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Dehumanize the group, and you have completed the work of dehumanizing any single person within it.

This quote comes from Wilkerson’s explanation of Part Three’s Pillar Number Six: Dehumanization and Stigma, in which she lays out her argument for how caste dehumanizes members of the lower strata. Because it is much more difficult to dehumanize individuals, Wilkerson asserts that the work of stereotyping is to successfully dehumanize every member of the group en masse. She argues that dehumanization is an integral feature of caste systems since it ostracizes lower caste members, putting them beyond the reach of normal human compassion. In Wilkerson’s view, seeing people as unique individuals rather than simply as members of a group serves to destabilize caste.

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