Gate's Race Tropes

I was intrigued by Gate's idea that race itself is a trope, "When we speak of 'the white race' or 'the black race,' 'the Jewish race,' or 'the Aryan race,' we speak in biological misnomers and, more generally in metaphors" (4). We know this to be true, each of these races has an abundance of difference (no two people look exactly alike) categorized within each race trope and we depend on this very basic outline to define one race as different from another. Ask anyone whose appearance does not fit the archetype of a particular race just how many times they have been asked "what are you?"

 This exchange highlights the importance race holds as a social context for who we are as humans and what we have to say. Gate states, "Race has become the ultimate, irreducible difference between cultures, linguistic groups, or adherents of specific belief systems... Race is the ultimate trope of difference because it is so very arbitrary in its application" (5). I think that Gate's is highlighting a very important truth within discourse. Much of what we say is controlled by the race we "belong" too. As a white women I am very much aware of areas of discourse that are marked off from me, which would only be read as highly offensive if I dared to speak from that perspective. For instance, I could never speak for Black women's struggle with oppressive systems because her position is far more oppressed than mine, her voice is still silenced in many areas of discourse and my speaking on her behalf would not only be offensive but would demote her position to subaltern. In Gates example of the Pope visiting Togo's Supreme Priest to discuss their belief systems compatibility, we see how race works as a terministic screen. The Pope walks away from this exchange having screened the whole discussion from his white supremacist world view and discusses the african religion as having "great confusion in ideas" and having customs "contrary to the will of God" etc. This discourse the Pope uses places him very securely in the arrogant hold of the White race, it even influences how he views other non-white cultures. Of course because Gate assures us that race is a trope, I do not need to feel I am intrinsically connected to the Pope because of our whiteness, but instead must make myself aware of the confines of this trope and understand how this position is operating on a world scale.