Soul to Soul

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The following is special programming sponsored by Public Radio KUNV 91.5. The content of Soul to Soul does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz & More, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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Good morning. This is Soul to Soul, universal ideas for a brighter tomorrow. This show is a free-for-all of positive energy that will include book discussions, music, COVID-19, oral interviews, books, and Las Vegas history. So this morning, I am so honored to have Erica Washington with me. Erica, as most of you know, is the Executive Director of Make It Work Nevada. She is the mother of three, a community activist, and a former journalist of the Sentinel Voice, that newspaper that we miss so much. Today, Erica and I are going to discuss Caste. Caste is a book, the entire title is Caste, the origins of our discontents about Isabel Rickerson. And we're going to discuss the book today. It's a heavy book. relax. We want you to just go with us on this journey. So how are you this morning, Erica?

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I'm wonderful. I'm so excited to be here. I'm really, you know, looking forward to this conversation. It's just a delight to be able to have these conversations and to do it where we are less than six feet apart. So I'm so excited to be able to see you and hug you. We take those things for granted, and I won't do that again. That's correct. I won't either. So yes, let's jump right in. So Caste is a book about America as it is juxtaposed with Germany, Nazi Germany, and India because of the caste system. So do you think it's too harsh that we actually discuss this country in relationship with those two places? No, not at all. I think what Isabel Wilkerson did in this book was really unearth the connections between all of these things, because I feel as though a lot of times when we talk about the enslavement of black people in the United States, that it feels insular, like it was just here, like it was just, you know, something that happened, and that it wasn't a part of a ripple effect of what happened in other places and what other places happened there, and how it was a jump-off point for the idea of enslaving and having certain human beings be less than others. So I think it's a great comparison, and I also think it's a necessary comparison because there's a lot of conversation around what happened in Germany and the Holocaust. And it's always very separate from, from slavery. And I think maybe because people think it was so far apart from each other, but the way that she breaks it down, that they actually, they were looking at what America was doing as a, as a guideline. So, I mean, I think that that needs to be shouted from the rooftops is like we gave and we by America gave the blueprint for the Holocaust and for what happened to millions of Jewish folks in Nazi Germany and in some of the stuff they thought was too harsh. So no one you know we talk about the Holocaust in a way of how atrocious it was and people are ready to say that out loud and I guess is because Hitler's dead and I don't know I I you know would love the answer as to why we are able to look at the Holocaust and look at what happened in Nazi Germany as being so terrible, but at the same time, look at something that lasted even longer in the United States as it was just something that happened. It was just how people thought back then. that even in Nazi Germany, some of the stuff that they looked at that slave owners did to oppress enslaved black folks, that they thought that was weird and too harsh. Isn't that something? So that's part of the book that surprised me to no end. I think the most powerful one single sentence was when the 15 year old African American girl was asked toward the end of World War II. So what should we do with Hitler? And her answer was, put him in black skin and let him live in America. So I thought that was just so revealing, and that someone as young as 15, 16 years of age would understand what is happening in the two places. because it's just, I can imagine in her life of seeing how your parents, your grandparents, your loved ones around you, your neighbors are constantly oppressed. I think about Tulsa and what happened in what some folks call Black Wall Street, but just really, just a community trying to live, trying to thrive. And when everything went down after the fact, I've been recently listening to some podcasts around you know what happened in in the massacre and one particular one it was new information to me that many were kind of hauled off into sort of an internment camp and they couldn't leave unless they had a white person to vouch for them to say that they were okay. Can you imagine being a business owner owning something and thriving owning your own home having children having all these things and you need somebody to vouch for you as a person that you could just walk around? Because your home has been ruined, your businesses have been destroyed, so you have nothing. So they put you in an internment camp. They don't know who you are, they claim, so they just put you there for a while before

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they can determine what is going to happen to you.

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But why does someone get to determine what happens to me? burned down your whole village, your whole area of the city, your Wall Street, your Black Wall Street. They've just burned it down. So yes, they can make that decision and they did. And that's the caste system. That's the caste system. And I think that, you know, that main question around talking about race or talking about caste, I think that if we put it in the terms of caste, I think it's actually probably easier for folks to understand what that is, because, you know, at least in India, and I'm not advocating for anything as far as the caste system in India, but at least there, they had some sort of through line of that it was, you know, certain jobs that you had or what have you, and so you were in these different little buckets of society, whereas it was, and I mean, there's still a skin color issue, you know, in India and everywhere, actually. Anyone that can actually have some melanin in them, you know, they were taught that that was bad, even though it's beautiful and it's, you know, it keeps us safe. But to have the system set up the way that they did, and a lot of it based on religion as well, as opposed to just being, we snatched you from somewhere and you are less than and that's it and that's the final thing and so for me I think in reading the book which which I told you was hard you know I started the book multiple times and it's such an important book to read and it was such full of information but it was heavy like not just physically it's you know she's got she's got a bigger book you know her first book is a lot bigger but this book made me so sad. Like literally, you know, I have both the physical copy of the book and I got the audio version and I'm listening to it and I'm like, I am so sad. Like I don't know what to do with this information. I don't know how to properly just digest it because it feels so insurmountable. It's hard to process. It's really hard to process. I can't imagine her writing this book. I think it has taken the 10 years between books for her to write this one. The research is so wonderfully done. And like you said a few minutes ago when you walked in, it makes your heart. It makes my heart hurt. It makes it heavy because I have children. I got little black children that that I want them all to grow up to have the best that they are able to do. And we tell our children that. And sometimes it feels like a lie. Now, yes, we have progressed in many ways, but that progression even feels like it's at the mercy of the master. That even having the holiday of Juneteenth is at the mercy of the master. They're allowing us to celebrate something that many of us have been celebrating for many, many years, of course, and now it's opened up. But they did it so quickly without there's any, there's no back information or education around what Juneteenth is. It was just like it was signed, bam, a lot of people got the day off. But, you know, it feels like we're getting permission to celebrate something. So let's talk about that. What you do in Make It Work Nevada and all of your community activism. Now we've had 400 years of systemic racism. We're talking about slavery, Jim Crow, up until today. So what part of that do you feel comfortable talking about? Housing, criminal justice, medical care, education, banking, employment?

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It just goes on and on.

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The list doesn't end, I think. So at Make It Work Nevada, we advocate for and with black women around economic, racial, reproductive and environmental justice issues. So inside of those buckets would include affordable child care, equal pay, paid family leave, affordable housing, maternal mortality issues. So it covers all of the things, right? Because I believe that in order for us to actually get to a place of liberation and freedom is that we have to attack them all at the same time. We can't work on one issue. If we have one issue, then, you know, it's all of a sudden I say all the time, if you have a mom who is single, who is, you know, being at a low paid job, not making, you know, a living wage, which is anything under about twenty dollars an hour at this point. So that's a lot of people and maybe they're able to get affordable child care. Great. So they have affordable child care, but they're still not making enough money to pay all their bills. And then you add on the cost of living just for an apartment or trying to buy a home or anything like that. You know, it makes it still prohibitive. So you're still struggling, right? And then you add in, you know, if you don't have paid leave and something happens, your child is sick or you are sick and then you have to take time off and you don't have any sort of paid time off and then you get behind and then you end up going to a check cashing place and paying a high interest. It just goes on and on forever and it keeps you in that cycle. So for us, we're always trying to just tackle everything at once. So if we're with a family who is in that cycle, all of us are at some level. But if you're at that basic place where the child care can throw you off, where if you're stopped by the police and you're put in jail and you may be innocent but you lose the job, then you can lose the apartment after a few days. How do you start

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with the family? What do you do first?

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For me, it's all about storytelling. I go back to my roots of journalism, I love listening to people tell me about themselves. I love asking questions. And I think it starts with knowing that one, you're not alone, that this is a issue that affects so many people, but we sometimes we keep it to ourselves because no one wants to have that conversation and say, I can't afford my rent, I can't afford my car payment, you know, I'm behind on this, you know, that's like airing your dirty laundry in the streets. And, you know, that's not something my grandparents would have allowed. It's just like you keep your home stuff home. But when we do that, we also suffer in silence and in these silos where people have made us feel like it's our fault that we can't afford X, Y, and Z. But we recently posted a meme, I think, on our Twitter, and we said, like, if an employer hires you at poverty wages, they want you to be in poverty. So think about that. Think about somebody who wants you to be in poverty. They don't want you to have better. They don't want you to be able to not only make ends meet but also have ends overlap so you have some savings so that you can help yourself when there's a safety net so you can create your own safety net. That's not possible at $8, $9, $10 an hour, and it's not possible without benefits, health care benefits as well as paid leave or paid sick days, any of that, having childcare options, having that flexible schedule if you need to stay home with a child, all of those things are required. And I also believe that when we talk to folks, sometimes we have to convince them that they deserve more. It's like, well, this is what this job offers or this is just how it is. It's like, no, you deserve to have those things. It's not about having a college degree or having a job with a certain sort of salary. Just as a human being, you deserve to have dental insurance so you can go to the dentist. We all have teeth, don't we? And we need them to survive because we need to be able to eat. So why is it that some people get and others don't? Basic necessities. And I think if we can get back to that point when we're talking to people, tell me your story. Tell me what's going on. Let's talk about what could be better. What is the world you want to live in look like? So I love that idea. So you know, I'm an oral historian. So I love that idea. When we started talking about caste, we really didn't give a good definition to our audience. So we know that this is tied all together with white supremacy. And anything other than that is at a lower rung on the ladder. Throughout this book she gives many definitions of what CAST is. I'm just going to read one of the short ones. CAST is the granting or withholding of respect, status, honor, attention, privileges, resources, benefit of the doubt, and human kindness to someone on the basis of their perceived rank or standing in the hierarchy. And she has so many other definitions, but what you just talked about, when you sit down with someone who is going through issues, you explained exactly what it is. I'm thinking like the Princess Bride, if you remember. And there were peasants, and then there were, you know, the royalty or what have you. And I loved the Princess Bride. I watched it, I don't know how many times as a kid. I never thought about it, but I never thought about myself as a peasant, you know, as somebody, you know, at the bottom rank of anything. I was just, you know, a kid living my life in Detroit or whatever. But in the end, that's sort of in that, when we look at that hierarchy, when we look at caste system here in America, we are all peasants. We are all at the anyone who is not, you know, in that 1%, basically, we are all peasants, and we're doing the work to help keep them afloat, which is why so many people made so much money during the during COVID-19 and other people are on the streets. So this her first book that we've mentioned several times now was The Warmth of the suns and it's about the Great Migration. Part of that Great Migration came right here to Las Vegas, some to Los Angeles, some to New York, Chicago, all kinds of places. But most of us don't know that we right here are part of that Great Migration that starts during World War I and it progresses into the 1970s. People trying to get away, to have a better life. And that's what it was all about. So in her book, she talks about a person who comes here. She talks about Jimmy Gay. I don't know if you remember who he is, but he came here as a mortician, educated, but when he got here, he was not allowed to become a mortician, could not take the exam. First black person to try to take it. He had to wait nine years. Eventually, someone where he worked part-time said, if he doesn't take the exam, no one else will pass it, because that person was on the board. So we see it. It's not just the South. We see it all over the country. Sentinel Voice days, I had the opportunity to interview so many great people. I think that it's the reason why I am in the position I am in is because I had those opportunities to soak up and learn so many things because I moved here a little over 13 years ago and I'll be honest I didn't know anything about Las Vegas and certainly not about black Las Vegas and that there there were so many issues of segregation. When you learn about segregation you think it's only in the South and I interviewed both Dr. Ruby Duncan and then also Mary and Bennett, Reverend Mary and Bennett before he passed away. And I remember talking to Reverend Bennett, and he said that when they moved here, he was he was kind of shocked at how how poor it was and you know, didn't have inside toilets and things like that. He was like, where did I just come to? Where is like, I came from better than this. Like this is supposed to be better. And so I wonder, I made that connection in the book around immigrants and immigrants coming here and it's a long way to travel by boat or however to come here and have this idea of what America is and then get here and find out that it's not what we thought it was but then still playing the game that it is more than what it is and that whole American exceptionalism. And I feel like there are so many immigrants that are non-black immigrants that came here, you know, and they lost who they were because they they conformed into the caste system so that they could have this power and they and it was and it was not for nothing that this traveling across this this new into this new world and leaving everything behind whatever and what have you to come over here and find out they were going to be treated crappy too because they weren't from the Caucasus mountains or what have you and they were Sicilian or what have you that at some point they got to be white because it was better for them and it gave them what they needed to make it worth their while I think to come here. But at the same time I wonder it's like but you lost who you were. You really did lose who you were in order to have some sort of power and what is this And so we have different definitions for that.

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But that's the reason that the migrants all come here.

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Yeah, I think Ruby Duncan also told me that when she came here, she, you know, she just, you know, she didn't want to work in the fields anymore. And you know, it was a, it felt like a great idea to be able to come here and work in the hotels. It sounded very glamorous at some point, not knowing that people were going to treat her the way that they did. She probably had some expectation, but not to the extent that it was. And so it was almost like starting over and having to fight for the same, some of the same stuff that she had just left. Exactly. And Ruby is a good example of this book and exactly what we want to talk about. Ruby had an accident where she was working in the kitchen of one of the popular hotels here. Someone had allowed some oil, cooking oil, it spilled on the floor. So when she came in to work in the morning, it was there in a puddle. She didn't see it because she had trays of food, and she slipped down and she broke her hip. And as you know now, Ruby has never actually recovered from that. And that's why she started advocating for women welfare rights because the Culinary Union, nor the hotel stood up and gave her what she deserved. So she had to go on welfare and she made it work for herself. And you know people say welfare like it's such a dirty word instead of what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be a part of the social contract that we will take care of each other when something happens. So when someone has an accident like that, they should have the time to recover and still be able to take care of themselves and their kids. Because there are very few people, I think, that just like don't want to work, that don't want to do anything. No one wants to live that way. But it's a matter of what are the opportunities available and then and how can I get a hold of those opportunities and get the the tools that I need so that I can have upward mobility. And we think of people as, so they call us lazy if we have to go on welfare, these are women who picked cotton in the South in the hot Sun. And I'm not just talking about the 80 pounds that I could pick, I'm talking about 100, 200 pounds of cotton per day.

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You have no idea what that's like.

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I don't. You can pick 80 pounds of cotton?

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Man.

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They wanted to send me out of the hills because I couldn't do enough. But that's what it's like.

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And then you come here and someone calls you lazy. Right. Right. I just, this goes back to me saying about the book being so heavy, because how do we move past these systems that have been created and not just created but then built upon? And every law, all of these voter suppression laws that have sprung up over the past few months, this is all just more building blocks into the caste system of saying who has the right to live, who has the right to have an opinion and to vote? Where do we even really start to like dig down and break that down into non-existence, I guess? So we're running out of time. So I want to ask a few questions. I have a stack of books beside my bed. Me too.

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I'm now reading about five at a time, just trying to get through some of them. What are some of the books that you think we should read? Anything special?

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Well, I mean, The Warmth of Other Suns is certainly one of the books on my shelf. There's so many. Hands on the Freedom Plow is also really good. Man, I should have wrote down a list because I'm going to miss a lot of good ones. I think Song in a Weary Throat. I have to find the author. I can't remember the author of that one off the top of my head. I'm reading some books about midwives right now, the Alabama midwife, because as everything else goes, we were the ones helping to bring life into this world, and then all of a sudden people just weren't allowed to be midwives anymore, and we lost a lot, I think, with that. So that's been really interesting for me to read. Man, there are just so many. I should have wrote down some. Jodi Picoult is actually one of my favorite fiction authors. I like her too. Yes. And that book is called? I think Small Things. Something Small Things. That's correct. I'm going to cheat. But that is a great book about realizing how your race matters and when you have a quote unquote made it in a certain way. Yes. It shows you what white privilege is, even though you think you've made it. We have another book here on campus by A.B. Rickinson. It's about mulattos that everybody should read. And then we have another one called Jumping the Room, the Broom by Tigela Perry. And it has all of that research. So the research behind this book that we are talking about today and the research behind those two books that I just mentioned, talks about slavery and what it was like. A.B.'s book starts by talking about the owner of this woman cutting off her ears. And it just made me scream as I'm starting the book. It is just so powerful. I think, oh, the Jodi Picoult book is Small Great Thing. That's it. I want to make sure I get that right. But it was, it's fiction, but it's the world that we live in. So there's just so many. Like I am obsessed with buying books, even if I can't get through them all. At one point, at some point, I'm going to have time and I just want them available. Well, we have to stop. I'm sad. Yes. I just want to thank you so much for being here with me, talking about this book, talking about our city. And even though we talk about all of these kinds of books, we know that there is hope. Am I right? Yes, I told you, I'm trying to get there. I'm trying to get there. I keep hope. I, you know, I can't do this work and not have hope. But there are some days and some readings that I do that make that hope really, really hard to, to lift up higher but we have no choice I have children you know hopefully my children will have children and and we'll they will do better there will be better so and I appreciate being here I'm so thankful that you asked me I sort of fangirled out when you asked me so hopefully I come back again one day of course super excited to have this conversation with you thank you wonderful thank you so much, Erica.

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Thank you. ♪♪

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You've been listening to Special Programming, sponsored by Public Radio KUNV 91.5. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz & More, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Transcribed with Cockatoo