Introduction + Part One: Before Race: The Ancient World

After reading the Introductory Section + Part 1 of "Race", I have only good things to say

Marc Aronson (the author) is hard to disagree with. I am finding that his writing is presented in such a way that it makes logical sense and the parts where he did research he did thorough and well. At no points did he make any hasty assumption- one without evidence/reasoning to back it up that is. To put it in short, I found his arguments very convincing and likewise effective on me.

It started right from the beginning. The opening pages of the book describe one of Aronson's personal experiences where he himself made a definite racial judgement. This would seemingly be a bold move to start the book in such a way, largely due to the fact that from the cover we can't tell what the author's position is. All we know going into the opening pages, is the topic. These early pages of the book are especially important for an author who's forming an argument, because whether their writing has a lasting impact on the reader is largely determined by the reader's level of trust for the author, of which the foundation comes from the early pages.

Building more on where I was going with that... I can certainly say that Aronson gained my trust. Following the rundown of his personal experience, he admits his wrongdoing. "I am prejudiced (pg. 1)" he says. Yet in a near instantaneous turnaround he says "It happens to all of us, all the time (pg. 2)" Speaking for myself, I came to realize how true it was. But rather than becoming annoyed by the fact, I was accepting of it. I believe this to be due to the way Aronson implied that it's only what would be expected of me (and everyone for that matter).

It was unclear precisely where his argument was headed from there at first, but having now read up through part 1, Aronson went on to explain much of the earliest origins of both race and slavery.

Speaking of race and slavery... I was definitely influenced when on page 23 he said "Slavery did come to be linked with race, but that was a very recent development. That insight is the key to this whole book, for it allows you to look at slavery and race by themselves, and then trace out their connections" It felt to me as if Aronson was putting forth a completely new concept. I also believe that's what he intended to do. On page 22 he wrote, "we [Americans] assume that slavery is necessarily built on racism." and proceeds to label this as "completely misleading." My mention of that is to show that Aronson sees the American assumption, and therefore aimed to both correct it and build the reader's trust in him for presenting such a fundamental yet very true idea.

Truth.... by truth I mean his claims are only true in my eyes because of the evidence he provides for their support. And since I was only just talking about his claim that slavery and race took separate paths in history, allow me to say what evidence for that struck me as convincing.

It was primarily the background he gave for the social class system in the Roman Empire and to sum it up short, how "In Rome prejudice was based on status. (pg. 47)" This to me was not something I'd ever realized, which is certainly a large part of how Aronson intends to make his arguments throughout this book- by informing the readers of things they were unlikely to have known previously.

That is my take on part 1. As I started off saying, I have good things to say about this book. As such I am in no way dreading the rest of the read. Moreover, I am excited to see it through.