Racial Formation Theory

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.

There two articles that give crucial information about how we as humans determine race and who is in control, these two articles are James Lull’s “Hegemony” and Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s “Racial Formations”. These two articles give insight on how race works within the world and helps give an understanding for the YouTube video clip of “Slap that Bass,” a musical number from the film Shall We Dance by Fred Astaire in 1937. In this video clip we only know one of the men’s names and it is Peter P. Peters who is a white male trying to blend classical ballet with jazz music who stumbles upon the cruise liners crew members below the deck and end up doing a jazz ballet dance number with them.

The idea that race is a social construct is interesting because I never thought about it in that way. It is a social construct created by man; there are no substantial biological differences between the ‘races’ of the United States. I think that if you were to randomly select people and ask what the differences between races are, a majority of the responses would include physical differences, most notably skin color. While I do agree that there is no consistent basis biologically for races, there are differences between them sociologically. Even if the United States did not recognize races, there are stereotypes and stigmas associated with skin color and stigmas that affect how people interact with each other. I think that nearly everyone,

As a black girl, I have thought about race a lot. I have personally seen how race has affected my education, opportunities, dealings with police, employment, and everyday interactions with people. Of course, I know that race does not exist as a scientific category. The theory of race is not a biological reality, and has been proven as illegitimate.There is after all only one race - the human race. We all have the same basic characteristics and genetically are all homo sapien sapiens. Our physical differences can be explained by means of Charles Darwin’s concept of human variation. Thus, our various physical characteristics such as skin colour and hair texture are a result of our ancestors geographical origins. In contrast to its biological

When Sociologists say that race is a social construction, they mean that it is brought by social aspects without biological meaning. “Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racial classifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries.” (Nytimes.com) Divides still exist today between blacks and whites, but progress is being made. Race is socially driven, our ideas and views about the topic are helped by the opinions of others. The best example of race as a social construct are Hispanics. This is because there is no such thing as a Hispanic. This word was created by the Census Bureau to categorize

In order to understand the construct of race, we have to first understand fundamental facts about race and how it has formed over the years. Race is a social construct because in order for something to have a reliable foundation, its categories and classifications would have to be consistent, regardless of individual

Modern Forms of Social Control (Privilege & Discrimination) – The Social Construction of Race, Class, and Gender.

Omi and Winant’s discussion from “Racial Formations” are generally about race being a social construct and is also demonstrated in the viewing of Race - The power of an illusion. Omi and Winant have both agreed that race is socially constructed in society. Ultimately this means that race is seen differently in different societies and different cultures. Media, politics, school, economy and family helps alter society’s structure of race. In the viewing , also media as well as history seemed to create race by showing how social norms have evolved in different racial groups.

The Racial Formation theory is one that many that many have pondered over. In the article Racial Formation in the United States Michael Omi and Howard Winant describe racial formation as “the process by which political, social,and economic forces shape racial categories.” They argue that racism is more of a sociohistorical process then a matter of physical traits, and how skin color no longer plays a role in racism in society.

Within the age of reformations and new conceptual understandings, the idea that we had derived our politics and everyday life by a determined race is ludacris. Everyone had believed that our time of racism and Racial Profiling had been a memory of the past; however, the usage of Racial and Ethnic Formation was still being utilized due to its simplicity from the countless years of usage. Until the turn of the 21st century, the Judicial branch had used a 1970 state law against a woman who had been classified as “black”, and this had “declared anyone with at least 1/32nd ‘Negro blood’ to be black”(285). To see that one case within millions had been determined by past racism has a more problematic derivative than just being racist; in context,

Have you ever judged a person by their age, gender or appearance rather than really knowing them? When you meet a tattooed man on the street, your first impression of him might be bad, i.e. a negative categorization, since tattoos are associated with criminals and unemployed people. However, he could be a person who does volunteer and works as a business manager. People tend to automatically categorize a person into groups by visual judgements, demographic features, personality and own perceptions or beliefs (Billig & Tajfel, 1973). Social categorization is a process of classifying people into different groups based on their similar characteristics and group memberships. It is a natural part of social perception and serves a basic epistemic and identity function in organizing and structuring people’s knowledge about the world and make things become manageable in daily life (Bodenhausen, Kang & Peery, 2012). It occurs spontaneously without much thoughts (Crips & Hewstone, 2007). In social categorization, we usually form a general conclusion about other people and begin to respond to them as a member of a particular social group than as individuals. It allows us to communicate and connect with those who share the same or similar group membership. Social groups that we use in social categorization can change under different situations and over time. Whaley and Link (1998) discovered that there is a strong association between categorization and stereotype-based judgments. For

Socioligists argue that race is a social construct because of the argument that their is no real biological basis to race. One particular race does not contain certain genetic materials that is not common to the entire human population. While it serves little purpose from a biological perspective, race is still very relevant as a cultural, or social categorizer. It's construction has and will continue to assist in the studying of racial differences with respect to inequality and discrimination to name a few.

Throughout history, race have been defined along genetic, legal, and social line each presenting its own set of problems. Genetic race has been defined by nothing differences in gene frequencies amongst selected groups. The legal definition of race were not devised to determine who was black or of another race, but rather who was not white. Most legal definitions of race were devices to prevent blacks from attending white schools, serving on juries, holding certain jobs, or patronizing certain public places. Last but not least we have social lines, which defines race as the decisive one in most interactions. It pays little attention to an individual’s hereditary physical features or to whether his or

In America special arrangement of conditions prompted the subjugation of individuals who seem to look similar. The idea of race gives reason as to why people are denied rights and opportunities, especially since the economy was dependent on slavery. Racial injustices have been considered natural and justified. There's a lot of overlap between groups. There isn't a single gene, trait, or characteristic that distinguishes all the members of one "race" from all the members of another. Again, this is because categories are socially constructed, so there are inconsistencies in the way different groups are defined. If you change criteria, people fall into different groups. The idea that race isn't biological goes against one of our most fundamental assumptions: that there are meaningful, natural divisions between groups of people. Certainly people look different, but as it turns out, appearances can be deceiving.

Race is a termed that is used to label a group of people who have a series of significant similar biological qualities. This can be problematic because people often confuse race with ethnicity, culture, or nationality. In the field of cultural anthropology using race as a tool to identify the origins of a person and their culture can lead to an incorrect analysis of their ethnicity and even their nationality. The pigmentation of a person skin does not necessarily mean they are from a particular region of the world or that they are part of a certain ethnicity or culture. This can cause problems by creating a platform for racism and discrimination because it allows whichever dominant race there is in its given society to develop a superiority complex. African Americans are still to this day fighting against racism in America after hundreds of years of white Americans believing that they were the inferior race. Progress has been made but the damage can not be undone, race can not be a continuous negative factor or an excuse for a country to discriminate against its own citizens. If a country wants to truly succeed and have a productive and healthy society they must adapt. As the world changes and adapts to modern times it does as well for how different races are viewed and how race is viewed as a whole.