BOOK NOOK: Reviews: Books, food, architecture

Four years ago Isabel Wilkerson published “Caste: the Origins of Our Discontents,” it became a #1 New York Times best-seller and came out in paperback last year. Her first book, “The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” (2010), was also a best seller.

Wilkerson is a highly regarded investigative journalist. When she was with the New York Times she won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting. She spent 15 years doing research and writing that first book, an examination of the three distinct routes many African Americans took between 1915 and the 1970s as they migrated from the south to northern and western states.

In “Caste: the Origins of Our Discontents” Wilkerson looked at racial stratification in the United States and concluded discrimination in this country is not so much about race as it is an invisible caste system that has been in place since the first slave ships from Africa reached these shores.

Wilkerson investigated how the Nazis strategized implementation of their “Final Solution” which resulted in the liquidation of six million Jews. The Nazis studied racist Jim Crow laws in our southern states. They didn’t murder Jews on account of their race, instead it was through implementation of this deadly caste system inspired to some extent by our Jim Crow.

In India she researched an entrenched caste system identifying certain people as “untouchables.” This discrimination is not racial, but something else altogether. After the killing of Trayvon Martin, the unlucky youth who died because he was Black in a white neighborhood, Wilkerson began realizing racial discrimination in the U.S. isn’t so much about race as it is about caste, like it was in Germany and still is in India.

Ava DuVernay has adapted “Caste” into a film; “Origin.” Last week I attended a private screening of the movie at Dave Chappelle’s YS Firehouse as part of the YS Firehouse Sound Check Series. Chappelle has been hosting private events there. His YS Firehouse will officially open this spring.

In Yellow Springs we watched our former village fire station becoming this sleek nightclub. We were dying to know what it looked like inside. I was among the first to arrive. The capacity of the venue is about 150-it filled up quickly.

Dave Chappelle’s YS Firehouse is an intimate, inviting space. Our host’s gracious hospitality became readily apparent as we savored yummy appetizers and beverages. Chappelle introduced the film and as I scanned the audience I was impressed by how many longtime Yellow Springs residents were present.

“Origin” is a blockbuster film. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor does a magnificent job portraying Wilkerson. Emily Yancy gives a standout performance as Wilkerson’s mother, Ruby. Niecy Nash-Betts then steals the show as the author’s cousin, Marion.

Ava DuVernay’s searing depictions of Nazi death camps, slave ships, and the treatment of “untouchables” is unforgettable. The film enters wide release this week. The YS Firehouse Sound Check Series will definitely enhance our cultural lives here in the Miami Valley.

Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Saturday at 7 a.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, visit www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.