A Confederacy of Dunces
“Caste is more than rank, it is a state of mind that holds everyone captive, the dominant imprisoned in an illusion of their own entitlement, the subordinate trapped in the purgatory of someone else’s definition of who they are and who they should be.”
-Isabel Wilkerson
Last summer, I dove headfirst into reading about Black lives, from pure narrative fiction to detailed historical chronicles. I mentioned a few of those books in last week’s top ten list and am happy to recommend more if you’re interested.
Finishing Caste in the first few days of this new year tied an ugly little bow around this particular narrative journey. Isabel Wilkerson’s examination of how the American caste system underpins every tier of our society drove the final nail into the coffin of my naive assumptions about American history. Caste is a deeply researched, wrenching read that at times feels like a relentless assault on human decency. What must it feel like to live in that truth instead of simply viewing it safely from the sidelines...
America has been ardently steadfast in its elitism, racism, and discrimination from the first days of its founding, subjugating every human that isn’t white, male, wealthy, and Christian. More to the point of today’s writing, that fact has been brushed over, ignored, or outright lied about for the bulk of my education. The fact that I’m uncovering the depths of this truth at the age of 49 is embarrassing and frustrating at best. But I think what (possibly) galls me more is that the importance of simply acquiring knowledge was kept from us.
As Howard Zinn writes in A People’s History of the United States:
“It was in the middle and late nineteenth century that high schools developed as aids to the industrial system, that history was widely required in the curriculum to foster patriotism. Loyalty oaths, teacher certification, and the requirement of citizenship were introduced to control both the educational and the political quality of teachers.”
The knowledge I thought I’d acquired turned out to be simply more indoctrination into institutions that keep the economic and social order firmly entrenched.
Knowledge, it turns out, is more than just rote recitation of events or dates or philosophies. It is more than a vague image of ‘power’ that few have bothered to help us shape more clearly. Knowledge is the flashlight that reveals dark corners for what they really are (and are not). It is the basis of measured decision-making and the launchpad for undiscovered thought. It is a weapon that can’t be disarmed.
What happened in the halls of our government on January 6th was the personification of ignorance prized and knowledge vilified. It is what happens when you teach your children that the Civil War was about states’ rights; that the government fights for the middle class; that giving rich men more money will eventually give you more too.
There was an abundance of lofty hot air drifting out of the Capitol building Wednesday night after the domestic terrorists had been gently escorted back to their hotel rooms and the janitors had swept the floors. Senators fell all over themselves bowing and scraping to an ideal of America that, frankly, has never existed. “This is not America,” they said, but oh yes it very much is. It always has been. It became impossible to ignore this week, shoved right under their noses, or rather right under their office doors, showing us in all its glory what happens when you court ignorance.
Nicole Cardoza, author of the most excellent anti-racism newsletter, punched it squarely in the jaw when she said that Wednesday’s insurrection was, “A demonstration, not of white privilege, but of white power.”
“There is no other group of people in the U.S. that would have the opportunity to carry out such a blatant form of disrespect against its own government in full support of its President and in full view of its people. Having white privilege means inheriting advantages in a system. But having white power means that you can use and abuse these systems without consequences because they were designed to protect you and your conservative values and beliefs.”
White power needs little knowledge to perpetuate itself. It has the entire weight and machinery of American capitalism sustaining it and benefits more from the less we know. From The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich:
“What the masses needed [according to Goebbels] were not only ideas—a few simple ideas that he could ceaselessly hammer through their skulls—but symbols that would win their faith, pageantry and color that would arouse them.”
The list of problems we need to fix in the coming months and years is long. But I’d like to posit that a renewed emphasis on knowledge—the importance of its acquisition, the methods with which it’s imparted, deeper integration of more nuanced discussion in everyday life—is very much worth our time. Toss the symbolic flags out the door with their progenitor. Re-orient the concept of consumerism towards wisdom, comprehension, and understanding.
As Senator Dick Durbin said to his colleagues Wednesday night (in some hot air I can get behind), we’ve been “feeding the beast of ignorance that roamed these halls today.” It’s well past time to starve it out.