Reading #1: "Introduction", "Part 1", and "Part 2"

Howdy Folks,

This is my first entry of a series of blogs regarding Marc Aronson's “Race”. In this post, I’ll be
giving my own personal opinion on the first section of our reading of the novel (pages 1-92)
alongside responding to and analyzing the Introduction, Part One, and Part Two. Without
further ado, let’s dive in.

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Aronson and “Race” caught me off guard with how intriguing the book has been overall to me.
The concepts introduced have encouraged me to continue reading while also keeping me interested
and locked in to the argument and points being made. I was not expecting to be so interested by the
book as a whole. Another element of Marc Aronson’s writing that surprised me was the amount of
history of religion that was discussed. However, the history of religion (while not the most interesting
subject in my eyes) was not just filler and added just as much to his argument as all the other topics
presented. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised at how well Aronson did at integrating a large variety
of historical aspects as evidence to support his argument that racism as a whole is something that
has been deeply integrated into our mindsets throughout the human timeline.

The book begins by hooking the reader in with a personal story of a time the author himself

made a stereotypical assumption based on race and assumed a black child was stealing simply

because he was black. The hook was effective in my eyes as Aronson immediately recognizes

that even in those of us who think we are not racist whatsoever, those stereotypes are still

ingrained in society’s mindset. In the introduction, Aronson begins sowing his arguments

seeds through speaking about the present and how he defines race. I definitely agreed and

fully connected with the author’s “4 Pillars” definition of Race, claiming that race rests on these four

pillars that say:

1. “Physical Differences Matter
2. These differences in our bodies cannot change.
3. That is because they are inherited.
4. Each group has a distinct level of brain power and moral refinement, thus they are naturally
   and unchangeably ranked.” (Page 2-3)

After an established definition of what race as a whole really is, the author takes us all the way

back to two separate points in human civilization history: the Munduruku tribe in the Amazon and the

city of Uruk in Sumer (modern day Iraq). At first, I was not quite sure why Aronson was bringing up the

Munduruku tribe if he was just going to really transition to the beginning by talking about the first ever

major city in Uruk. But after re-reading and reflecting, I realized that Aronson simply brought it up to

establish the simplest form of what can be considered racism in society. Aronson discusses how the

tribe refers to themselves as the "Munduruku, the human beings" while referring to "[e]veryone else

us pariwat. Pariwat means 'strangers' but also 'enemy', 'those who are unlike us'"(Page 11). Marc

Aronson is attempting here to establish that race can be something as simple as looking at those

who are not like you as "strangers" and "the enemy". To conclude the introduction, Aronson discusses

the early city of Uruk and it’s talented leader in Gilgamesh. The main ideas he attempts to portray

by discussing it is by going all the way back to the beginning while also tying in the fact that the people

who lived inside the walls of Uruk saw outsiders as lower, creatures of the wild. This ties back

completely to the idea that Aronson previously established that the earliest point of race being a group

of people seeing others as lower than them just because they are not the same.

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Moving onto Part 1, the author begins the section with another story about a girl named Gita

and how she was sold by her father into sex trafficking. This smoothly transitions into the main idea

of the following discussion: slavery. Aronson understands that slavery is widely viewed as white

owners owning black slaves in America, but he makes sure to establish that “[l]ong before Columbus

sailed or the idea of ‘race’ was invented, Africans enslaved Africans, Asians enslaved Asians, and

Europeans enslaved other Europeans” (Page 22). He defines a slave as someone who has been

stripped of their human rights. Aronson ties this into discussion about the enslavement of Jews in

Egypt and how they were treated as if they were not human due to them not sharing beliefs.

Continuing down the timeline, the book quickly transitions over to the discussion of the Greeks.
The Greeks are a continued example of the early seeds of race being developed as an idea based on
the different personalities that citizens of each city had. Athenians would look at other Greek city
citizens as lower simply due to the fact that they were not from Athens despite them both being from
Greece. This moves along to the idea of barbarians and how Greeks viewed outsiders as these wild
and monstrous people who spoke in what he called “barbarian babble” (Page 36). Once again, the
Jewish community is re-instituted into the mix as Aronson describes how the Greeks would only be
accepting of the Jews if their belief systems were changed to match their religious style. Those who
did not were looked down upon for being different.

Finally, Aronson transitions to discussing the Roman Empire. I was actually surprised at how
tolerant Rome was as a whole for those who were different. I did not realize that the Romans were
just as accepting of homosexuality and of people of other skin colors as they were everyone else. The
author makes sure to tie this into his argument and back this up by discussing how Rome’s society
was based completely on what life you were born into. Slaves were seen as just being meant to be
slaves. It didn’t matter to the Romans what they looked like. They were serving Rome as a whole, so
the Roman people did not judge or even slightly be changed by anyone who may have been seen as
different. In fact, many Romans such as Seneca disagreed with slavery as a whole as they (unlike
others) realized slaves were human.

With Christianity’s formation, Rome was still tolerant of those who were different as they were

serving the nation as a whole. Christianity made the Romans believe that God was on their side and

that their nation was the chosen one. However, this is where Rome falls to the barbaric Germanic

tribes of outside Rome, thus ending the section and adding more to support Aronson’s argument.

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Next up, Part 2 also begins with a short story. It discusses a girl named Alyson and how she is

going through a seriously rough patch in her life, dealing with family problems and anorexia. However,

through a message from God, Alyson realizes that she just needed to purify herself to be happy in the

end no matter what was above her bones. This reflected the ideas of the Romans after the fall of the

nation. In fact, Augustine completely turned to Christianity and changed how Rome was structured

completely. Instead of a societal rank system, Augustine believed that everyone needed to dedicate

themselves to God and admit their weaknesses and sins. As hardships ensued, many turned to

Christianity as a beacon of hope to ignore the physical world.

This increase in Christian popularity would later lead to what became known as the Holy Wars.

Pope Urban claimed that by answering his call to reclaim Jerusalem, Europeans could “overcome the

impossible division in their lives” (Page 65). He did so through claiming that God willed it to be done

(“Deus Vult”) and that if it was done, God would forgive all of their previous sins. At this point, Aronson

makes a comparison that I rather enjoyed and had never really considered. These crusades had

started off as a “holy cause” to be done for religion and became a violent hatred. Marc Aronson

compares the crusades to a more modern holy cause in the jihad Islamic terrorism. I think this

comparison offered the reader with a better idea of how the conflict of the crusades really affected

hatred as a whole. Because despite starting off without hatred, the crusades slowly made Christians

more violent and hating towards Muslims and Jews, thus creating a race profile where Christians look

down on other religions as lower or not as good.

Finally, Aronson discusses how Ethiopians and Jews became slowly looked down on more for

more religious reasons. This is where Aronson really made a connection with me as a reader as he

reiterated that religion was “not a choice but an inheritance” (Page 89). This particular quote really

made me think about how religion as a whole created prejudice based on the information he shared

with us. And it further ties back to the author’s original argument that race is something that has been

evolved on and constantly there since the beginning of human society.

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Overall, I fairly enjoyed myself with this first reading. The book is enjoyable to read and the

author’s argument as a whole is easy to follow. His comparisons to modern situations could also often

help with understanding, and the religious ideas presented by the author were well constructed in

order to further get his point across the reader. I look forward to seeing how the author continues to

develops his argument that race as a concept is something that has developed since the beginning

of human society and has always been ingrained in the minds of humans as whole as a result.

-Charlie