The book also casually gets WEB Du Bois’s birthplace wrong, listing it as Amherst when he was born in Great Barrington. This is a pretty trivial error but made me wonder: “if they didn’t even fact check that, what, if anything, did they fact check?”
Whenever I read something which starts out generally along the lines of “all back people” or “all Hispanic people” or particularly “all LGBT” people, I brace myself to discount most of what is being said because writers frequently, possibly intentionally confuse or misinterpret correlation with causation. I remember laughing out loud when a friend started chatting about the dearth of Black Olympic swimmers and wondering about their specific gravity compared to white people. I said “reconsider your question by family economic status and you’ll see immediately what’s happening”.
I wish we could start speaking more about economic class than race, because while race is intrinsically non-quantifiable, economic class is. What is Jewish? What is Latino? What is Asian? What is “mixed race?”
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio - what race is he? Enrique is not wealthy. What race is Tiger Woods? Tiger Woods is extremely wealthy. What’s the real issue?
The Southern Poverty Law Center in its name best targets the most pressing issue, systemic multigenerational economic disadvantages.
I was very happy to read this review, given that I had a similar experience with Isabel Wilkerson's two books: I loved "the Warmth of Other Suns" but felt sullied and dirty in reading "Caste". I was asking myself: What happened to the author? She had connected to human experience in her earlier book, but in the latter, she had become an ideologue who lacked all human connection, except to those who believe in their own victimhood and can no longer connect to anyone who does not so identify.
I enjoyed the book but somehow missed these obvious flaws. Clearly data was cherry picked to prove a racist backlash against President Obama.
Other flaws are found in the telling of the Nazi myth of an Aryan race. The Nazis may have believed this but their only allies were peoples not considered Aryan in southern and eastern Europe and Japan.
Wilkerson was more realistic than other purveyors of identity politics when describing how Latin and Asian immigrants are in a subcaste. Though I don't agree that we are separate, I see these new immigrant groups as moving into the mainstream as fast as we can. Others on both the right and left assume that these groups are included with "black and brown" people and will push the nation left. Democrats can't help pushing these folks away while smart republicans try to attract them.
"Wilkerson makes it sound as though white voters abandoned Democrats when Obama was running. But the two Democratic presidents who preceded Obama over the previous four decades also won relatively low percentages..."
I apologize if I missed something, but where does she that claim, or make it sound as if that were the case? In the passage quoted she presents the voting data to contrast reality with the rhetoric of the time, stating
"Even as they proclaimed a new post-racial world, the majority of white Americans did not vote for the country's first black president."
To me that's not making it sound as though whites abandoned Democrats when Obama ran, but pouring cold water on rhetoric that was rampant after his election and, in retrospect, was patently wrong and today seems rather silly.
The book also casually gets WEB Du Bois’s birthplace wrong, listing it as Amherst when he was born in Great Barrington. This is a pretty trivial error but made me wonder: “if they didn’t even fact check that, what, if anything, did they fact check?”
Whenever I read something which starts out generally along the lines of “all back people” or “all Hispanic people” or particularly “all LGBT” people, I brace myself to discount most of what is being said because writers frequently, possibly intentionally confuse or misinterpret correlation with causation. I remember laughing out loud when a friend started chatting about the dearth of Black Olympic swimmers and wondering about their specific gravity compared to white people. I said “reconsider your question by family economic status and you’ll see immediately what’s happening”.
I wish we could start speaking more about economic class than race, because while race is intrinsically non-quantifiable, economic class is. What is Jewish? What is Latino? What is Asian? What is “mixed race?”
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio - what race is he? Enrique is not wealthy. What race is Tiger Woods? Tiger Woods is extremely wealthy. What’s the real issue?
The Southern Poverty Law Center in its name best targets the most pressing issue, systemic multigenerational economic disadvantages.
TY (thank You) Ms. Patwardhan,
Excellent and well-written research. Appreciate the optimism at end. TYTY.
I was very happy to read this review, given that I had a similar experience with Isabel Wilkerson's two books: I loved "the Warmth of Other Suns" but felt sullied and dirty in reading "Caste". I was asking myself: What happened to the author? She had connected to human experience in her earlier book, but in the latter, she had become an ideologue who lacked all human connection, except to those who believe in their own victimhood and can no longer connect to anyone who does not so identify.
If the last 5 years have taught us anything it is that there is no real source for objective commentary...
Any reactions to recent polls showing that latino voters are evenly split between Trump and Pres Biden?
Why do people think this is?
I enjoyed the book but somehow missed these obvious flaws. Clearly data was cherry picked to prove a racist backlash against President Obama.
Other flaws are found in the telling of the Nazi myth of an Aryan race. The Nazis may have believed this but their only allies were peoples not considered Aryan in southern and eastern Europe and Japan.
Wilkerson was more realistic than other purveyors of identity politics when describing how Latin and Asian immigrants are in a subcaste. Though I don't agree that we are separate, I see these new immigrant groups as moving into the mainstream as fast as we can. Others on both the right and left assume that these groups are included with "black and brown" people and will push the nation left. Democrats can't help pushing these folks away while smart republicans try to attract them.
Thank you for an interesting, well-researched article
"Wilkerson makes it sound as though white voters abandoned Democrats when Obama was running. But the two Democratic presidents who preceded Obama over the previous four decades also won relatively low percentages..."
I apologize if I missed something, but where does she that claim, or make it sound as if that were the case? In the passage quoted she presents the voting data to contrast reality with the rhetoric of the time, stating
"Even as they proclaimed a new post-racial world, the majority of white Americans did not vote for the country's first black president."
To me that's not making it sound as though whites abandoned Democrats when Obama ran, but pouring cold water on rhetoric that was rampant after his election and, in retrospect, was patently wrong and today seems rather silly.
Am I missing something?