I’m so glad I finally gave in and read (well, listened to) Caste.
Have you?
It won’t bore you! Far from it.
It won’t make you feel guilty!
You may in fact join me in wishing that every high school senior would read it as a requirement of graduation — like the swim test we all had to pass back in the day.
(Did you know that the Nazis looked to the U.S. system of apartheid to develop their own — but decided ours was too harsh? Did you know that, “from the 1930s to the 1960s” — long before any of us or our parents were alive, but still — “the major federal programs that guaranteed mortgages were for Whites-only,” as CBS reminded us Saturday morning? And now I understand why, asked which customers treat them worst, European tour guides unhesitatingly respond: Indians!)
Caste relates to the cold civil war now raging.
With fine people on both sides, to paraphrase the disgraced former president — but those on his side generally not realizing that theirs is also the side of Q-Anon (“in the weeks before the Capitol siege, Trump’s former national security adviser went on a far-right media blitz to promote wild conspiracy theories“), authoritarianism, the KKK and the neo-Nazis . . . even though most of them would be outraged at the implication.
Sure, the disgraced former president kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside, and, sure, his dad was arrested at a KKK rally. But — they believe — he did great things for African Americans and for Israel, so it is we, the Satan-worshipping child eaters, who have it all wrong.
Thus I have two requests, depending on who you are:
> If you’re a Trump fan, read Caste and let me know what you think. No holds barred.
> If you’re not, blow $100 or more to join DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, Senators Klobuchar and Booker, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff — and help save the world.
Have a great week.
Today, as you doubtless know, is both George Washington’s birthday and National Margarita Day.
