Introduction
For anybody who wants to understand the concept of race and how the concept of racism has played a great role in shaping the social, cultural and political life of the United States, the book Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960’s to the 1990’s by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, published by Routledge, is a compulsory and enlightening reading. This book presents the first edition of the book in an updated form. It is more detailed and provides a better understanding of the racial formation process of United States.
The book gives clear evidence of the exceptionally deep research of the authors on the controversial and much avoided topic of race. The authors have brought forward the various concepts of ethnicity, class and race to explain the origin and role of race in the United States. Race is such a topic that has become the centre point of several issues, including the inequalities and political discriminations. Moves have also been initiated in as a mark of protest in several occasions. But it is not possible for anyone to understand the reason of race still being able to shape the “Identities and Institutions” (Omi & Winant vii) or to go with or go against racism without understanding the sociohistorical context of race. In the words of the authors themselves
Until we understand the concept of race, it is impossible effectively to analyze familiar issues which involve race. It is hard to grasp the way racial identity is assigned and assumed, or to perceive the tacit racial dimensions of everyday experience, for example, without a clear sense of the socially constructed meaning of race” (Omi & Winant vii).
The authors have advanced in their way of discussing racial formation through providing a historical account of the development of race, the concept of racism, and the “race – class – gender interrelationships” (Omi & Winant 230) which surfaces in everyday life.
The authors have described how race has changes through the course of time. They have described how racial formation has been influencing the politics of the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s. For that purpose the have updated this book with a concluding chapter which speaks about the prominent instances of more recent political events involving racial angles like the Los Angeles Riots, Presidential Election of 1992 and the various racial politics and policies. This essay is a humble effort to analyze the enlightening book that has become a classic among the literature that discusses race and ethnicity. The paper contains an introduction that has already described the book in general. The later sections contain the summary of the book, critique of the book and a conclusion.
Summary of the Book
The book, Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960’s to the 1990’s, contains prefaces of the second and the first editions. The preface of the second edition explains the necessity updating of the chapters. It contains a formal introduction of the book after the preface. The book is divided into three parts. Part I talks about the “Paradigms of Race: Ethnicity, Class and Nation” (Omi & Winant 9). Part II discusses “Racial Formation” (Omi & Winant 53) and “The Racial State” (Omi & Winant 77). The last or the third part is about two topics namely “The great Transformation” (Omi & Winant 95) and “Race and Reaction” (Omi & Winant 113). The book concludes with a chapter that updates the second edition by introducing the readers with the current racial politics of the United States.
Howard Winant and Professor Michael Omi in collaboration had formulated the most outstanding and influential work on racial formation in the United States in 1986. The second edition was published in 1994 to upgrade the book and add newer details about the racial politics in the United States of the more recent times. Gramsci’s conception about Hegemony has been drawn upon by the authors as the base of social construction of race. According to the authors, the “racial projects” (Omi & Winant 58) or the racially oriented political actions have helped racial formation in the US to consolidate. Because these actions are still prevalent the form of race and racism keeps on changing. Though various big movements have originated against racism, inequality in various circumstances and fields still continue to take place.
Winant and Omi talked about how they have observed the ‘reductionist’ theory of race taking it as a by product of some other phenomenon rather than taking it as a fluid concept. On the contrary the authors took the concept of race as a dynamic and fluid one. The authors state, “The racial order is organized and enforced by the continuity and reciprocity between micro-level and macro-level of social relations” (Omi & Winant 86). Because of the unstable nature of race that modifies as a result of “political struggle” (Omi & Winant 81) people can contest its definition.
Factors like simple skin color throughout the historical ages has become the means of practicing control for one group over another group. The identity, growth prosperity and freedom within the society are assigned by using race as a tool. Ethnocentrism has a role to play in the origin of race. The white European Americans are considered as superiors than others. This concept was tried to be established by both religion and privilaged white European scientists on a scientific basis.
The authors spoke of “racial common sense” (Omi & Winant 146) that describes the associaiton between the various groups of people and the attitude they show. People act according to the racial expectations and when something exceptional happens it gives rise to disturbances. Race and racism till today continue to dominate political projects. New identification of separate races, new demands have originated and still are originating. The authors call it the “rearticulation of racial ideology” (Omi & Winant 117). It will give shape to racism in a new way in future as it continues to change.
The arguments made by the authors
The authors have made numerous arguments sin the book. Some significant ones can be enumerated. Firstly, the authors argue that race is dynamic and fluid and not concrete. They also suggest that the racial structure gets established through the continuous and reciprocal interaction of micro and macro level relations. Another important argument states that the dominant culture uses race as a weapon to suppress the dominated structure by diminishing their social status. It also argues that racism is the main outcome of European colonization as it explained the inequality, discrimination and genocide practiced widespread. The authors also state that racism in US is fairly new in origin. Lastly they argue that violation of racial expectation disrupts micro level interactions.
Critique of the book
The book reflects the signs of very deep researches of such a topic which is controversial as well as much avoided. But the way the authors have presented race and its origin is really exceptional. The book is not a book anymore; it is a classic literature and a useful tool in the research of the topic in question. The representation of racial formation through its historical and sociological angles has made the book almost a must read for the scholars working on race from the sociological and historical point of view. The authors, Omi and Winant, have elaborated the second edition to introduce the more recent racial political activities like the concepts of “racial projects”. The concluding chapter “New Democrats” (Omi & Winant 145) can become the centre points of various further debates. As a critique of the traditional and limited racial theories the book is outstanding and invaluable.
Conclusion
The critique of the traditional or reductionist racial theories that has been presented in this book opens a new horizon in the understanding of race and its origin. Description of fluidity in race and the modification it goes through throughout the ages due to political struggles explains the dominance of race over the various other political issues. It has become a tool rather than a book. The book is going to help definitely anybody who wants to relate racism to the modern politics of United States. The mention of practical examples of incidents makes it easier to understand why the discrimination could not be erased till today regarding social and political issues. There can be no gap between the formulation of the theory of the authors and the politics of today as the have done the essential job of bridging the gap of politics between the 1970s and the 1990s. If somebody wants to understand the concept of race and wants to decide whether or not to go against racism, this book, Racial Formation in the United States, is an ideal text.
Works Cited
Omi, Michael & Howard Winant. Racial formation in the United States: from the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge, 1994.