Vickie

**1212 W. Springfield Ave.** **Urbana****,** **IL** 9/29/08  Marc Aronson Author of //Race: A History Beyond Black and White// Atheneum Books New York, New York
 * University** **High School**

Dear Mr. Aronson,

Thank you so much for agreeing to come here to talk about your book with us. Your book was a very insightful exploration of how the concept of race was conceived and how it evolved into what it is today. The part of this book that interested me the most was how you observed that today everyone claims that we are past the time when we looked at differences and ranked them, but that inside, everyone is still biased. This seems true because I remember being taught as early as kindergarten about Martin Luther King Jr. and how he had helped make equal rights for blacks and whites in the U.S, but we were never taught what racism really is. And because race is such a sensitive topic today, starting as young kids we have to make our own judgments about race and formulate our own attitudes about it. Our reluctance to talk about race makes it an unclear concept that sends out conflicting messages.

While reading your book, one part of it that made it more powerful was that you admitted some of your prejudices against people like Germans and African-Americans. This suggests how you are not perfect. However, one thing I have a problem with is how you have a pretty obvious bias against people from the South. A Southerner reading this would not be very happy because you portray them as cruel and vicious racists who sent gruesome pictures of lynchings on postcards. You left out the fact that not necessarily //everyone// from the South was a racist who loved torturing people, and I don’t think you writ about them with an objective view. Another thing that I took issue with in your book was how you went a little too far with the whole German thing. I understand that everyone is prejudiced, and it’s not the fact that you’re biased that bothers me, but I think you went a bit overboard when you said that they should “cringe, crawl, and beg for forgiveness[…]I resent every bite of food they savor. [etc.]” It’s commendable that you admitted that, but I think you might’ve gotten a little carried away.

After reading your book, I have learned not to take things for granted, and that race is just a human invention, albeit a very significant one, and not a biological difference, which i always assumed it was. Today, I judged someone based on my prejudices, but immediately after I did, I thought about your book and I realized I was being biased, so thank you, for making me question myself and second guess my instincts.

Sincerely, Vickie Chang