Racial Formation
The main topic for today’s articles is racial formation. According to Omi and Winant, racial formation is a sociohistorical process. They argue that the meaning of race is created by the specific social relations and historical context. In the article “The Modern World Racial System� by Winant, he pointed out the importance of history in the past shape the meaning of race today. After WWII, a period of anti-colonialism and anti-apartheid emerged to challenge the idea of white supremacy. Bonilla-Silva has a similar view on racism. He believes racism should be understood by investigating the structural framework or from the view point of racialization such as the authors associated with institutionalist, internal colonial, and racial formation perspectives, not the class structure such as the Marxist or irrational ideology of the mainstream social scientists.
I agree that history plays a very important role in racial formation. We tend to believe that race is something that’s fixed in nature, but its meaning is actually resulted from the diverse historical practices. For the U.S., its history of slavery background has added a little meaning to be “Black� today. Although history is an extreme important factor that shapes the meaning of race, the media is another powerful tool in displaying the dominant racial ideology or even shape ideology. In the article by Bonilla-Silva, there is a part that he examines racism at the individual level that I disagree with. He said if racism is not related to the society and prejudice only a characteristic of individuals, then social institutions cannot be racist. How is that true when social institutions such as our peers and families are made up of individuals. The statement can only be true when all individuals are not racist.
Discussion Questions:
1. Bonilla-Silva said racism is treated as a static phenomenon: racism yesterday is like racism today. Do you agree with that statement and why so?
2. All three authors believe history is a very important factor for racial formation. Can you think of any examples in which history affected how we think about a specific race? Are there any other views that you believe are also important that shape the meaning of race?
3. Do you think the U.S. determines a person’s race by the hypo-descent system is a fair method? Would it be better off if they are classified as multiracial?
Comments
I don't believe that Bonilla-Silva said that social institutions cannot be racist. He may have been playing the devil's advocate at some point and explained other theories. I believe that he agrees with the fact that social institutions can be racists (unless I am reading his article totally incorrectly!), and also believes that individuals can be racist apart from institutions.
Posted by: Molly Kay | January 23, 2007 8:46 PM