Caste IV

 

Coat of Many Colors

But they didn't understand it

And I tried to make them see

That one is only poor

Only if they choose to be

Now I know we had no money

But I was rich as I could be

In my coat of many colors

My momma made for me

Made just for me

Did the Confederacy win the Civil War?

The Confederacy lost the military campaign that was the Civil War.  But it may have won by protecting the caste system.  A caste system is a system that ranks members of society according to some characteristics.  Chattel slavery was the lowest rung on the system and chattel slavery was abolished after the Civil War, but the caste system remained.  It is called the caste system in Isabel Wilkerson's wonderful book Caste: the Origins of Our Discontent.  Caste can be defined as racism, sexism, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, ethnicity, religion, or any sorting of members of society by any characteristics.  Yes, it is used in Hindu culture but caste there is imposed on members of society that can not otherwise be distinguish.  They look the same, have the same nationality, have the same religion, have the same ethnicity, speak the same language, etc.  The difference is the occupations and wealth of their ancestors.  Thus caste seems a fitting name for any system that ranks members of its society by some characteristics, even if those characteristics seem to be arbitrary to others.

Heather McGhee in her book, The Sum of Us, documents that there is a cost to society of racism, and by extension of casteism.  Public services are not supported if those services are consumed by those who are in lower castes.  If there are no public services ( e.g. health care) then when we need those services, such as during the current pandemic, those services are not there.  After the Civil War slavery was abolished, but the caste system it promoted still endured. The Jim Crow laws were promoted and enforced by many including the Ku Klux Klan. Slavery was only the lowest rung of that caste system.  Public services are not offered because of that caste system. This is why it suggested that the promoters of that caste system, the Confederacy, might have won the Civil War even if they suffered a military defeat.

After the defeat of Nazi Germany, who modeled their own laws after the caste system and laws in the United States, no monuments to Nazis were allowed.  After the Civil War, monuments to Confederate officials were erected, promoted, and are protected today.

If the someone tells us that there is a caste system and we are in the middle rungs, that there are those who are lower castes than us whom we should despise, and those in castes above us whom we should protect, our response should not be to accept our rung, place, but question why they were allowed to say that there is a caste system in the first place. I will earn my place. You will not tell me what my place is. I’m only poor if I say I am poor, not if you say I am poor.