First of all, many thanks to those who are coming back to my blog for the fourth time.
Finding Aronson's argument in Race has proved to be a little bit of a challenge. The set up of the book is, for the most part, informational. And while non-fiction always contains some form of an argument, it has taken some digging to find.
Probably the biggest clue for me has been how Aronson writes the word "race." Every time the word appears in Aronson's book, he writes it just like that---in quotations. Here's an example: "The 'race' of some other immigrants was much more difficult to determine than even that of the Italians" (pg 193). This says to me that Aronson is of the belief that race is a societal concept. Although this has been proven before in his historical narratives of different societies and their interpretations of the idea of race, I believe it is a worthy point in exploring his argument. There was a question that Aronson asked earlier in the book that has stuck with me throughout the 220 pages. I can't recall the exact quotation, but I remember the concept. He asked if there could ever be a time without prejudice, and I thought that this was incredibly interesting. While my gut instinct would be no, because my entire life has been experienced with prejudice in it, could there be a time without it? This, I think, explores the idea of race being a societal concept.
In this section, Aronson talks about immigration. While immigration is not one of his main arguments, it is important to race. Aronson uses a personal anecdote in his discussion on immigration, which makes it easier for the reader to see his opinion on this issue: "Roosevelt knew that if he let the passengers of the St. Louis into America, others who had already been told they could come would be shut out. If that exchange had taken place, my mother might well have been trapped in Europe and sent to her death" (pgs 195-196). In the next couple of pages, Aronson sets a negative tone when emphasizing America's distaste in allowing immigrants because of the desire to keep America as close to Aryan as possible, but within his personal anecdote, Aronson recognizes that perhaps some restrictions on immigration should be in place. It seems to me that this sub-section of immigration leads to a larger part of Aronson's argument---the fact that he believes America should truly be a diverse melting pot and that the view of wanting a purely white country is outdated.
Finally, I would like to pay at least a little bit of attention to the most simple and probably greatest argument in Race by Marc Aronson. Because of the simplicity of this argument, I would also like to recognize that Aronson develops complexity by qualifying beliefs that he may not agree with instead of just disregarding them. The argument I'm talking about is prejudice being a negative force on minority groups. Aronson also spent time in this section talking about the Holocaust and Jews in Germany. The part that stuck out the most to me was when Aronson thought about Richard Wagner, a composer we typically commend for his music and his own anti-Semitism. He writes, "You can see how anti-Semitism poisoned even the most brilliant German minds through the story of Richard Wagner. Wagner was not only a musical genius, he was also an idealist determined to serve his people and his country[...]He despised the French almost as much as he hated the Jews" (pg 183).
Finding Aronson's argument in Race has proved to be a little bit of a challenge. The set up of the book is, for the most part, informational. And while non-fiction always contains some form of an argument, it has taken some digging to find.
Probably the biggest clue for me has been how Aronson writes the word "race." Every time the word appears in Aronson's book, he writes it just like that---in quotations. Here's an example: "The 'race' of some other immigrants was much more difficult to determine than even that of the Italians" (pg 193). This says to me that Aronson is of the belief that race is a societal concept. Although this has been proven before in his historical narratives of different societies and their interpretations of the idea of race, I believe it is a worthy point in exploring his argument. There was a question that Aronson asked earlier in the book that has stuck with me throughout the 220 pages. I can't recall the exact quotation, but I remember the concept. He asked if there could ever be a time without prejudice, and I thought that this was incredibly interesting. While my gut instinct would be no, because my entire life has been experienced with prejudice in it, could there be a time without it? This, I think, explores the idea of race being a societal concept.
In this section, Aronson talks about immigration. While immigration is not one of his main arguments, it is important to race. Aronson uses a personal anecdote in his discussion on immigration, which makes it easier for the reader to see his opinion on this issue: "Roosevelt knew that if he let the passengers of the St. Louis into America, others who had already been told they could come would be shut out. If that exchange had taken place, my mother might well have been trapped in Europe and sent to her death" (pgs 195-196). In the next couple of pages, Aronson sets a negative tone when emphasizing America's distaste in allowing immigrants because of the desire to keep America as close to Aryan as possible, but within his personal anecdote, Aronson recognizes that perhaps some restrictions on immigration should be in place. It seems to me that this sub-section of immigration leads to a larger part of Aronson's argument---the fact that he believes America should truly be a diverse melting pot and that the view of wanting a purely white country is outdated.
Finally, I would like to pay at least a little bit of attention to the most simple and probably greatest argument in Race by Marc Aronson. Because of the simplicity of this argument, I would also like to recognize that Aronson develops complexity by qualifying beliefs that he may not agree with instead of just disregarding them. The argument I'm talking about is prejudice being a negative force on minority groups. Aronson also spent time in this section talking about the Holocaust and Jews in Germany. The part that stuck out the most to me was when Aronson thought about Richard Wagner, a composer we typically commend for his music and his own anti-Semitism. He writes, "You can see how anti-Semitism poisoned even the most brilliant German minds through the story of Richard Wagner. Wagner was not only a musical genius, he was also an idealist determined to serve his people and his country[...]He despised the French almost as much as he hated the Jews" (pg 183).
(Courtesy of Wikipedia)
This was an interesting and thought-provoking perspective on an issue that I have researched many times before. In other times during the chapter, Aronson made sure to comment on the brutality of anti-Semitism for Jews, which follows the simple argument of prejudice being a wrongful idea that human society has fought since the beginning. However, I applaud Aronson for turning that argument on its head and talking about what prejudice does to the person who is guilty of applying it to other groups.
Due to the more informational take Aronson displays in Race, it was a little more difficult to find the roots of his arguments. I focused on how he conveys his belief of race being a societal concept by writing the word quotation marks, how a lack of immigration can enforce racism in America, and how as most people believe, prejudice has negative affects on both the minority group and the person employing the prejudice.
Once again, thank you for reading my fourth blog post. I hope you will stick around for my very last post on this topic, which will be available next week.
Hi Clara!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this post. You saw some aspects to his argument that I did not catch, which I think were really interesting. I have never thought about what prejudice does to the person who is guilty of having those prejudices, I have only ever focused on how the prejudices affect groups who people are prejudiced against.
I can't wait for you final post to hear your thoughts on the book as a whole.
Hi Lily,
DeleteThanks for being a loyal reader and commenting on my blog posts. It’s good to get a conversation going, especially about a topic as complex and unnerving as race. I wonder how Aronson will end the book with modern day, and if he will about police brutality at all.
*will talk about police brutality.
DeleteMy phone keeps trying to change “talk” to “y’all” for some reason.
I really enjoyed reading through this post. I think your ideas about Aronson's argument are solid, and as always your style is a delight to read.
ReplyDeleteI found the section about immigration fascinating, especially because it's something that one can apply to their own family. Did you have any thoughts on the way he approached the overall topic of immigration that you didn't have a chance to write about in this post? If so, I'd be very interested in hearing them!
Clara, I think your understanding of the argument makes sense, and you've developed your response to it well. Your question, about whether there can be a time without prejudice, is a great one, and one I hope we can someday see an answer to.
ReplyDelete