouchables who've been able to manage to break free. There are laws there against untouchability and this kind of discrimination as they are here. But that does not mean that the laws are always enforced. And if the laws are not enforced...

then that means that these restrictions can still be there. But there are always extraordinary people who are able to break free, and it should be noted that they do it at great brilliance on their part, hard work, genius, all those things. It takes everything in order to break free. free. But that should not take away from the fact that the hierarchy still exists, the hierarchy still has to be dealt with every day by someone who's dealing with this. So they both can coexist.

Got that. I mean, even as I'm reading the book, I marvel at my own life and what I've been able to achieve in spite of the caste system. I do. Anu, you have a question. You wanted to make a point to what was being said? Thank you so much. On page 291, one of my favorite kind of chilling moments was when you were speaking to this Dalit student, Ms. Wilkerson.

And you asked him what would make him feel better, this anticipated rejection or rejection itself. And he said, what I need is to feel better inside my own skin.

So I think this goes back to Shaina's point, as well as what Mel and Melba shared, is that it's just so exhausting. Like for me, I have three degrees. I have a law degree. I've been speaking in front of so many people. Yet over and over again, I have to prove myself, seek this external value.

And I'd love for you to comment on this idea of weathering on the one hand, but then also what can we do, like particularly people in the middle caste and subordinate caste, to really incorporate that radical empathy for ourselves. What have you done? You know, perhaps both you and Oprah share your stories and how have you been able to move beyond this weathering?

I mean, as a millennial, as young people with a younger sister, so many people are just struggling with this idea that we're not good enough.

Well, that's such a wonderful question. And I would say that for me, in terms of how I deal with this, is I try to channel that trauma, that disillusionment, that sense of being demoralized at times, channel that. into the work, channel that into proving. In other words, we should not have to do this. I should say that what I'm about to say is not something that we should have to do. But one of the things is that the challenge creates for us is this opportunity.

to show how very wrong these stereotypes and assumptions are. We should not have to bear that burden. It should not be up to us. The work should speak for itself. We should be able to push through, in fact expect the support from people who depend upon us.

or who are hiring us and are working with us. But we realize that, I think that by being realistic about the challenges that we face and the obstacles that are there, understanding the caste system and the hierarchy that we've inherited, I think allows us to take it out of the person.

and to realize that this is not just about us. It's not just about whoever may not be understanding us at the moment. It's not about even the organization so much as just this is what we've inherited. This is the structure we've inherited. And it's not even about us.

in this moment that there are many, many people, generations of people who've had to deal with this. And I take strength from what they have done and endured under even far worse experiences and to take it as a challenge of disproving the doubters. and the skeptics, you know, take this on as a challenge and say, you're wrong. I know I can do this and I will prove it to you. That's one way to do it. As Oprah quoted me saying, you know, success is its own resistance. and its own reward.

I just love that. I just love that. And I would say the same that, you know, I just missed the sit-ins because I was born in 1954, the year Brown versus Board of Education and the great saving grace for me.

is that I was taken out of Mississippi and moved to the north as a part of that great migration. My mother moved to Milwaukee, so I started school in an integrated... classroom where i was always the smartest girl in the class and so for whatever reason i mean i often tell the story i've told the story before about walking into kindergarten all these little white kids are in there first time i've ever been around white kids my grandmother

in Mississippi had taught me to read the Bible. So I knew a lot of big words. So when I walk into kindergarten and all the little white kids are doing their ABC blocks. I write my teacher, Miss New, a letter and say, I do not belong here. I know a lot of big words. And then I write down all the big words I know. Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Deuteronomy. I mean...

And I get carried off to the principal's office and moved out of kindergarten my first day in kindergarten. And so I didn't realize that at the time, how validating that was for me and how... So I never moved through any integrated situation thinking I was less than. From that moment, felt like I was, you know, in control. And also, such a student of my history that I grew up...

citing Fannie Lou Hamer and Sojourner Truth. So I am very much aware that the crown for me has been paid for by Melba and the Little Rock Nine, by... So many people who went before me that made it possible for just me, just right on the cusp of that generation to be able to live the life that I have. So that's what keeps me going forward. That's what allows me to stand inside. myself because I know, as Maya Angelou used to say to me, your crown's been paid for.

You need to put it on your head and wear it. So that's how I try to move through the world. Marissa is one of our readers. She's a talent acquisitions manager at a Fortune 500 company in Florida. Marissa, hi. I hear you were inspired to read cast. because of an experience you had at work. Tell us about that experience. Yeah, thanks, Oprah, so much. So I have a pretty amazing job. My team that I lead gets to go all around the country and we recruit young talent.

into our country from colleges across the country. And the team that works for me actually is quite a diverse team. They're young professionals themselves. So in a company that's not too diverse yet, over half. my team is people of color and and many of them are young black professionals so i wanted to share that the weekend after the george floyd murder and the ensuing protests was a big weekend for my team

work wise. And I had spent that weekend really reflecting because of the George Floyd murder. I took a lot of actions. It really motivated me to first donate my money, read books. I started ordering Dr. Kendi's book, CAST wasn't out yet. So I was reading White Fragility. I was reading The New Jim Crow. And I reached out to my Black friends and I said, you know, what can I do to help?

And I started mentally thinking about what it was that I was going to do to address my team and, you know, kind of going through my head what I was going to say. And I made the decision to compose an email to let them know what I was doing to be an ad. and an activist for them.

And that's what I did. And unfortunately, that was the wrong thing to do. I made a huge error in human judgment. What I found out that evening is that I got some feedback from an employee on my team that I had done too little too. late her feedback was that I hadn't taken the time to acknowledge her that morning and ask her how are you doing and it's true I didn't take two minutes of time to have compassion and say to my team i know you've had a traumatic weekend what can i do and

The feedback I got from this young black female who was just starting her career in a predominantly white company where she is so brave to reach out to her leader and say, you let me down. That feedback changed me. And it made me want to do better. And the takeaway that I got from cast is that in history, tragedy like the George Floyd murder has been swept under the rug. And this generation of professionals, they're not going to allow that to happen.

and if i want to be a catalyst for change and a good leader i don't want to be a manager over i want to be a leader and to be a leader i have to support my team i have to facilitate conversation and i have to allow them to bring their true full selves to work every day and acknowledging things that are happening in the real world so they can be comfortable to talk about it when they come to work. That was the realization I had.

the learning that occurred, especially after I read about the history and plight of people of color. But you know, you were educating yourself, and you made a mistake in not saying, how are you, which is just... The most basic. common but generous thing anyone can offer someone is how are you? How are you doing? But I'm going to give you a lot of credit for being in the position of understanding that you needed to educate yourself. And so you started to.

read and you started to make yourself know or allow yourself to know things that you didn't know before. So I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. Did you want to say something to Isabel? Well, I want to thank Isabel. First of all, I. You know, I grew up in a rural town in upstate New York, and the population was overwhelmingly white. There were two Black students in my high school. And I'd like to think that I've changed and evolved through all of this time.

But in knowing that I have to do better, one thing I was thinking about the George Floyd murder is that it happened in a time when our country has had the opportunity to really slow down. and see things for what they are due to COVID. It's a pivotal time for corporations like mine to take action and to do better. And so as somebody who's working in this predominantly white male company that's trying their hardest, by the way, to change the face and demographics of the company.

and trying to do better as leaders, I'm going to make a commitment. I'm going to try to impart radical empathy by being an HR professional. and talking to other leaders and helping them to have difficult conversations. Because at the end of the day, most of us want to have those conversations. We just don't know how, and we don't know where to start. learning the history, what you've done in helping us to see vividly.

What happened and what got us here helps me to know what we need to do to progress and go further. And so I really thank you for that. We thank you for that. I love that.

I love that too. And you were sharing with me yesterday, and I was texting you saying, what did you say about him? One of the reasons you did this is because you wanted people to understand the history. If you think about ourselves as a family, our country as a family, and in a family there can be things that we would rather not talk about. Every family has whatever issues there may be. There may be also medical conditions that run through families.

it's alcoholism or drug abuse or depression, whatever it may be. And when we recognize that these are things that have run through families, then you also realize that it's not something that can be fixed with one episode, one, you know.

one, there's not a pill that you can take, that this is an ongoing challenge. When people are faced with something like alcoholism or substance abuse, they realize it's a lifelong challenge. It's not any one thing that's going to resolve it. You can't declare yourself.

free of it after years of counseling or whatever it might be. So if we are all a family that are facing this challenge and we are a family together, whether we wish to see ourselves that way or not, then this is something that will be an ongoing challenge.

ongoing effort and we could never, with that old house, could never declare the work over and there will be, you know, we're gonna make mistakes, we're human and that's okay. You're making progress when you make mistakes. You know that you've tried something and then you have something. else that you can learn from it and that is all to the good. I would also say that I would wish that everyone wherever they happen to be in the hierarchy on this ladder would think about

the person not as someone from a different cast, but just another human being in our species. What would we do with someone else if we saw that they might be in pain? We see something that happened, say, with George Floyd. We all should be appalled, and I know that so, so many people were appalled. personally appreciated when someone that I didn't know particularly well but saw me and just said to assure me said that I was so horrified.

by what happened to Mr. Floyd. That's what someone said to me after general greetings and that sort of thing. And I so appreciated that because it meant that this person was coming to express something to me, not from the perspective of, oh, I feel so bad for you. and your people, but it was the sense of as a human being.

I grieve for what happened to him. And I think once we all can see and share in the collective sense of aggrievement over what we're seeing, the same response, then we will have moved forward. And then the answers come more freely. more authentically because we then know we don't have to struggle over what to say and what, is this appropriate, is this not appropriate, but to respond as human beings.

reaching out to another human being who has experienced some kind of trauma, then that is the step toward dismantling some of these barriers that are artificial to begin with. Thank you. Lisa was a guest on our Oprah conversation with Emmanuel Acho. Lisa, you're an executive for a big tech company. And I'll never forget this moment on that show, your acknowledgement that bias exists in corporate America, because you were saying, you know, over the years, looking at a name.

on a resume, deciding whether you hire that person or not because of the name. That bias exists. And what impact have these conversations now had on you, Lisa? Well, if I were to just succinctly answer your question with one word, I'd say life-changing. i like that one i like life-changing that's good start yeah yeah uh to go a little deeper i would say similar to what marissa said a lot of things she said resonated with me as far as

you know, watching the George Floyd killing and then taking that back to work, right? And hosting and participating in these inclusion circles, which is really forums to talk about your feelings. And there in these forums and listening to African-American people share their pain and kind of being shocked, if you will. Where have I been? Right.

I didn't realize the depth of the pain and suffering and kind of a wake up call that how can I be a better ally? How can I do more? And really having a hunger to learn.

and be a better ally and and then in the mail comes this book from oprah you know very gratefully uh thank you uh but you know devoured the book i knew you were right for it lisa i knew you were right for it you were right and you were open for it and there's nothing better than receiving it yeah were you not ripe and open for it yeah I was ripe. I was fruit that had fallen on the ground. And, you know, I read the book.

And, you know, similar to Shanna too, I had to reread passages because I couldn't believe what I was reading. And I felt... What the world is going, where has this been in our history classes? You know, this to me was the missing puzzle piece that connected the past to the present.

And I said in a previous, you know, comment I made that I would love to have this be part of our classes in school and you know, I'm ready to sign a petition and you know, to do what it takes to make that happen. Yeah, I think it should be taught in schools. I think that this needs to continue to be a momentum, a movement, not a moment. And the tech company that I work with, you know, we continue to do these forums. And Oprah, I'm taking the Emanuel conversations.

and having forums with 200 plus people. to talk about uncomfortable conversations and to go through that piece as well. And I would love to be able to do this with the book cast and similar to what we're doing here. And I think these are the conversations that need to continue to happen and to. continue to be the voices for African Americans.

Well, thank you so much, Lisa. And I want to encourage you to encourage heads of your companies. I sent out, you know, 500 books to heads of companies. I can't send out a book to everybody in every company, but the way we do it is you pass it on. Once you have been open. to it, you use that in order to expand what you now know and see to other people. That's how we do it. I want to thank Lisa and Channa and Marissa for sharing their stories. And thank you again, Isabel. And next time we'll be.

discussing pillar six, ooh, dehumanization and stigma. Whether you want to read or listen to the audio book, Get your copy on Apple Books. It's easy. The Apple Books app is already on your phone and your iPad. And then join us on Instagram and Facebook at Oprah's Book Club to discuss and connect with other readers. make sure to head to Apple TV Plus to watch my interview with Isabel about why she was inspired to embark on the journey to write cast. Bye, everybody. Till next time.