Caste: Pillar Number Two Summary & Analysis

In order to work, caste systems require the inheritance of a rank and corresponding role at birth. In India, this inheritance is patrilineal (inherited through the father), but in the U.S. it has traditionally been matrilineal (inherited through the mother)—and in both places, children generally take on the status of their lowest-born parent. Thus, enslavers in the U.S. could claim the children of their enslaved property and thus create even more property and more profit. No one could earn or marry their way out of their ascribed caste—and this fact is essential in distinguishing caste from class, which is more mutable.

Throughout American history, Black people have been “ritually separated” from the rest of the population, and nothing they did could elevate them out of their caste. This is, unfortunately, still a present-day reality. For instance, in 2013, the award-winning actor Forest Whitaker was accused of shoplifting from a deli, and in 2015 and 2018, police officers brutally attacked two well-known athletes. These incidents make it clear that no measure of fame, wealth, or class mobility can change the facts of caste.