Racial segregation in the United States

==Caste system==
Scholars including [[W. Lloyd Warner]],<ref name="Warner1936">{{cite journal|last=Warner|first=W. Lloyd|author-link=W. Lloyd Warner|year=1936|title=American caste and class|journal=American Journal of Sociology|volume=42|issue=2|pages=234–237|doi=10.1086/217391|s2cid=146641210}}</ref> [[Gerald Berreman]],<ref name="Berreman1960">{{cite journal|last=Berreman|first=Gerald|date=September 1960|title=Caste in India and the United States|journal=American Journal of Sociology|volume=66|issue=2|pages=120–127|doi=10.1086/222839|jstor=2773155|s2cid=143949609}}</ref> and [[Isabel Wilkerson]] have described the pervasive practice of racial segregation in America as an aspect of a [[Caste|caste system]] proper to the United States. In her 2020 book ''[[Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents]]'', Wilkerson described the system of racial segregation and discrimination in the United States as one example of a caste system by comparing it to the [[Caste system in India|caste systems of India]] and [[Nazi Germany]]. In her view, the three systems all exhibit the defining features of caste: divine or natural justification for the system, heritability of caste, [[endogamy]], belief in purity, occupational hierarchy, dehumanization and stigmatization of lower castes, terror and cruelty as methods of enforcement and control, and the belief in the superiority of the dominant caste.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wilkerson |first=Isabel |title=Caste: the origins of our discontents |year=2020 |isbn=978-0593230251 |edition=First |location=New York |pages=99 et seq |oclc=1147928120 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_er2DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA99 |author-link=Isabel Wilkerson}}</ref>