In Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s essay “Racial Formation”, we see how the tendency to assign each individual a specific race as misleading. This essay suggests that race is not merely biological, but rather lays more in sociology and historical perspective. Once we look at someone and say, “They’re white”, it brings forth all the stereotype’s that go along with that “race”, and once the race is assigned, it is assumed that we can know something about the person.
Indeed, if we were to accept that people do fall nicely into specific races, it would seem to ascribe a sort of universality to the group. In other words, if a black man from Kenya was raised in Chicago, IL, rather than Kenya, due to his biological race, it could be assumed the
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This also doesn’t convince us that attributing every individual to a certain category is even beneficial or necessary.
Ultimately, the paper states that once we designate someone as a certain race, we then have a basis to differentiate ourselves. This serves a people in power the most, as when the Irish-Americans, though viewed as somewhat unruly, were still able to enter and run for public office because of naturalization laws of the late nineteenth century. Once it was established in the United States that there were competing groups out there in the labor force, namely African, Asian, Latin, and Mexican-Americans, it became advantageous to draw a color line to create a large group, those of lighter skin color, to raise and continue to hold the power through numbers and mass alone.
Once it becomes established that a group’s tendencies are of a natural prescription, as in the “Ethnic Notions” film, and once the greater society adheres to the simple guidelines fed to them, the argument is then taken out of the minority group’s hands. “Immutable” then would describe the group lacking power enough to break the stereotype. This social construction of race, one that lumps a mass of people into an ambiguous category, becomes an enigma. In order for the group to break free from this, they must acquire a perspective, but their morale is so beaten that they are happy to have any place in the society, so the enigma grows. One thing is evident; we could
A majority of people here in the United States have felt a touch of the issues, that come with classification of race. Due to this, many men and women of the minority racial groups are put in to sub-groups as a way to “help” give them an identity that can relate to. This idea to separate people by giving them identities is called the Racial Formation Theory. First introduced by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, the theory is a tool that helps build the idea that race is a social contracted tool where your racial status is weighed upon by many factors such as by those social, economic and political origin. By using race a way to build lines and boundaries, this has resulted in causing a rift to grow between the majority and minority
Humans define race by how they conceive and categorize different social realities. Thus, race is often referred to as a social construct. The differences in skin color and facial characteristics have led most of society to classify humans into groups instead of individuals. These constructs affect us all, and they often result in situations where majority racial groups cause undue suffering to those that are part of the minority. The understanding of race as a social construct is best illustrated by the examination of racial issues within our own culture, specifically those that have plagued the history of the United States.
To begin with, the aim of this paper is to respond to the article written by Ian F. Haney Lopez. The main idea of this article was to discuss the question of belonging of a person to this or that racial group. According to Lopez the construction of race is mostly based on the choice of the society, but not on the genetic or other information. My response to this article will be rather neutral because it is fifty percent agreed with her point of view and half a hundred percent disagreed.
Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi and Howard Winant made me readjust my understanding of race by definition and consider it as a new phenomenon. Through, Omi and Winant fulfilled their purpose of providing an account of how concepts of race are created and transformed, how they become the focus of political conflict, and how they shape and permeate both identities and institutions. I always considered race to be physical characteristic by the complexion of ones’ skin tone and the physical attributes, such as bone structure, hair texture, and facial form. I knew race to be a segregating factor, however I never considered the meaning of race as concept or signification of identity that refers to different types of human bodies, to the perceived corporal and phenotypic makers of difference and the meanings and social practices that are ascribed to these differences, in which in turn create the oppressing dominations of racialization, racial profiling, and racism. (p.111). Again connecting themes from the previous readings, my westernized influences are in a direct correlation to how to the idea of how I see race and the template it has set for the rather automatic patterns of inequalities, marginalization, and difference. I never realized how ubiquitous and evolving race is within the United States.
The “AAA Statement on Race” explains “...that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups.” Our population is a melting pot of skin colors, hair textures, and facial features, yet these distinctions seem to separate us in the wrong way. These groups can give us vital medical information, such as races that are prone to heart disease, but we instead manipulate these groups to create deficient stereotypes. (Boyd and Silk: 388) Moreover, a certain number of races does not exist because every human is unique, therefore these stereotypes are just fabricated from our culture. There is more difference within groups than between groups. (Boyd and Silk: 389) Accordingly, this diversity should be respected instead of putting people against each other. “The differences between races are due to biological heritage.” (Boyd and Silk: 388) Just because we are similar in race does not mean we are the same type of people and fall into the same stereotypes. If there is more diversity within groups, dividing race into three or four groups is not accurate
How race determined who was in and who was out. As Dickerson states “if race is real and not just a method for the haves to decide who will be have-nots, then all Europeans immigrants, from Ireland a to Greece, would have been “white” the moment they arrived here. Instead, as documented in David Roediger’s excellent Working Towards Whiteness, they were long considered inferior, nearly subhuman, and certainly not white” (69). This shows how race wasn’t about common culture or history but a concept to decide what race is good enough to be consider “white” or better than others. Even though the Europeans where the same race or color of the other people who considered themselves Americans or “white” they were still discriminated for being different and immigrants like everybody else. But soon they realized that identifying them self as being white gave them some sort of hierarchy. It gave them more class compared to the other races. As Debra Dickerson said, “If you were neither black nor Asian nor Hispanic, eventually you could become white, invested with enforceable civil rights and the right to exploit-and hate-nonwhites” (69). Being identify as white gave the power to have privileges that non-whites will never have since they are not the same color. Non- whites are treated unfairly compared to the white people in many ways. Discrimination not only took place between people of different races but
One of the most prevalent themes throughout the world’s history is the dispute over race and racial differences. But, there is a problem: the majority of the population doesn’t have a clear understanding of what race is. Race is a socially constructed grouping of people that was created in order for people to differentiate themselves from one another and has many sources of influence. While most people believe race is determined by biological characteristics (hair type, skin color, eye shape, etc.), this is not true. To make things more complicated, there is no cut and dry definition to race. Authors of Race and Ethnicity in Society, Elizabeth Higginbotham and Margret Anderson, claim that there are seven different distinct ways to define race. They begin with the popular belief of biological characteristics, and, as mentioned before, through social construction. They go on to note that race can be formed from an ethnic group, from social class rank, from racial formation by institutions, and also can form from one’s self-definition (Higginbotham & Anderson, 2012, p. 13). All of these ways to define race have been seen throughout our history, and many of them have caused problems for minorities, especially in the United States.
The meaning, significance, and definition of race have been debated for centuries. Historical race concepts have varied across time and cultures, creating scientific, social, and political controversy. Of course, today’s definition varies from the scientific racism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that justified slavery and later, Jim Crow laws in the early twentieth. It is also different from the genetic inferiority argument that was present at the wake of the civil rights movement. However, despite the constantly shifting concepts, there seems to be one constant that has provided a foundation for ideas towards race: race is a matter of visually observable attributes such as skin color, facial features, and other self-evident
Within the definitions and perceptions of race exists a dichotomy that Duster illuminates as inconsistent, transforming, and historically erratic depictions of what represents the racial categorization of “white”. Vacillating between racial portrayals of “whiteness”, embodying a divergence between the fluidity of historic and social transformation and a disingenuous reflection of bigotry, disrespect, and intolerance, Duster distinguishes race as a compilation of divergent biochemical, neurological, and social identities (Duster n.d.). Cognizant of concessions shown to the “white” race, Duster denotes an inevitability to refute the moral reality of “white’ exclusivity,
The first article “Myth of Race” focuses on the key points of stating why we are categorized by certain actions based on our race. Harrington explains how wrong he feels about human race today see the division of people into races as part of human personality and lifestyle (518). Harrington defines the division as a myth of assumption that people define specific traits that defer each race from the other with overlap through family member’s personality. Defines these racial groups as clusters that overlap into different ways and inbreeding wont necessary turn out negative. This barrier of thinking have been broken
On this essay I will discuss how racial subornation exists because of biological determinations, innate characteristics and less opportunity. According to Omi and Winant, they define racial formation as “the social historical process, by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed,” and explain that this process is accomplished by “historically situated projects in which human bodies and social structures are represented and organized.” “Projects,” here, refers to a representation of race that situates it in social structure. For example, during the first wave of immigration at the Macro level social process, Italian immigrants arrived with varying skills and characteristics, most of them were artisans, and
Critical theories of race and racism have been used by sociologists to not only describe modern societies, but also address issues of social injustice and achieve an end to racial oppression. Critical race theory is one of the most widely used for this purpose. Its utility rests upon the assumption that race is a social construct and not an inherent biological feature. In place of the concept of inherent race, critical race theory proffers the concept of racialization. The tenet that the concept of race is created and attached to particular groups of people through social processes. In tandem with this, critical race theory contends that identity is neither fixed nor unidimensional. It also places importance on the perspectives and experiences of racial minorities (Ritzer and Stepnisky, 2013:66).
A central tenet of whiteness studies is a reading of history and its effects on the present, inspired by postmodernism and historicism, in which the very concept of racial superiority is said to have been socially constructed in order to justify discrimination against non-whites. Since the 19th century, some writers have argued that the phenotypical characteristics associated with specific races are without biological significance, and that race is therefore not a valid biological concept.[1] Many scientists have demonstrated that racial theories are based upon an arbitrary clustering of phenotypical categories and customs, and can overlook the problem of gradations between categories.[2] Thomas K. Nakayama and Robert L. Krizek write about
The main reason people categorize and make assumptions is because of race. For example, in 2012, Trayvon Martin was killed by a Caucasian man that thought he was suspicious because he had a hoodie on, his hands were in his pocket, and he was an African American. So he followed that African American young man even though the cops told him not to, and then he ended up shooting that young man. That Caucasoid was wrong about his assumption because Trayvon Martin was only on his way back home from the store in the rain and was scared that he was being followed. Another time when I saw this was when my friend categorized a young African American girl.
The subject of race, within the field of sociology, can often be viewed as both a fluid concept and a cultural experience. Contrary to popular belief, race is not biological, but is a socially constructed category of people that share the same biological traits. Race can often change over time and is formed primarily by our personal views and the views of others. These can range from ethnicity to self-presentation and feelings of place within society. One example of the fluidity of race can be seen based upon the classification of the White or Caucasian race. In today’s culture, this race has been drastically increased to include a vast array of “white” individuals.