An Introduction to Race

In my adventure through eleventh grade, I have been taking an AP rhetoric and composition class, which means that I have been reading more nonfiction books recently. Just a few weeks ago, we started our unit on race and were given a choice between three books. My teacher told me that Race by Marc Aronson was an interesting and accessible read, so here I am.

Race is a book about the origins of racial distinctions. Aronson lays the groundwork for his ideas in the introduction to the book. He ponders the question "Where do prejudices come from?" By exploring this question, he develops ethos.

In his first attempt to answer the question by saying prejudices develop in the mind, Aronson builds ethos by citing a psychologist who practices in New York City, who has written many books about prejudice. He uses her insights to answer the question of where prejudices come from, which shows that he has done the necessary research to really try to understand where these prejudices develop. Showing that he has done thorough research, makes him seem more credible to me, and all of his readers because it makes us feel as though he knows more about the subject and has the authority to teach us about it.

Aronson also answers his question from a tribal perspective. In this attempt, he develops ethos by being honest with us. Aronson tells us flat out that he is going "directly against the views of many anthropologists who carefully study" the tribes that he describes (pg. 10). In my opinion, this makes me trust Aronson more because he makes it clear that what he believes is not what many people who specifically study these groups. This makes his readers and me feel as though he is giving us the opportunity to think for ourselves, rather than just going along with what he believes because we think that he is right. It makes him seem more trustworthy because he has told the truth right away, so we can expect that he will tell us the truth throughout the rest of the book.

When Aronson transitions into the first part of his book, he makes important rhetorical choices that seem like they will continue through the rest of the book. Throughout the first part, he uses pictures to amplify the points that he makes. In one section about the Greeks and their ideas about who should be enslaved, he embeds a picture of a vase, on which a Greek lancer is defeating a Persian archer (pg. 37).

Pitcher with Greek Warrior Attacking Persian Archer. Museum of Fine Arts Boston,
     www.mfa.org/collections/object/
     pitcher-oinochoe-with-greek-warrior-attacking-persian-archer-153828.
     Accessed 19 Mar. 2018.

This image is helpful in displaying how the Greeks felt as though they were superior to the Persians, which transitions into the thought that Greeks, like Aristotle, believed that they were superior to all people who were born in different places than they were. The Greeks thought that they should enslave people who were inferior to them. The images that Aronson chooses to incorporate into his book are very well chosen because they make the situation clearer. It is helpful to me to be able to visualize what Aronson is describing, and could help you to visualize the circumstances in the book.

Just in the first 54 pages of Race, Aronson creates a sense of strong place for us, using good rhetorical strategies. He writes his book in a chronological order, which makes it easy to follow along. The chronological order gives the book a good flow. Each new group introduced by Aronson and their ideas about race and slavery are connected to the group he describes before, which make the transitions between each smooth. He starts in Greece with the Greeks and the Jewish, then moves onto the rivalry that brews between the Jews and the Christians, then in order "to understand the world of Christianity built" he moves into Rome (pg. 46). The Jews tie to the Christians who tie to the Roman Empire.

The diction, word choice, he uses also makes his book very accessible. I have been able to get through it without getting lost in jargon about race. While keeping his book easy to read, he is still able to make you think. He asks a lot of questions in order to make you think about what race and slavery do to people: "if his property is human, it is not property. So he must convince himself that the living beings he owns---who cry, bleed, sing, and laugh, just like himself---are not like him at all. But if he succeeds in not caring for them, how human is he?" which is a question that you have to ponder. 

If I’m being honest, I’m not usually a big fan of nonfiction literature, but I have been surprisingly pleased by Race so far. Aronson tackles difficult ideas, but he keeps it simple and straight to the point.