“Finally, The Merchant of Venice demonstrates that race was never solely attached to skin colour, but also that skim colour was never too far from nay articulation of race.”*
In the summation of her argument in the sixth chapter of her book, Ania Loomba demonstrates the complications to untangling race, religion, and skin color. Throughout history race, skin color, and religion have been closely connected, whether in the context of slavery, love, or power. Loomba argument, essentially, is that while one cannot automatically assume race and skin color are connected, there can never be truly separate. Examples of this include the “Spanish Moor.” This title intertwines African decent, Spanish nationality (however accurate), and a Muslim religious identity. Loomba mentions this complication when Salman Rushdie’s story The Moor’s Last Sigh, a child of a Christian woman and Jewish man is named a “Moor.” The child is called a “‘Moor’ both because his skin is dark, and because his mother lovingly nicknames him ‘mor’…”** Now these identities as stated above are being attributed to a child that only fits one of the traditional criterion for a “Moor.” It’s interesting to note, that while Othello is known as “the Moor,” his religious identity is never mentioned, but it sometimes assumed because of his title “the Moor.” There are other instances of this phenomenon throughout history.
*Ania Loomba, Shakespeare, Race, and Colonialism, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 160.
** Loomba, Shakespeare, Race, and Colonialism, 135.