Final Analysis/Overall Thoughts

Howdy Folks,

           Welcome back to my latest blog post and what will be my final one as I have finished reading Marc Aronson's "Race". I have poured a lot of time into writing these blogs, so seeing them go so soon is a little bit sad. In this final blog post, I would like to address Aronson's closing thoughts of the book. Afterwards, I will be connecting it to my personal experiences with race as someone from deep in southern United States states. Finally, I'll address Aronson's argument as a whole one last time through answering with my opinion on whether or not race is just a social construct that has evolved over time.  Without any further hesitation, let's begin!

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           To begin with, in our last section of reading for the novel, Aronson greatly discusses the present day and whether or not racism is still here with us today. He raises this important question as if to guide the reader into using what he has taught them about racial prejudice patterns in the past to decide for themselves the extent to which racism is still present in modern day society. As a result, I have done some critical thinking and realized that while racism has slowly progressed and improved over time, it has still always been present and will likely remain a present problem in society. As we look back in history, we can look at how racism was slowly picked away at by the ending of slavery in America in the 1860's, or even civil rights movements in the 1900's led by those such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. But even so, Marc Aronson helps re-establish that racism is still a powerful problem in modern day society through saying that

"[t]he impulse to hatred is imprinted in us, and we are deeply influenced by the time and place in which we live" (268).

            Modern day racism can be examined in the likes of President Donald Trump's many attempts at barring foreign immigrants from entering the country under false claims that they are all just stealing us "Americans"' jobs. This has even led to discussions of the establishment of a massive border wall to block out any immigrants from Mexico from entering the country, simply because they are different from us. This ties back to the idea of "pariwats" and the idea that humans see others who are different and automatically view them as the enemy.

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             I would like to discuss a personal experience I have viewed of modern day racism. I lived in the state of Georgia for over 8 years of my life. As a southern state, it is one that has strongly struggled with racism in recent American history. Last year, one of my good friends named Phillip was arrested and accused of going onto his neighbor's property and shooting their pet dog for fun. Now, seeing this in the newspaper shocked me because Phillip was one of the kindest people I had ever met. He was a gentle giant and probably one of the sweetest guys I have ever met. He played football, was extremely musically talented, was fairly academically smart, and most importantly would NEVER hurt anyone intentionally. This is someone who was nearly in tears after I contracted a concussion while we were messing around because he blamed himself for something he didn't do. So, you can imagine the shock that overtook me when I read that they were claiming he did this.

             In reality, what actually happened was that Phillip was sitting on his back porch while his little sister and younger brother played in his backyard. Suddenly, a dog with no tags or collar came into his backyard and began to aggressively attack his siblings. Phillip jumped into action to try to scare the dog away. With no success and fear of his siblings being seriously injured, Phil grabbed his pellet gun from inside and fired a shot to scare the dog off. He accidentally hit the dog and it would later go back to it's owners back porch and die. The neighbors were an older, traditional white married couple and claimed Phillip entered their backyard and shot their dog on their porch out of evil intent. Luckily for Phillip, his family owns security cameras in his backyard and the scenting bloodhound traced the other dog into Phillip's back yard, proving his innocence. 

                                               (Phillip's mugshot, in tears after his arrest from his home)            

            This, however, did not stop the media from making Phillip seem like a monster who killed an innocent dog for no reason. If you have not guessed by now, Phillip is a black teenage male. It seriously hurt me a lot to see such a kind and good friend affected by this racism in modern day society. It's one thing to know racism exists in current times and not be affected by it, but it is another to see someone close in your life affected by it. Simply because he was black, Phillip was perceived as a dangerous monster when in reality it was a loving teenager accidentally fatally wounding an old dog out of self-defense. It was at this point in my life that I actually sat down to think about how serious modern day racism really is. It's not to the point of segregation, but in reality it could be considered almost as bad when those who are different from the "typical American" are being wrongfully accused of crimes and having their lives ruined. I don't even want to begin to think about what would have happened had Phillip not had these video tapes and bloodhound proof. His full ride football scholarship to earn an education would likely have been ruined, destroying a part of his future life. It very much puts things into perspective when your own life is brought directly in to a racist effort. 

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           Marc Aronson's argument that racism has evolved over time and has been implanted in human society since the very first city has proven more and more accurate to me the more I read. The plentiful examples given by him in this book have provided me with so much insight on how and why racism still exists today: it is a part of human nature that will always be nearly impossible to rid ourselves of. Our only hope is to continue to progress until the racial prejudice becomes tiny in impact. But as of now, tons of progress still needs to be made to fix the racial problems in modern society when things like what happened to Phillip are happening to thousands upon thousands of those who are not white across the United States. In the end, "Race" gave me so much more than I expected. The writing was meaningful and was actually entertaining to read. It kept me engaged and with the point. 

          Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and am grateful to have gotten such an opening of an opportunity to do so through these blog posts. Marc Aronson has given me some extremely critical and overall very important insight on a very serious problem that the world today has and how it has evolved over time. He has made very well-developed arguments that have led me to agree with most of his points completely. I feel very enlightened on the subject of race and reading this book has greatly enhanced my emotions towards the subject. Especially after I was able to connect it to my personal story of my friend Phillip. Thank you for reading my final blog post and I hope you enjoyed. Signing off for the last time,

                                              -Charlie D.