What's the Point?

March 29, 2020, at 9:43 PM

In the latest section of Race, pages 185-215, Aronson’s purpose for writing the book was abundantly clear. This section focused on what Aronson describes as the culmination of 150 years or so of the development of the idea of race, and, by extension, racism: the Holocaust. On page 206, Aronson summarizes his argument in the book as a whole:

“Early humans needing to be especially alert in a dangerous environment divided the world into us and them, friend and foe. Sumerians changed that to civilized and savage, which Greeks modified to Greek and barbarian. Romans created new tiers, dividing people by wealth and background and vastly increasing the pool of slaves. Christians claimed that all such division disappeared when compared to the difference between God and humanity. But then Crusaders slaughtered infidels and monstrous men. Even as encounters with new peoples shook those religious certainties, a new division arose: race. Race seemed to divide people more firmly than ever before, since each person’s capabilities were set by his or her parents, and grandparents, and remote ancestors. By the twentieth century race was no longer a personal matter. The health of nations depended on maintaining absolute purity” (Aronson 206-207).

That (really long) quote is a perfect summary of what Aronson wants to prove in Race, at least thus far. He wants the reader to understand that distinctions of race have roots in ancient history, and that they began in an understandable place.


Picture of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, via Jonny McKenna on Unsplash

However, as he argues in this section, distinctions of race eventually became the epitome of all evil. Aronson wants to prove to the reader the harm that the idea of race has caused. He tries to show this through a series of smaller, related arguments. I’ve outlined several of the most important.

Argument: race was an ingrained fact of life.

As I discussed in my last blog post, Aronson has focused on the history of immigration restrictions in the United States, as they show the evolving collective view of race. He begins this section by continuing this discussion, describing how Americans viewed immigrants in New York. To explain why this was a tough question, he writes:

“One hundred fifty years of American life had given the Supreme Court two standards for “whiteness”: the various “scientific” divisions of the races, and the experience, the “common sense,” of average Americans… [T]he concept of race had become so familiar that Americans knew it by heart. It was not prejudice, it was fact” (Aronson 194).

In the context of the passage where this appears, it is part of Aronson’s argument that America struggled with contradictory definitions of race, and whiteness, in the 1920s. However, in the larger section, it also contributes to his later argument (that I’m choosing to focus on) that definitions of race became one of the worst things that ever happened to the world.

This section helps Aronson begin that argument by illustrating how the concept of race was ingrained in the way people saw the world. As he has continually mentioned, that was a crucial step in the direction of system racial discrimination, prejudice, and, ultimately, violence. For people to turn the other cheek when, for instance, 6 million European Jews are being murdered, they need to truly believe in the premise that Jews are a) a distinct race, and, b) an inferior one.

So, by plainly stating that the concept of race was “fact,” even in the context of America, Aronson is essentially laying the groundwork for his subsequent argument about the Holocaust.

Argument: the Holocaust was one of the worst things that has ever happened in the world.

After establishing the racial basis by which mass atrocities could be justified, Aronson moves on to explain how exactly the Holocaust came about. To prove his argument that the idea of race has wreaked havoc on our world, Aronson is focusing on the Holocaust as the ultimate horrific event. In terms of how he develops the argument that it was a terrible event, I am more interested in the way he makes it feel terrible than the way he lays out the facts about the events.

Perhaps this is because I have, at this point, studied the Holocaust somewhat extensively in school, and I am familiar with the facts. Whatever the personal reason, it was Aronson’s emotional argument that stood out the most to me.

“I am not interested in explaining Hitler or understanding the Germans. My emotions are not that tolerant or kind. The Germans can never feel guilty enough to suit me… my hatred should never have to be curbed by their apologies or payments” (Aronson 208).

I found this passage extremely powerful, not least because Aronson’s parents were European Jewish immigrants. He states earlier in the section that, if circumstances had been different, his mother could have died in the Holocaust. So, this emotional aside in the middle of a fact-based section is instrumental to the development of Aronson’s argument about the horrors of race. It puts a human experience to the facts, and shows that objectivity is not the only criterion by which we should judge historical events. The way it makes those involved feel is important as well.

Aronson’s clear pain in this passage helps to convince the reader that the Holocaust was, as I said above, the ultimate horrific event. Then, believing this, the reader is primed to believe Aronson’s conclusion about the effects of race. He also gains credibility — and helps convince the reader of the argument — by acknowledging that his hatred toward Germans is likely shared by other wronged people toward their oppressors. By noting that other people feel the same way for different reasons, he continues to prove his argument by demonstrating that all types of racial conflicts, not just the Holocaust, cause terrible results.

And then, Aronson says the thing that he will use to drive his argument home, once and for all. “Hatred is the scar victims carry, and I am not sure it can ever heal. And yet the Germans did not act alone” (Aronson 209).

Argument: it wasn’t just the Germans.

On the last two pages of the section, Aronson stops talking about the Nazis and brings the conversation back to America. It is this choice, in my opinion, that “seals the deal” of his argument. To show that the definition of race has caused unquantifiable pain in the world, he has to show that many people were at fault. Spoiler alert: as a country, so were we.

On page 214, Aronson describes the Tuskegee Experiment, also known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. Here’s an article from the CDC explaining what happened; the US Public Health Service spent some forty years studying almost 400 African-Americans who had syphilis. The men were not informed that they had the disease, nor were they treated with penicillin when it was discovered that it could cure syphilis. In short, it was an abomination of an unethical study.

Aronson discusses this event immediately after explaining the experiments performed on prisoners by Nazi doctors, thus juxtaposing the two. This is effective because it helps him to make the point that, though Americans were rightly horrified by the actions of the Nazis, we committed our own racial crimes that cannot be justified. (Aronson then further proves this point by describing a few other unjust things done to African-Americans).

By describing America’s guilt in racial violence and injustice, Aronson is again arguing that the idea of race has been used to justify horrible things, time and time again. It’s the “time and time again” part of that argument that illustrating a variety of injustices helps to prove, because doing so shows that the concept led to bad things all over the world, not just in one place.

Overall argument: the concept of race has done a lot of harm to the world.

To conclude my thoughts, an argument that I noticed Aronson making strongly in this section was that the concept of race in our world has caused a lot of harm, specifically in the last century. He makes this argument by explaining, yet again, the origins of race, by showing that the idea of race became, at some point, a basic fact in people’s minds, by demonstrating the emotional impact of the most extreme racial violence (the Holocaust), and by comparing that violence to other events that took place in America.

This fits within his broader argument in the book, that the concept of “us vs them” has always existed, and also serves as a further development of that idea. To explain: Aronson needed the historical context to make the argument I have been focused on, and that argument is also just a part of the history he is trying to compile. So, in different ways, race as a terrible historical development is both his main argument and a side argument in this book.

However you want to define the argument that the idea of race has caused harm within this book, Aronson has convinced me of it. I wholeheartedly agree that the idea of race has caused irreparable damage to the world, and, since I’m aware that that damage has been almost entirely to groups I do not belong to, I think the damage is probably a lot worse than I can see.

To be fair, I probably would have said I agreed with Aronson’s argument before reading Race. However, I now feel I have a better historical understanding of why I agree with it, and therefore I am more well informed about this topic for future discussion and thinking.

Despite what I just said, it’s been interesting for me to write this blog post because I don’t think I’ve ever thought of race in such a black and white way before (pun intended — sorry). That is, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about whether I think it’s, on the whole, a good or bad thing. As Aronson mentions again and again, most people just view it as a part of the way the world is.

And, finally, I want to clarify that I don’t think race is all bad or all good. The distinction I want to make is that race used as a weapon is a bad thing. As an element of culture, I think race has value, and I don’t want to minimize that value. At the end of the day, the history of race is just insanely complicated. After all, that’s the whole point of this book.

Works Cited

Aronson, Marc. Race: A History beyond Black and White. Atheneum Books for Young
     Readers, 2007.

McKenna, Jonny. Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe - the Berlin Holocaust
     Memorial in Germany. Unsplash, 16 Nov. 2019, unsplash.com/photos/Vt3RSJBQcPM.
     Accessed 29 Mar. 2020.