Meg's AP Lang Blog

Hey guys! I've made it up to page 219 of Race. I really enjoyed this section, particularly because of how Aronson has applied all of the previous ideas from history to more modern events, like the Holocaust. In this section, I'm going to analyze the argument that Aronson is trying to make in this book. Overall, I think that there was more a purpose of this book  (to explain how the concept of race came to be) than an argument, but if I had to find one, I would say it's this: racism is more of a contemporary concept that our society has fabricated, but prejudice has existed since the beginning of time.  Along with that main argument, Aronson fills in the connections between the eternal prejudice and modern racism with boatloads of information. When I'm reading it, it doesn't seem to be argumentative or pushing a certain point. However, for the purpose of this blog assignment, I will focus on the argument above and show how Aronson gets this point across. T...

Hi everybody! I'm now on page 175 of Race,  and up to Chapter 13. To be completely honest, I found this reading section very difficult to get through. I'm not sure why that is, but I have a feeling it is because of how dense this part was with all of the names, dates, and information in general. However, there were parts here and there that really stood out to me among all of the statistics and facts, and that was due to Aronson's rhetorical style. That is what I will be analyzing today. The first part in which Aronson's rhetorical style was evident was right at the beginning of Chapter 9, in which Aronson describes an experiment that teacher Jane Elliot performed the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. He describes how Elliot tells her students "A new study has shown that blue-eyed people are stupid and lazy..." and "Because they have more melanin in their blood, brown-eyed people are naturally superior." (115). Sure enough, the brown-eye...

Hello everybody! I'm now on page 111 of Race,  and I'm up to part four of the book overall. This second reading section has been very religion-oriented, mainly focusing on the conflict between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. It also covered how some of the ideas mentioned in the Bible influenced countries all over the world, especially on the subject of race. One story in particular focuses on Noah and his son named Ham. I interpreted the part of the book discussing this specific story as Aronson's main argument in the section, and today, I am focusing on how the ideology that stemmed from this story still applies in current events today. I am somewhat learned when it comes to Christianity; I grew up going to church and Sunday school, so I have some general knowledge about the stories in the Bible. I have also been aware of people who take part in "biblical literalism", which, as you can probably guess from the term, means taking literally everything in t...

I just finished reading the first 54 pages of Race. So far, I am really enjoying the use of history and the study of past mindsets in relation to our perception of race today. I have always enjoyed reading about history, and while I expected this book to be all about slavery and America's past, I was pleasantly surprised with the use of evidence from ancient civilizations like Greece and Rome. Before he got into the historical aspect of prejudice and racism, however, Aronson told a personal story. It involved him at a pool, standing in line for a snack, and overhearing people accusing African-American teenagers of stealing. Although he didn't have any evidence, he admitted feeling angry at the boys. This aspect of prejudice towards other races has always been a topic I have never felt 100% comfortable talking about. Obviously I do not consider myself a prejudiced person, but I have had to question myself, especially during this race unit, about if I treat some people differen...