In Racial Formations the authors Michael Omi & Howard Winant discuss the historical perspectives on race, specifically the idea that race has been considered an issue of biologics and this objective view has been used as the justification for different treatment of different races, predominately the subjugation of non-whites to whites. Omi and Winant propose that this objective view has to change, that there is no hard science to back up the concept of race, that race is entirely a social concept. They suggest that race must be, in that light, viewed as a personal and subjective reality that each individual contextualizes in herself or himself. That when the individual is able to make a choice about their identity we will be able to view and “understand race as an unstable and “decentered” complex of social meanings constantly being transformed by political struggle” (Omi & Winant 15).
Omi and Winant examine race from a historical American experience, first examining a Susie Guillory Phillips attempt to change her official racial distinction, she was unsuccessful. Omi and Winant pointing out that this lack of success was due to the fact society, at the time, viewed race as objective truth, stone and unchanging, and they point to the one drop rule, that until Loving v. Virginia (1967) you were considered Black or African American if you had one-thirty-second “Negro Blood,” an amount that is clearly biologically insignificant.
The analysis moves to a look at European first contact with natives of the Americas; that Europeans originally were conflicted as to if Native-Americans were even human beings, religiously whether they even had redeemable souls. As interactions continued with natives prominent European thinkers such as Linnaeus with Systema Naturae, a concept which classified organisms on a hierarchy, looked at race, in the same respect, as a characteristic with natural hierarchical qualities and abilities to distinguish people of color as less advanced. Omi and Winant saw this as creating the ability for Whites to view social constructs such as slavery as being justifiable because people of color were lesser, were subservient and subordinate to whites, naturally, as part of natures law.
Omi and Winant refute these biological ideas as problematic, each individual has an individual genetic makeup based on differences that supersede race and make race a poor if not null determiner in someone’s attributes. They talk of prominent sociologists Max Weber and Franz Boas, Boas who is attributed with the refutation of the biological concept of race. Omi and Winant say traditional American culture viewed “[a]ny racial intermixture mak[ing] one “nonwhite” (Omi and Winant 11). They say that if race is viewed in the proper social context it should be seen in what they call Racial Formation; racial formation being the term that denotes race in society as “the process by which social economic and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings” (Omi and Winant 12).
Using the racial formation formula, then, allows members of American society to determine, prejudge a person and their characteristics by simply determining what race they are attributed. And while, of course, this racial ideology has been problematic as Omi and Winant point out citing the Ku Klux Klan and the position of subordinate races as underclass and dependent on their white superiors; Omi and Winant also see that if people of color subjectively make the distinction of what race they are and they then have the power to have a deterministic role in deciding their identity, racial formation can be a functional social construct. And this is seen as Omi and Winant conclusion or their goal, that race is seen as ever changing and determined not by an objective truth, but the subjective identity of each individual.
Omi and Winant main method or strategy for determining the social focus that underlies race as opposed to the old world view of race as biology comes predominately from historical examination. An examination that allowed them to create their concept of “Racial Formation.” Tracing ideas of race from colonial times to present day American culture Omi and Winant have effectively shown not only how our ideas of race have changed, but also how they formed and reformed in the first place. Their historical analysis allows the reader to realize race is not the solid, objective concept that many preconceive it to be, that race is ever shifting, ever changing and only in this light can it effectively function in society.
In many ways I agree with Omi and Winant that viewing race objectively, he is black, she is white, only serves to disadvantaged and demean individuals who themselves have their own subjective identity, an identity that is often distinct and unique from how society perceives them. The only thing that I find problematic is that any time a concept is discussed, race for instance, it is given meaning and codified and thusly the more a concept is delved into the more meaning it is given. In some ways this kind of analysis only gives more credence to those who would distinguish individuals into groups and this case groups based on race further disintegrating human individuality.
I suppose the obvious question is how do we define race, is it subjective, objective, is it instead an archaic term that inherently subjugates and oppresses those considered non-white, non-dominant?
Omi and Winant examine race from a historical American experience, first examining a Susie Guillory Phillips attempt to change her official racial distinction, she was unsuccessful. Omi and Winant pointing out that this lack of success was due to the fact society, at the time, viewed race as objective truth, stone and unchanging, and they point to the one drop rule, that until Loving v. Virginia (1967) you were considered Black or African American if you had one-thirty-second “Negro Blood,” an amount that is clearly biologically insignificant.
The analysis moves to a look at European first contact with natives of the Americas; that Europeans originally were conflicted as to if Native-Americans were even human beings, religiously whether they even had redeemable souls. As interactions continued with natives prominent European thinkers such as Linnaeus with Systema Naturae, a concept which classified organisms on a hierarchy, looked at race, in the same respect, as a characteristic with natural hierarchical qualities and abilities to distinguish people of color as less advanced. Omi and Winant saw this as creating the ability for Whites to view social constructs such as slavery as being justifiable because people of color were lesser, were subservient and subordinate to whites, naturally, as part of natures law.
Omi and Winant refute these biological ideas as problematic, each individual has an individual genetic makeup based on differences that supersede race and make race a poor if not null determiner in someone’s attributes. They talk of prominent sociologists Max Weber and Franz Boas, Boas who is attributed with the refutation of the biological concept of race. Omi and Winant say traditional American culture viewed “[a]ny racial intermixture mak[ing] one “nonwhite” (Omi and Winant 11). They say that if race is viewed in the proper social context it should be seen in what they call Racial Formation; racial formation being the term that denotes race in society as “the process by which social economic and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings” (Omi and Winant 12).
Using the racial formation formula, then, allows members of American society to determine, prejudge a person and their characteristics by simply determining what race they are attributed. And while, of course, this racial ideology has been problematic as Omi and Winant point out citing the Ku Klux Klan and the position of subordinate races as underclass and dependent on their white superiors; Omi and Winant also see that if people of color subjectively make the distinction of what race they are and they then have the power to have a deterministic role in deciding their identity, racial formation can be a functional social construct. And this is seen as Omi and Winant conclusion or their goal, that race is seen as ever changing and determined not by an objective truth, but the subjective identity of each individual.
Omi and Winant main method or strategy for determining the social focus that underlies race as opposed to the old world view of race as biology comes predominately from historical examination. An examination that allowed them to create their concept of “Racial Formation.” Tracing ideas of race from colonial times to present day American culture Omi and Winant have effectively shown not only how our ideas of race have changed, but also how they formed and reformed in the first place. Their historical analysis allows the reader to realize race is not the solid, objective concept that many preconceive it to be, that race is ever shifting, ever changing and only in this light can it effectively function in society.
In many ways I agree with Omi and Winant that viewing race objectively, he is black, she is white, only serves to disadvantaged and demean individuals who themselves have their own subjective identity, an identity that is often distinct and unique from how society perceives them. The only thing that I find problematic is that any time a concept is discussed, race for instance, it is given meaning and codified and thusly the more a concept is delved into the more meaning it is given. In some ways this kind of analysis only gives more credence to those who would distinguish individuals into groups and this case groups based on race further disintegrating human individuality.
I suppose the obvious question is how do we define race, is it subjective, objective, is it instead an archaic term that inherently subjugates and oppresses those considered non-white, non-dominant?
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