Final thoughts

    

Overall Appreciation (Plus a bit of rhetorical analysis)

   Welcome to my final blog post! When I first began reading this book, I felt it would be dry and difficult to understand. I'm not much of a history buff and since this topic was very new to me, I was apprehensive. However, I was pleasantly surprised with Aronson's writing. As I've previously mentioned, Aronson tackles this complex topic through a story-esque writing style. He introduces the four "pillars of race" as he calls them.

"1) Physical difference matters 
2) These differences in our bodies cannot be changed
3) That is because they are inherited
4) Each group has a distinct level of brainpower and moral refinement, thus they are naturally and unchangeable ranked." (Aronson Pg. 3)

He uses the rest of the book to illustrate how the idea of race developed throughout history. His book takes the reader on a journey through time using countless examples to find exactly when and how race was invented. His storytelling is incredibly engaging and as a reader unfamiliar with this topic, it significantly helped me understand the history of how we got to our modern definition of race. He has a very effective way of telling very many stories and relating them to the main idea about the development of one of the pillars of race. I found that he often included shorter phrases which perfectly summed up a chapter's worth of reading so I understood what he was trying to say. A shorter sentence was easier to understand and digest so I really appreciated these wrap-up phrases cleverly planted throughout. Something else that made his writing incredibly effective was the chronology of his chapters. Each chapter had a clear title with subsections that told you what ideas he was presenting. The ideas flowed so smoothly together between time periods and pillars of race, again making it so much easier to follow and understand. 

  Aronson also makes very good use of rhetorical questions to give the readers a new perspective. I often found that these questions helped me understand why his ideas made sense because I was looking at a historical example through the eyes of somebody who had experienced it. For example, as he discusses the Epic of Gilgamesh, he asks the question "How could the people of Uruk felt any other way?" (Aronson Pg 15) after explaining their superiority over people who didn't live in cities. This helped me understand that they weren't intentionally having prejudices against people who lived outside the city, it just seemed like a rational judgment to them. All of these strategies he chooses to use throughout the book show that he is catering his material towards people who aren't experts on history or social justice. I find them very helpful as a reader who needs the extra help to understand. 

  Finally, Aronson established his credibility as an author in an unusual way. Instead of explicitly stating things that would qualify him to write about this topic, he uses a more subtle approach. At the beginning of his book, he invites readers to think critically about what he writes and not to just agree with everything he says. "Readers, I am not asking you to agree with me, but to think with me." (Aronson pg 31). Because race is an incredibly sensitive and controversial topic, people are quick to dismiss ideas that come from people they might not agree with. It's easy to think that somebody is pushing their ideas down your throat and getting political, but Aronson does a really good job of avoiding this. He makes it clear that his ideas are not the only ones and that other views are valid as well. He invites a difference in opinion in his readers, which is a good way to get his audience to trust his credibility because they will see that he's genuinely interested in sharing his ideas for academic and not political reasons. All of these strategies Aronson uses to make his book very engaging, effective, and genuinely enjoyable for me.

Some Thoughts Provoked

  When I read this book, a lot of things stood out to me, but the most important one wasn't about the past, it was about the present. On the very last page of the book, Aronson says something very powerful to me. "At best we can pause: pause at the edge of the jungle as a stranger walks by and ask, Is my fear of him, my hatred of him, my sense that he is alien - is that me speaking, or some ancient fear?" (Aronson pg. 269). This makes me wonder about the purpose of his book. I seek a lesson from these stories from the past that can be applied to issues today. After reading all this history, I wonder: How we can learn from it? In the following essay, I will address this question using Aronson's ideas as well as some of my insights on his book. 

What Can We Learn From History?

   I commonly hear that we can learn from history, or that we must learn so that history doesn't repeat itself. I think this can definitely be applied to the issue of racism. Aronson's book is packed full of history involved in the development of race and racism. I'm not sure this book has a central argument to it, as I said it's more of a story. But I'm sure there is something we can take away from all this history that can help us move past the issue today. So what can we learn from history to resolve racism?

  The first way we can learn from history is by seeing the damaging effects of rapid information spreading. The ability to communicate in an instant can certainly have its advantages, but it also has a lot of power to do bad things. I've seen firsthand how social media allows rumors and hateful content to spread like a wildfire. Every day we can see a slew of content online and we're left grasping straws trying to figure out what's true and what's not. As I mentioned in my 2nd post, "Kung flu" and other terms for Covid-19 recently began circulating in the media and soon everyone thought that Asians were to blame for this pandemic. Due to this, hate crimes against Asians have been dramatically increasing. This isn't just a modern-day issue, though. Aronson explores the potentially polarizing effects of widespread information in the Middle Ages among Christians in particular as cathedrals began displaying images of Jews with horns for everybody to see. "There, ignorant men and women who would never travel more than a few miles from their homes learned about heaven and hell, about history, and about the world" (Aronson pg. 70-71). Aronson explains how this widespread false information had a big impact because it caused Christians to generally believe that Jews were evil. The first way we can learn from history is to recognize that we need to critically analyze the information we are presented with. Racial prejudices can be so easily spread through the media and we can't be so quick to accept them as the truth. We need to think for ourselves and not let the media control the way we think about race. We must break away from the commonly shared prejudices and see the truth in order to achieve equality.

  The second way we can learn from history is to recognize that prejudices can exist where we don't see them, and even when we try not to have them. It's really hard for me to admit this, but I do have very implicit biases against people of color sometimes. It sounds awful, and I feel uncomfortable admitting it, but it's true. (I'm kind of sweating right now as write this actually). Sometimes if I see a person of color who looks kind of shady, I'm pretty quick to wonder if they had done something illegal. It makes me sad when I think like this because I don't want to think like this and I am a very firm believer in equal rights. It boils my blood and makes me sick when I see discrimination and racism, I just don't understand why skin color should matter at all, we're all human. But even though I would never act on my prejudices and I have never had the intention of thinking ill of colored people, I still have implicit biases. In Aronson's book, he examines a similar dilemma as new race theories began to form. Blumenbach in particular aimed to find a purely scientific explanation for different races, but he could not evade the grips of his own prejudices. "In one moment he was using calipers and measuring skulls. In another he was ranking all human beings based on his own personal sense of beauty" (Aronson pg. 126). This shift from facts to biases was not recognized by the public though, and this was very damaging as personal opinions became unchangeable facts. This can teach us to examine our thoughts carefully and confront our prejudices. We have the choice to ask ourselves why we think what we do, and we can choose whether or not to act on those thoughts. I think a lot of people could stand to learn that. An important step towards racial equality is to be able to admit to yourself that you are prejudiced, and then actively try and change the way you think. I think this a very important lesson we can learn from the history presented in this book, that it's ok to have those underlying prejudices but it's not ok to blindly act on them. 

Conclusion

  Overall, I think Aronson has an amazing writing style which he uses cleverly to create a truly amazing and enlightening book. Just from reading his book, I have an entirely new outlook on race. I truly have changed the way I think about my own biases and about what brought us here today. I learned so much from this book, more than I ever would have known had I not read it. I'm really glad I read this because I now recognize how truly important it is to be aware of these kinds of things. I have genuinely enjoyed this book and finding where I stand in the issue of race through the journey. Going forward, I keep the lessons this book has helped me learn in mind and work to change the way I think and overcome my own prejudices. I know the lessons I took away from this book are certainly not the only things that need to happen to end racism, but I think they would be a good place to start on the journey to true racial equality. I truly hope that more young students like me continue to become educated on the subject. Thanks for reading!

Audria :)

   

Works Cited:

Aronson, Marc. Race: A History Beyond Black and White. New York, Atheneum Books 

   for Young Readers, 2007.