Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson Instagram – Anytime that violence visits a pregnant mother, it is beyond our comprehension. Thus the tragic case of Ta’Kiya Young, an Ohio mother who was seven months pregnant and fatally shot in her car by police last month, defies explanation in a country that has elevated birth to a national raison d’etre. That is, unless you take into consideration caste.
It was the seeming contradiction that propelled me to write the Afterword to the paperback edition of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, to open people’s eyes to how caste has dangerously played out since the book was first released.
There is a throughline from January 6 to mass shootings of people of color to bans on abortion, on books and on affirmative action. They can be seen as connected to the perceived threat to the primacy of those assigned to the dominant caste for most of our country’s history.
The 2020 census revealed that the white population, while still the majority, fell for the first time in American history, while other groups rose. Suddenly, rightward policies that had been in the wings for decades, sped forward. Near-total bans on abortion in nearly half the country went into effect, compelling tens of thousands of people to give birth when they otherwise wouldn’t and endangering the lives of those who miscarry.
The result: a higher birth rate that favors the dominant group. That’s in part because childbirth is deadlier for Black people. Black mothers are three times more likely to die in childbirth than White mothers and Black babies are twice as likely to die than White babies.
And then there is the higher rate of state-sponsored violence against pregnant Black mothers, as caught on video of Ta’Kiya Young, that would be almost unfathomable against a pregnant White mother in our racial hierarchy, as it should be for everyone.
There’s much more to this, which is why I spent six months researching the Afterword alone and knew I had to write it, not because it was required or because anyone told me to, but, as with the book itself, circumstances called for it. And I hope people will be inspired to read it to better understand the tragedies we are seeing unfold before our eyes. | Posted on 04/Sep/2023 01:28:15