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Racial Formation

Page history last edited by Stacy Takacs 14 years, 5 months ago
Racial Formation

What is a “racial formation?” The concept of racial formation was developed by two American sociologists, Howard Winant and Michael Omi, who designed their theory to counteract responses of sociologists to treat race as if it were a matter of individual psychopathology. These authors propose understanding “race” as a “social construction” by combining ideology (ideas, stereotypes) and social structures of domination such as institutions, laws, economic “rules,” and behavioral norms (Takacs).  In further substantiation of understanding race as a social construction, consider the story of Phillis Wheatley, a slave kidnapped in West Africa who was transported to Boston via slaveship in about 1761. She was purchased by John Wheatley as a companion to his wife. Young Phillis displayed unusual aptitude and intelligence, and the Wheatley's, in spite of prevailing racial thought that blacks were sub-human and could not learn to read and write, encouraged the young lady.  They gave her the same schooling and education as their own children, and this curriculum included the English, Latin and Greek classics. She showed remarkable aptitude in verse, but Phillis could not publish her poetry. Instead, she had to go before a panel of Boston scholars who certified to her aptitude and that she was quite capable of authoring the works in question. This link will provide a more detailed study, related articles on the life of Phillis Wheatley, and presentation of her poems.
Winant and Omi also refer to a “racial project” as one that “creates or reproduces structures of domination based on essentialist categories of race” (71). Another translation of Winant and Omi of racial formation is “the sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed” (55). This racial formation theory, concludes Winant and Omi, is "constructed and transformed sociohistorically through competing political projects," as an understanding that there is a difference between race and racism, and both terms are not interchangeable. A racial project can be defined as racist if it reproduces structures of domination based on essentialist categories of race (71). With this understanding, a structure of domination is defined when a study of minstrel theatre is identified as a part of a shifting “racial formation” in the US during a period from early 1820's to about 1930’s.

 

Works Cited


Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1994.

 

Takacs, Stacy. Lecture. Theories and Methods of American Studies. Tulsa. 16 Oct. 2007.

 

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