Caste, along with its faithful servant race, is an x-factor in most any American equation, and any answer one might ever come up with to address our … - Isabel Wilkerson

The anthrax, like the reactivation of the human pathogens of hatred and tribalism in this evolving century, had never died. It lay in wait, sleeping, until extreme circumstances brought it to the surface and back to life.

Slavery was not merely an unfortunate thing that happened to black people. It was an American innovation, an American institution created by and for the benefit of the elites of the dominant caste and enforced by poorer members of the dominant caste who tied their lot to the caste system rather than to their consciences.

By the time that Hitler rose to power, the United States “was not just a country with racism,” Whitman, the Yale legal scholar, wrote. “It was the leading racist jurisdiction — so much so that even Nazi Germany looked to America for inspiration.” The Nazis recognized the parallels even if many Americans did not.