More Than One Thing Can Be True At The Same Time
Watching ORIGIN and I understand the point that Isabel Wilkerson (and Ava DuVernay) was trying to make.
Isabel said in the movie that "we have to consider oppression in a way that does not centralize race." However, her focus was to prove that the interconnected problem around the world wasn't racism, it was caste. The point was proven about oppression itself but I don’t think it should have been aligned with the idea that Black people’s connected problem isn’t racism but caste. I have listened to other Black people attempt to make this argument, as if two truths cannot exist at the same time. Yes, governments and ruling classes around the world want it to be evident that there are PEOPLE who are superior and inferior. However, race ALWAYS enters the picture right along side caste because the considered superior groups were never meant to include Black people. Now, Isabel has pierced the veil of what this country and many others consider to be true power. And yes, it IS something to always be acknowledged. However, to keep implying that race is not at the crux of Black people’s ism issues, is disingenuous. YES, RACE IS A DISTRACTION but at the same damn time, it is a lived experience that we cannot whittle down to "it's about your place in the world, not your skin color."
Why the refusal to acknowledge it is about BOTH? If it was JUST about caste, specific groups of people (see: Black) would not be stopped from rising in the caste system or reminded that their place is STILL beneath white people. Sure, they let a sprinkling of us think we got the juice but none of Us are protected from the conversations and implications that we are still niggers. The need for superiority keeps racism alive so that caste systems (specifically in America) can stay firmly fixed in place. Capitalism is the number one way the USA is able to implement caste and racism, congruently. And anyone who denies that or wants to fixate on it JUST being about caste, is being just as harmful as the people who benefit off of this imposed ideal of superiority.
There's a part in the movie (ORIGIN) where Isabel is talking to her friend, Miss. The friend is sharing a childhood memory of a principal (white man) asking her name but not believing her when she says, "Miss Hale." The principal goes so far as to check her records to verify her legal name. Sure enough, it's exactly what she said it was, Miss Hale. It's obvious this white man didn't want to address this Black girl as "Miss" anything. WE CANNOT DISMISS THE RACE ASPECT HERE TO FIRMLY SIT OUR HAUNCHES ON SOLELY BEING RIGHT ABOUT CASTE. Especially not when both things are true at the same time. This isn't a retelling of a white lower class woman saying some white man refused to believe her first name was Miss. It's a Black woman sharing a part of her childhood she will never forget because of a white man antagonizing her about a name she was given by her Black parents.
Miss goes on to share that this white man tells her he knows she isn't from around here because she was looking him in the eye and "colored folks around here know better." He didn't say poor folks around here know better. He didn't say folks inferior to me know better. He SPECIFICALLY said COLORED FOLKS. Miss says that she had never felt that cold glare and that he was looking her right in the eyes, demanding that she not look him in the eyes. She shared that her father told her, "They don't have the corner on humanity. They don't have the corner on femininity. They don't have the corner on what it means to be a whole, noble, honorable person. Far from it." And while EVERY Black person knows this to be a truth, we also know that the "They" that Miss's father was speaking of WAS NOT those at the top of the hierarchy but white people, period. The point being, Black people are considered inferior BECAUSE of their skin color so to say "this isn't racism, it's about caste" is to be willfully obtuse.
If all of our skin color was to change, THEN it could easily be about our place in society, no different than what the Nazi's did to the Jews. However, to conveniently leave out that one of the ideals Nazi's pushed was that the superior race had blonde hair and blue eyes, is to swerve around the fact that caste was not the only tool of oppression used to keep one group of people superior to others. WHAT WE LOOK LIKE HAS ALSO BEEN A TOOL USED TO KEEP PEOPLE BENEATH ONE ANOTHER. Even within the higher ranking levels of caste systems, Black are still not seen as being on the same level as white people. That feeling of superiority still shows its ugly head, even if you become a billionaire, whereas if you looked exactly like them, they'd immediately feign show respect. Until white people know who you are, they don't give a fuck about no caste system. They see your skin doesn't look like theirs and that is usually where and when the mistreatment comes in IF they believe Black people are inferior to them.
Isabel mentions in ORIGIN that "there is an insistence on conflating caste with race." But she says this AFTER a story is told about how people in India are treated due to their caste system. Again, refusal to acknowledge that in different parts of the world race is not always aligned with caste, is disingenuous. India doesn't have an identical caste problem to America. It's similar to when Jews want to argue that the Holocaust is different from Black people being enslaved for HUNDREDS of years. The difference is that white supremacy operates differently for different groups of people. The Holocaust resulted in MILLIONS of people being killed. Enslavement of Black people has resulted in a number that cannot even be verified of people being killed but we know it wasn't less than millions. The underlying reason for these heinous acts against specific groups of people was the same... white supremacy. To get caught up in these comparisons of HOW white people implement their supremacy is where the real distraction resides.
Racism is a very real thing and we (Black people) experience it so much that it is an expected part of our life. However, when some of Us shift from one class to another and it's a climb up, some of us start shifting our mindset when it comes to lived experiences. Racism is a tool of oppression that is used by white supremacy to continue to enforce caste systems in America. I'm going to be skeptical of anyone who denies that or uses the argument that everything isn’t connected to racism in order to make the argument about caste systems… when racism has always been connected to the American caste system. Isabel says that "racism is not the same as caste. Because race does not matter in order for the system to work." That is a truth. What is also a truth is that the ruling class IN AMERICA, uses racism AND caste to remain superior. To ignore that in favor of just calling it caste, is harmful and it disregards racist behaviors that Black people experience whether they are the Dalits of American society or they are considered rich/wealthy.
The perfect example was of Al Bright. He wasn't allowed in the pool BECAUSE of his skin color, not due to the class system. He could have had more money than everyone at the pool. They still weren't going to allow a Black child in water that white people would also be in. So, this is how more than one thing can be true at the same time. Racism will continue to be conflated with caste because that IS a reality in America. It doesn't change because some educated person has read a shit ton of books, traveled the world to see how we're connected, and decided we're all experiencing the same bullshit in the same way.
Last but definitely not least, I feel compelled to add Beyonce to this musing.
This woman is considered the upper echelon of entertainers; she is known worldwide and has more money than she knows what to do with. YET she still feels the need to prove to white people that she matters. Why? One recent reason is them giving her a big ass fuck you about singing country music. This might seem trifling but it’s why she created act 2, Cowboy Carter, that will be released on March 29, 2024. She firmly states, “This ain’t a Country album. This is a “Beyonce” album.” However, this isn’t to prove to Us that she got the juice. Her exact words were, “This album has been over five years in the making. It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed… and it was very clear that I wasn’t.”
Despite being on a caste level MOST PEOPLE (whites included) will never reach, she STILL feels the need to prove that her BLACK ass matters. If she was white, this wouldn’t even be a topic of discussion. This is how caste in this shitty ass world (specifically America) can also not really matter at the end of the day BECAUSE of the color of someone’s skin.
So one Negro Eureka! moment can’t (no matter how much truth it contains), doesn’t, and shouldn’t speak for all Black people. Despite a lot of shit looking the same, none of us, even the white and powerful, are a true monolith. For Black Americans, the origin of our discontents have always been racism AND caste.
