Human beings typically have one of two reactions upon learning about the horrors and atrocities committed by their fellow man.
The first being an immediate silence; the tactical and self-preservational instinct to ignore. This individual quietly files the information away into the corner of their brain wherein they may be fortunate enough to never stumble across it again, protecting themselves from the disgust in humanity, and from the questions of morality the actions may arise.
The second response is loud; a rallying cry for change; a proclamation of condemnation; a plastering of large numbers, bigger pictures; a grouping of the afflicted and affected into one indisputable mass of magnitude so that no one can ever deny the scale of what has taken place.
While both of these reactions make perfect psychological sense, (action versus inaction, fight versus flight, undertaking versus withdrawal) I fear they both ultimately detract from a sense of interconnectedness, or in other words radical empathy, that is so vital to the laws of human nature.
As I read through Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, I couldn’t help but feel increasingly frustrated by this realization. We as a people have become so entrenched in individualistic ideals and the intense polarization of ways of thought that, no matter which side we choose, we derive ourselves of the beauty of real humanizing connections.
I flipped through the pages, though, reviewing every aspect of caste that Wilkerson introduced, and realized that this lack of collectivism and radical empathy only further removes us from each other.
What follows on this page is a collection of photography from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and original poetry written by me. Assigned to each picture and poem is, as defined by Wilkerson, a pillar of caste. Before you read the poems, I encourage you to consume the images. Each picture is hand-picked from the USHMM’s photo archives and has a story behind it. I further ask that you then read the poems, each of which focuses on how any one individual could be afflicted by even the smallest fraction of caste in action.
I want to disclaim that it is not my purpose to speak over, or assume ownership of, the stories being told here, nor of the individuals afflicted by the horrors of the Holocaust. I merely wish to encourage people to see fewer large numbers, to step away from categorizing, and to portray the detriment that each small aspect of caste has on any one human being.
I hope that with these Words to Fell a Pillar I encourage people to see that the might of a situation does not rank higher than the individual affected. I encourage you to take stand in your own life, to recognize the impacts that a prejudiced society has on the individual.
Even if a story is not plastered on billboards or shouted from the rooftops it is just as powerful and important to our humanity.
1. Divine Will and the Laws of Nature
Destruction floods the house held sacred
Its holy walls groan and tremble
Shuddering in fear of injury
Memories of melodies, of voices raised in song
choke deep beneath the ash and soot
Rendered silent by the rubble
He enters through the curtained dust
To stand within that hallowed space
To see what they have done to this
These blessed halls
Of deliverance
And as he falls to his knees
As the building itself cries out
In a twisted shriek of groaning metal; shattered bones
The shards of glass which litter the floor
Rise to meet him; to live within him
Piercing the flesh that has condemned him
Biting into skin now awash with stinging tears
He knows; even in his aching, faltering heart
Amidst this corpse of veneration
This cannot be the will of his God.
2. Heritability
They say there is a poison
That’s running through her veins
And nothing can be done
Except to listen and obey
They say there is a filth
Living underneath her skin
It roils beneath and bucks its head
A crooked, evil grin
They say there is an error
Within her lines of life
And the only way to mend it
Is to suffer ‘neath the knife
She listens, bows her head
None of these does she dispute
But the one which cuts the deepest
The one whose cost will be the steepest
Is that when she holds her baby boy
To him, it passes too.
3. Endogamy and Control of Marriage and Mating
Her hands cannot be his to hold
Her eyes cannot be his to keep
Her smile cannot be his to mold
Her presence
Clawing desperately
Her embrace cannot be his to feel
Her time cannot be his to spend
Her heart cannot be his to shield
Her light, restrained
Ensured to end
And though he wakes
Still mortal-bound
His strings of life
Still tightly wound
Within his mind
He halts in time
And lies with her
Beneath the ground.
4. Purity vs Pollution
The flames are cleansing.
This is what they claim
As they tear apart the sanctuaries
The homes of stories long told
Ripping page from bind, word from being
They claim to sterilize
To wash this knowledge, this filth
But when they stand aside the fire
The light casts shadows in their eyes
The soot clings to their dripping brows
Charred remnants stick between their teeth
The ash spits vehemently from the blaze
Landing atop their skin
Leaving the weakest sting
A final stand, a rattle of death
And as their smiles widen
the fire dying
the embers faltering
They smile a blackest smile
And they look far from clean.
5. Occupational Hierarchy
They did not mind what she created
Her love for her art was dismissed
Her care and attentiveness tossed aside
No longer needed, no longer welcome
They said that she did not belong
That her hands would taint and soil the work
Her touch would defile, deface, disfigure
Those who donned her design
They tore her thread from cloth
Her soul from her offering
Obliterating her opus
Annihilating her adoration
And once they’d stepped back
Admiring the misfortune they’d created
Its tattered edges, its fraying sides
A hollow, feeble remnant of what she’d lived, and loved
Still, they believed
They’d done the earth a favor
She was where she belonged.
6. Dehumanization and Stigma
You’ve said they are not human
Instead they’re something new
For they cannot be human
Or favor, they’ll accrue
You’ve claimed that they are wicked
A people lost of worth
As if they are not wicked
Punishment, they don’t deserve
You’ve decreed eradication
An end to all that you see fit
Denied them humanization
Seeking to roast them on a spit
Yet even with the vows you make
The rules you claim you cannot break
When needle touches to their skin
And ink does mark the place therein
Humanity will surface, too
You’ll find they bleed the same as you.
7. Terror as Enforcement, Cruelty as a Means of Control
Does the Earth know?
The loss, the pain, the terror
Do the deeds of man seep into her soil?
Thick and scarlet
Bathing her, stifling her
Filling her lungs
With his brutality, his rage
Does the Earth tremble?
As the pacing rings out
As the marches give way
To obtrusive footprints
Bitter indentations
Leaving behind their ill intent
Does the Earth cry?
As man tears her open
With spades of steel and rust
Throws her the corpses of his own
Does she weep as she holds them?
Enveloping the sufferers
With the warmest embrace she can find
Does the Earth wince?
As he chops down her limbs
Felling the gift that she’s given
The air she provides
The home she creates
To mark the place
Where he has left his sins
For what a bitter cruelty
What a potent evil
Could use the innocent for this?
8. Inherent Superiority vs Inherent Inferiority
I suppose he’ll never know
How the sun would fill his soul
The wind, alive, alight in his eyes
How the waves crash against the shore
The spray of the salt gracing him
How his heart would grow
With each loving presence
Each brush of skin
Each quickened pulse
And all because
There was a mind, a body, a will
Same as his own
That marked him, betrayed him
Denied him
The gift of knowing.
