Alexander’s historical argument is that racial caste systems in America do not die, they transform, each time tailored to fit the legal and cultural constraints of the moment while preserving the same underlying structure of Black subordination, a process she calls “preservation through transformation.” The most unsettling part of her account is the recurring role of poor white people: she shows through the history of Bacon’s Rebellion and the Populist movement that multiracial coalitions of poor people have repeatedly come close to challenging elite power, only to be broken apart by the deliberate offer of racial privilege to poor whites, the message being, you may be poor, but at least you are not Black. This goes to a fundamental argument that I personally believe in: humans are far more separated by class than race. Her history is convincing precisely because it offers no easy comfort. I keep coming back to the same problem with these readings, I can see the inherent faults in our systems in place, but what will it take to break them?