For
readers of Caste and
Radical Dharma, an
urgent call to action to end caste apartheid, grounded in Dalit
feminist abolition and engaged Buddhism.
"Dalit" is the name that we chose for ourselves when
Brahminism declared us "untouchable." Dalit means broken.
Broken by suffering. Broken by caste: the world's oldest,
longest-running dominator system...yet although "Dalit"
means broken, it also means resilient.
Caste--one of the oldest systems of exclusion in the world--is
thriving. Despite the ban on Untouchability 70 years ago, caste
impacts 1.9 billion people in the world. Every 15 minutes, a crime is
perpetrated against a Dalit person. The average age of death for
Dalit women is just 39. And the wreckages of caste are replicated
here in the U.S., too--erupting online with rape and death threats,
showing up at work, and forcing countless Dalits to live in fear of
being outed.
Dalit American activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan puts forth a call
to awaken and act, not just for readers in South Asia, but all around
the world. She ties Dalit oppression to fights for liberation among
Black, Indigenous, Latinx, femme, and Queer communities, examining
caste from a feminist, abolitionist, and Dalit Buddhist
perspective--and laying bare the grief, trauma, rage, and stolen
futures enacted by Brahminical social structures on the
caste-oppressed.
Soundararajan's work includes embodiment exercises, reflections,
and meditations to help readers explore their own relationship to
caste and marginalization--and to step into their power as healing
activists and changemakers. She offers skills for cultivating
wellness within dynamics of false separation, sharing how both
oppressor and oppressed can heal the wounds of caste and transform
collective suffering. Incisive and urgent, The Trauma of Caste
is an activating beacon of healing and liberation, written by one of
the world's most needed voices in the fight to end caste apartheid.