BOOK DISCUSSION: CASTE

Wellbeing Connection will be hosting a book discussion on Isabel WIlkerson’s book, Caste The Origins of our Discontents.  In addition, we will be giving out this book to the first 10 people who sign up for our discussion. 

Isabel Wilkerson will be the virtual speaker for the October 5th Conversations on Social Justice, presented by The New Albany Community Foundation, a subset of their lecture series aimed at promoting greater understanding and community dialogue centered around equality and social justice.

This year, the NACF, their Social Justice Advisory Group & the Columbus Metropolitan Library - NA Branch are partnering to promote community readings of Wilkerson’s book to further the conversation on social justice.

WBC is honored to host one of the many discussions around this book. Our discussion will be facilitated by Kimberly Minor who will help us engage in meaningful (& sometimes difficult & uncomfortable) dialogue in a safe and brave space.

Kimberly is a NA resident who serves as CEO of Bumbershoot, a company she founded that works with businesses & organizations to reposition their cultures for collaboration & inclusivity. She is also founder of Spiceteria, an online community of over 1,000 women who come together to support one another, learn from each other & encourage each other.

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Caste is a book steeped in empathy and insight that explores, through layered analysis and stories of real people, the structure of an unspoken system of human ranking and reveals how our lives are still restricted by what divided us centuries ago.

“Modern-day caste protocols,” Wilkerson writes, “are often less about overt attacks or conscious hostility. They are like the wind, powerful enough to knock you down but invisible as they go about their work.”

Wilkerson rigorously defines eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, heredity, and dehumanization. She documents the parallels with two other hierarchies in history, those of India and of Nazi Germany, and no reader will be left without a greater understanding of the price we all pay in a society torn by artificial divisions.