I found Heng's articles to be very interesting, and opened my eyes to the racial divides that existed in the Middle Ages. Often times, we are unaware of how racial this time period actually was, but since history is largely white-washed, this isn't a shocking realization. As we see in the article, our views of race have changed over the past hundreds of years: while the Middle Ages concept of race referred more to one's religion and culture, race nowadays is strictly the color of one's skin. One thing I found unsettling in this article was that Jews in England were forced to wear badges to separate them from their Catholic counterparts. I was surprised that this blatant branding of hatred based on one's race/religion stemmed all the way back to the 1200s. In the article, Heng defines race as "a structural relationship for the articulation and management of human differences, rather than a substantive content" (268). Additionally, Heng goes on to say that race constructs "a hierarchy of peoples for differential treatment" (268). I think Heng's language of "structural relationship" and "hierarchy" is really insightful, as it establishes a clear power dynamic between the races. I would say this definition of race is pretty spot on with race in modern society. Races not seen on top of the hierarchy, so to speak, definition receive differential treatment than those "on top". I don't think there is anything I could add or change about Heng's definition that would encompass modern day race so clearly.
I like how you say that history is whitewashed because that points to a deep kind of historical injustice perpetrated by white academia that some philosophers would say is a kind of "violence" done people of other ethnicities. Of course, this isn't physical violence (not strictly in the case of whitewashing) but it is no less detrimental to the cultures of people who this brands as other, as well as to the individuals who embody that culture.
agreed! and I think the language of violence is really helpful here.
I found the fact that Jewish people in England had to wear badges disturbing too! Especially when thinking of the connection between that and Jews being forced to wear the Star of David in Nazi Germany.
I really like the way you've framed this because I think it gets at one of the things I find most insightful about Heng's article. It's focused on constructing a long genealogy of race and racist behaviors. And, it seems to me, without having these long genealogies, it's easy to bracket off the past as a time outside of race. Which means the long history of the really chilling example you raise about Jewish badges is easily forgotten.