Caste

 Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
2020
Weight: 1. 7 lbs
Method of Disposal: Mailing to my Mom

I am grateful this heavy, painful, difficult, and powerful book was passed on to me by a friend.  Books like these,  I always think that I want everyone to read them, but then I think, do I?  I want those with the appropriate mental strength and fortitude to read them.  But who should be excused if they do not have that?  Who should read it?  Will this book find the people that will get the most from it?  Or is it more about doing the most with it?  I could see that for some it would be so painful to live treated as a bottom caste member, surrounded by others in the dominant caste, and then to pick up a book like this and read horror upon horror.  I briefly read some of the reviews of this book on Amazon, written by people who seem to be the people I most think would benefit from reading this book, people I want to read it the most, and I am horrified by how quickly they dismiss this book as liberal trash.  Did they really read it?  All the way through?  Or is it best to focus on the MUCH larger number of people who rated it 5 stars?

Here are some snippets from this book that I hope are enough to make you want to read more.  I am still processing and, really, I would rather you read Isabel Wilkerson than read my words trying to express hers anyway.

"None of us chose the circumstances of our birth.  We had nothing to do with having been born into privilege or under stigma.  We have everything to do with what we do with our God-given talents and how we treat others in our species from this day forward.  

We are not personally responsible for what people who look like us did centuries ago.  But we are responsible for what good or ill we do to people alive with us today.  We are each of us responsible for every decision we make that hurts or harms another human being."

I guess the above is not so surprising, but I believe I pulled it out because I am so tired of hearing that argument from white people.  I was not there.  I did not own slaves.  I have no responsibility.  Just stop trying to defend yourself and start trying to be the best person you can possibly be.  We all owe that to each other.

"The fact is that the bottom caste, though it bears much of the burden of the hierarchy, did not create the caste system, and the bottom caste alone cannot fix it.  The challenge had long been that many in the dominant caste, who are in a better position to fix caste inquality, have often been the least likely to want to.

Caste is a disease, and none of us is immune.  It is as if alcoholism is encoded in the country's DNA, and can never be declared fully cured.  It is like a cancer that goes into remission only to return when the immune system of the body politic is weakened.

Thus, regardless of who prevails in any given election, the country still labors under the divisions that a caste system creates, and the fears and resentments of the dominant caste that is too often in opposition to the yearnings of those deemed beneath them."

I think what speaks to me here is that there was Obama and then there was Trump, and it is is easy to want to shout WHAT? HOW? WHO LET THIS HAPPEN?  It is more difficult to know in your heart that Trump did not just happen and is not an anomaly.  That one man or administration is not THE problem.  None of us, no matter our caste, can ignore the caste system.  It is sickening our individual mental and physical health, it is sickening our communities, it is sickening our nations.

"Germany bears witness to an uncomfortable truth--that evil is not one person but can be easily activated in more people than we would like to believe when the right conditions congeal.  It is easy to say, If we could just root out the despots before they took power or intercept their rise.  If we could just wait until the bigots die away...It is much harder to look into the darkness in the hearts of ordinary people with unquiet minds, needing someone to feel better than, whose cheers and votes allow despots anywhere in the world to rise to power in the first place.  It is harder to focus on the danger of the common will, the weaknesses of the human immune system, the ease with which toxins can infect succeeding generations.  Because it means the enemy, the threat, is not one man, it is us, all of us, lurking in humanity itself."

There is so much that I want to pull out and share, like the above quote, but you should just read the book because these beautiful, thoughtful snippets do not have the same power when they stand alone as they do when they are encapsulated with the author's personal experiences, stories from other individuals, people you read about in the news.  Just remember, if it starts to feel like it is too much or that it is overwhelming it is because what you are reading about is too much and is overwhelming.  We cannot fix what we refuse to see and recognize.  If it feels too painful that is because it is too painful, and it has been for a long time.  Ignoring the pain not only does not make it go away, but it makes more pain. If comparing slavery to Nazi Germany rubs you the wrong way, can you at least ask yourself why? Can you, at least, keep reading?  I do not want to be wiping the ash of human beings off a child's jacket and pretending not to see the cruelty around me.  I do not want to hold the burden of having been that person in my lifetime and beyond.  I do not want to be the ash on that child's jacket.  I do not want to miss out on all the great things humanity can achieve if we all take care of each other and allow each other to live and thrive.  

Read this book.  Tell me what you think.  Let's start there.

Max and Helen

Max and Helen: A Remarkable True Love Story
1982
Weight: 12.8 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating

I guess it will be no surprise that this is a challenging and painful telling of the experiences of a couple and those around them in the concentration camps of WWII, as well as a glimpse of their lives before the war and even more of their lives after the war ended.  You can never know what you or would or would not do in situations like these without having lived them, but it absolutely broke my heart into a thousand pieces to hear that Max could not ever see Helen again after he found her, miraculously alive, twenty years after the WWII ended.  He went to her once and realized she had a son whose father was the SS guard that tormented them throughout their time in the camp.  She had been repeatedly raped, and she had somehow showed the courage, strength, and love to raise her son alone to be a kind, compassionate, and passionate young man.  Max, on the other hand, could not look at the boy and so decided to leave them both.  He loved her quietly, from afar, and was never willing to see her again.  I could not imagine her pain.  She carried so much alone and the one man that loved her for her entire life was not able and willing to accept her son and live out the remainder of their lives together.  It just seemed an unnecessary blow after all the terrible cruelty she had experienced in this life. 

Then, there was the agony of the author and "nazi-hunter," Simon Wiesenthal, not being able to pursue and seek justice with the SS guard because it would expose Helen's son to an unthinkable truth and Helen to public scrutiny.  On top of that was the mental prison that Max lived in long after he escaped the confines of the Nazis.  It would seem all unbearable, except that somehow Helen and Max and so many others found a way to bear it, heavily.

I Am My Own Wife

I Am My Own Wife A Play by Doug Wright
2004
Weight: 5.4 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating

The subject this play was based on was ridiculously interesting--so interesting that I would argue that Wright could not totally fail unless he were to totally attack and demean her.  That is something it sounds like he would never do.  He clearly found her enchanting.  Not that the language used is super transpositive, but he exuded respect and fascination. 

The subject is Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a transwoman who managed to survive Nazi Germany and the Stasi.  Not only did she survive it, but she was able to maintain her identity and took some incredible risks to preserve history, to collect, and to do what she enjoyed most.  She owned and ran the Gründerzeit Museum.  In 1997 she moved to Sweden stating that Berlin was too dangerous, but she went back for a visit in 2002 and died of a heart attack in the city she called home for so long.

Now, tell me that in itself is not a story you want to know more about.  I am not sure I was as keen on the play as I was her, but I do imagine it was a hard one to write and to boil down to such few pages.

Art of WWII

(6.3 lbs)
Art of the Third Reich by Peter Adam
1992
Weight: 2.6 lbs
Method of Disposal: Giving to Tracy

This book was put together by BBC documentary-film producer who grew up in Berlin during the time of Hitler’s Third Reich. Adam recognized a gap in art history that was often intentionally overlooked, and he decided to make this book. Statues, murals, postage stamps, propaganda posters, paintings, and more are displayed and discussed in this book. It is a great introductory book with information you may not have heard in all of the other books you have read.
This seems like a book Tracy should own since she is an artist and also has an interest in WWII. If she happens to own it already, I will be selling it on half.com for $9.50.

WWII: A Tribute in Art and Literature Edited by David Colbert
2001
Weight: 3.7 lbs
Method of Disposal: Giving to Tracy
I saw this book while I was walking to the kitchen after writing about the Art of the Third Reich and thought I should go ahead and make it a bundle for Tracy. This one’s presentation is better than the last. The pictures are large and in full color. This book does not, however, focus on art from the Third Reich. It is American art and writing. The paintings and photographs are wrapped the text of poetry, essays, and letters. You are truly drawn into another time and into a very painful war.

"Hitler is a joke. He will soon disappear."

The Nazi Officer’s Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust
By Edith Hahn Beer with Susan Dworkin
2000
Weight: 4.8 oz
Method of Disposal: Gave to a friend




This book was a hand-me-down from my mother. She read it and passed it along—probably in the year 2000. It has been awhile, but when I told her that I finally read it just a few days ago you could tell she remembered it well. I have read so many books that sometimes I only have a vague outline in my head of some of them, even some of my favorites. It is very sad but true. This is not the kind of book you forget.

This book is the memoir of Edith, and it shows her growing up during the Holocaust. She is Jewish, though not Orthodox. She is not familiar with all of the prayers and customs. She grows up in Vienna. At the start, she is laughing with her friends, talking about how no one could ever listen to the crazy ranting of Hitler. Then she is sent to a labor camp and, even then, she believes that it will all end soon. That it will be o.k. She only has to work for 6 months. Those 6 months draw further and further out, and her mother is sent to a concentration camp. Of course, no one knows what that means. She tries to get back to her, but in the end she receives some false papers showing she is not Jewish, goes underground, and eventually marries a Nazi, who is quite a jackass. This saves her life.

I picked this book up on a lunch break at work, and I had trouble putting it down long enough to get everything done and get home. I finished it that night. This woman has an incredible and terrifying story to tell. The book is easy to read, and it is written in a very accessible and not overly contemplative way. Her story shows how long it can take to believe what is incomprehensible, particularly when you are going through it. It shows how quickly people’s feelings can change from restrained/hidden hatred and/or desperation to full-on cruelty and abuse. And then it continues to get worse. I have handed it over to one friend and already have another asking for it. I do recommend that people read Edith’s story.