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We Are America’s Racial Caste System
Every day, all day, whatever we say
I am watching The Riot Report, a PBS documentary co-written by a good friend of mine, William Jelani Cobb, Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism. He also has a PhD and is a celebrated writer. His documentary tells anyone watching it, open or closed-minded, that America's problem is its racial caste system.
America was founded on such a system, and it is why things change but don’t change. Some lives improve; others don’t. Leaders come and go; some exploit the caste system to their advantage; others don’t. Yet, regardless, the caste system remains a part of America. It is the default position.
If the “blacks” gain a little in society, a tiny bit, some “white” leader will come along and scream loudly for weeks and months that they are victims and are being treated unfairly. What they mean is the blacks are violating the caste system by trying to get out of the morally bankrupt system that looms over their lives and always has hung there in their faces.
You can hear the language of the “caste system” in the film by Cobb. The film was probably one time in the U.S. when the caste system was examined by the beneficiaries of the system, white men who run the country’s political apparatus. They came face to face with the evil that helped them get everything they had up until that time. They issued a report that was, of course, ignored and trashed, but the truth was told.
Over and over, the phrase “White America” is used by the speakers in the film. Neighborhoods that are majority “white” are called “white neighborhoods.” Even today, that same language is flung around loosely and widely. It is the standard discourse.
I wondered as I heard it in the documentary, and even today, I wonder: why do we keep perpetuating the caste system? “White” is not real; it is a social construct. “White” is not a biological reality. Biologically, there is nothing called “race.”
