Essay: Racism a Short History

George Fredrickson argues in the excerpt from his book Racism: A Short History that you read for last class that, "Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain is critical to the history of Western racism because its attitudes and practices served as a kind of segue between the religious intolerance of the Middle Ages and the naturalistic racism of the modern era." Fredrickson demonstrates that the antipathy towards Jews transformed from one based on their beliefs to one based on their inherent "Jewishness" that was thought to be passed on by blood. Accordingly, this later vision represents the first emergence -- if in prototypical form -- of modern racism among Europeans.

In this paper of 400 - 600 words, answer the following question:

"How can the evidence contained in these two laws (document 1, document 2) be interpreted to illustrate the transformation Frederickson describes."

That is, since these documents likely reflect the thinking of their writers, explain to your reader how by looking closely at the documents we can see that although there was antipathy towards Jews in both periods, that antipathy became a racist antipathy (rather than merely a xenophobic one) in the later period.

Some helpful pointers about your essay:

1) your essay will need to employ Fredrickson's distinction between racism and xenophobia and explain how the first document reveals a xenophobic vision rather than a racist one, while the second document clearly demonstrate a shift to racism.

2) You will have to organize your paper around a thesis -- don't simply repeat the essay question, however. Your thesis needs to answer specifically the "how" and "why" questions.

Need help identifying and organizing your evidence?

see here for the evidence chart handed out in class Very Useful!

3) Your essay will have to use textual evidence from the documents (document 1, document 2) in the form of direct quotations to support your various claims. See a sample paragraph using claim, evidence, and warrant if you need some guidance in how to structure your paragraphs in this fashion. Also see the two sample outlines below.

4) You will have to identify your claim/evidence/warrant structures. Write (cl) before your claims, (ev) before your evidence, and (wa) before your warrants. Remember, only paragraphs that present evidence will use claim/evidence/warrant structures. Others -- such as your introduction -- will not.

Note: if you don't identify your claim/evidence/warrant, you risk losing points on this paper.

5) Note that the essay does NOT ask you to use the documents to map out the changing restrictions upon Jews or the violence directed at them. Rather, you should take as your central task explaining how and why the documents reveal the changing nature of (and basis for) the antipathy towards Jews -- and why this change occurred.

6) When crafting your paper, be sure to ask yourself, "How does the perception or definition of the difference between Jews and Christians assumed by the writers of this document correspond (or not correspond) to Fredrickson's definition of racism?"

7) Your quotations from the documents should be no more than 10 words and preferably MUCH shorter -- if you are unsure how to omit unnecessary information from a quotation, see here. (very useful)

8) Remember, merely because an aspect of a law restricted Jews in some way doesn't reveal whether that restriction was motivated by racism rather than xenophobia (or xenophobia rather than racism). So, for example, if the law had read "Jews can't eat ice cream," that wouldn't tell us whether or not Christians thought of the differences between them and Jews was merely one of beliefs (which would indicate xenophobia) or of blood (which would reveal racism). Either racism or xenophobia could encourage a law against Jews. You will need to find evidence from the documents that reveals one motivation rather than the other. It's there, I promise.

8) Some smaller things to pay attention to: (a) the documents represent two different time periods, (b) not everything in a document will be relevant to your paper; stay focused on proving your thesis rather than writing a summary of -- or a book report on -- the laws, (c) the assignment assumes the laws reflect the thinking of the people who wrote them.

9) Be sure to contact Prof. Umbach if you have questions; better to get answer to your questions before your write the paper rather than after it has been graded. Fritz likes to answer questions and often has useful answers. That's why they pay him the big bucks.

10) Finally, no outside research is necessary, desirable, or even permitted for this paper. DO NOT USE OUTSIDE SOURCES IN WRITING THIS PAPER. Papers that use outside sources as the basis for either a direct or an indirect quotation (that is, paraphrasing) will receive an "F". In short, Google will not be useful -- your own brain will be, however.

Need help identifying and organizing your evidence?

see here for the evidence chart handed out in class Very Useful!

Here are two proposed ways you might organize your paper (although you can organize your paper in any way that makes sense)

OUTLINE I (for a paper organized around the documents, see below for a paper organized around themes)

I. Introduction

a: historical background (why look at Iberia at all when discussing racism? Spend no more than 3 sentences on this topic -- just enough to set up your reader to make sense of your argument)

b: Fredrickson's argument and his definition of racism (keep any quotation in this paragraph to 3 words or less)

c: your thesis (document 1 does not reflect racism for reasons X and Y; but document 2 does reflect racism for reasons W and Z)

II. document 1 reflects xenophobia rather than racism for reasons X and Y

a. reason x

claim

evidence

warrant

b. reason y

claim

evidence

warrant

 

III. Changes A and B in Spain lead to racism against Jews, as reflected in document 2 racism for reasons W and Z

a. changes in Spain that lead to racism against Jews (briefly)

b. reason w

claim

evidence

warrant

b. reason Z

claim

evidence

warrant

IV Conclusion

---

OUTLINE II (for a paper organized around the themes; see above for a paper organized around the documents)

 

I. Introduction

a: historical background (why look at Iberia at all when discussing racism? Spend no more than 3 sentences on this topic -- just enough to set up your reader to make sense of your argument)

b: (Frederick's argument and his definition of racism; keep any quotation in this paragraph to 3 words or less)

C: your thesis (documents encapsulate the transformation for reasons x, y, and z)

II. Reason X

claim

evidence

warrant

 

III. Reason Y

claim

evidence

warrant

Need help identifying and organizing your evidence?

see here for the evidence chart handed out in class Very Useful!

IV. Reason Z

claim

evidence

warrant

 

V. Conclusion