By: Keilah Glover

Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s

     The authors of this book explore racial concepts: how they were created and how they are changing. Michael Omi is an Asian American sociologist professor at the University of California, Berkeley who developed the theory of racial formation along with Howard Winant. Omi’s work includes race theory, antiracist scholarship, and Asian American studies.  Omi holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.  Howard Winant is a professor of sociology at UC Santa Barbara, and director of the Center for New Racial Studies. In addition to writing Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s along with Michael Omi, he is the author of The World Is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy Since World War II. Winant's teachings and research revolve around racism and race, political sociology, comparative historical sociology, human rights and social theory.

     This book presents an analysis of contemporary U.S. racial dynamics throughout the decades using a variety of approaches from the social movement studies of Gramsci, critical theory, postcolonial theory, feminist studies, cultural studies to global scholars and activist debates on concepts of race. The authors focus on critiques of the main paradigms of race in the earlier chapters then move on to “The Racial State” and its unstable equilibrium of racial conflict.  “The Great Transformation” discusses the rise of the movement for social justice and the ultimate destruction of this movement initiated by “Racial Reaction”.

     The main thesis of this book develops a stronger understanding of the tumultuous decades and the meaning of race in America.  The three broad topics discussed are the critique of recent theories in the U.S., the concept of “racial formation”, and finally how racial formation is applied to postwar U.S. politics and racial history. Ronald Reagan and his administration played a key role in the racial formation of America.  They had a "color-blind" approach to race, which stemmed from the disadvantages of African Americans in the United States. In 1985, Clarence Pendleton Jr., the chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights told President Reagan that the Commission was “working on a color blind society that has opportunities for all and guaranteed success for none.”^[1]

     The main methods of research come from part one of the book where the authors discuss race theories of ethnicity, class, and nation, and use great socialist theorists such as Karl Marx and Frederick Engels to analyze the transformation from feudalism to capitalist order. Omi and Winant focus on the theories of race, its meaning, transformation and significance to racial events by gathering information based on racial beliefs and important factors of the bourgeois industrial society.^[2]  Robert Blauner writes, “The general conceptual frame of European theory implicitly assumed the decline and disappearance of the ethnicity in the modern world; it offered no hints in the other direction. Without significant alteration, American sociology synthesized this framework into models of social structure and change."^[3]

    After the institutionalization of Jim Crow in the South, exclusion became a successful racial divider between whites and other ethnic groups.  Blauner assumes that first racial and ethnic groups are neither central nor persistent elements of modern societies. Next, he expresses the ideas that racial oppression and racism are factors of economics and education. Third, the attitudes and prejudices of racism in America are systematic. And lastly, that “immigrant analogy” is the assumption that racial minorities are no different than third world ethnic groups compared to European ethnic groups.^[4]

     The first three chapters in the book discuss the paradigms of race as a broader understanding of the evolution of ideology, racial theory and politics from the 1960s through the 1980s. Chapter four focuses on racial formation, which develops into a more theoretical approach in chapters five through seven. 

     In chapter one on ethnicity, the pre-existing downfalls of racial slavery explain the biological paradigm that coined racial inferiority as the natural order of mankind. “Whites were considered the superior race; white skin was the norm while other skin colors were exotic mutations which had to be explained.”^[5] America progressively showed a trend in the acceptance of the “Negroe” believing “America is free to choose whether the Negroe shall remain her liability or become her opportunity.”^[6]  This unfair statement justified the inequalities in America.  The chapter focuses on two premises of the ethnicity theory and how they are flawed: "the bootstrap model" and "they all look alike."  "The bootstrap model" is about making it on one's own without any outside help.  Omi and Winant point out that this part of the ethnicity theory is flawed because there are certain situations beyond the control of minorities that make it hard for them to achieve success without help.  Their experiences are different from the experiences of early European immigrants.  Moreover, the authors challenge the phrase “they all look alike” as just another racial slur to perpetuate ignorance in society.  It denied blacks their “uniqueness” because truly “blacks" are as diverse as “whites.”  Overall, the ethnicity theory of race lumps all people of a particular race into the same category without identifying differences within each ethnic group.

     Class is a paradigm of race that Stuart Hall characterizes as a “social division which assumes a distinctively racial or ethnic character [that] can be attributed or explained principally by reference to economic structure and processes”^[7]  The class conflict theory is rooted from a Marxist analysis with the concept of exploitation that poses a fundamental challenge to the ethnicity theory. (Racial Formation p. 29)  This theory insists that “social relations of production”  structure classes and relationships.^[8] The class theory of race has three subcategories: market, stratification and class-conflict. The market subcategory states that market pressures will slowly mix blacks and whites who were at first separated and that society is set up to aid whites more than it is to aid nonwhites.  Omi and Winant did not have a strong enough argument against the market component other than stating that it is too fanciful.  The stratification subcategory basically states that if people receive the same income, their life chances are the same.  It also ranks people according to their status in society.  For instance, some blacks are of an elite status whereas the rest are placed on the edge of society, unable to acquire similar resources.  Omi and Winant argue that this subcategory is incorrect because the black middle class do not have the same opportunity as the white middle class due to dynamics of race.  Thus, anything that a few blacks attain is linked to the black race overall and it is important to note that as a whole, the black race is not prosperous.  The class-conflict subcategory relies on the labor market and says that class divisions result in exploitation.  Omi and Winant argue against this third subcategory stating it is wrong because it does not account for racial conflicts and protests of the period or the politics of ideologies of race.  They further argue that it has an all or nothing attitude toward race in which the working class whites advance while the working class blacks fall behind. 

     The third classic theory of race that the authors analyze is the nation theory, which states that race is a product of colonialism.  This theory explore race relationships in the United States and worldwide. It is divided into four subcategories: Pan-Africanism, cultural nationalism, the national question and Marxist debates, and internal colonialism.  Omi and Winant argue against all four of these subcategories.  Pan-Africanism is incorrect as a theory of race because it assumes that all blacks want to unite under one nation even though they do not all share the same life experiences.  The cultural nationalism subcategory is incorrect according to the authors because it merely focuses on the cultural idenity of black people and fails to recognize political processes.  Omi and Winant argue against the national question and the Marxist debates subcategory because it fails to address oppression not based on class.  The internal colonialism subcategory is further analyzed as being a weak argument to explaining race because it fails to identify class divisions within a minority group as it only defines race in terms of location, cultural power and its struggle.  Overall, the authors dislike the nation based theory to race because it does not identify the varied minority groups within a nation.     

     The chapter on racial formation” best captures the ideology the authors wanted to portray. The authors mention Susie Guillory Phipps who in 1982 to 1983 tried to get the Louisiana Bureau of Vital Records to change her racial classification from black to white. The descendant of an eighteenth-century white planter and a black slave, Phipps was designated as "black" in her birth certificate in accordance with a 1970 state law which declared anyone with at least one-thirty-second "Negroe blood"^[9] to be black. 

"The meaning of race is defined and contested throughout society, in both collective action and personal practice. In the process, racial categories themselves are formed, transformed, destroyed and re-formed. We use the term racial formation to refer to 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. Crucial to this formulation is the treatment of race as a central axis of social relations, which cannot be subsumed under or reduced to some broader category or conception. (pp. 61-62)

In the fourth chapter, Omi and Winant discuss their own theory of race: racial formation, which is based on politics and a racial dictatorship because of the hegemony of race, class and gender. They further state that racial formation is based on racial projects, which are about who is in control of monetary resources.   

Racialization: the historical development of race

In the United States, the racial category of "black" evolved with the consolidation of racial slavery. By the end of the seventeenth century, Africans whose specific identity was Ibo, Yoruba, Fulani, etc., were rendered "black" by an ideology of exploitation based on racial logic -- the establishment and maintenance of a "color line." This of course did not occur overnight. A period of indentured servitude that was not rooted in racial logic preceded the consolidation of racial slavery. With slavery, however, a racially based understanding of society was set in motion, which resulted in the shaping of a specific racial identity not only for the slaves but for the European setters as well. Winthrop Jordan has observed: "From the initially common term Christian, at mid-century there was a marked shift towards the terms English and free. After about 1680, taking the colonies as a whole, a new term of self-identification appeared -- white."^[10]

"The Racial State"

In lieu of the Racial Formation of post World War II, Republicans sought to segregate racial minority voters by separating, white from non-white Democrats, to increase opportunities to win legislative seats.

As racial movements arose, race became more of a political issue, when the state institutions thought to enforce and structure racially unjust social order.  The reform, reaction and radical change caused the transformation of the racial order, therefore causing a clash and compromise between racial movements and the state thus creating racial lines.

From the “Birth of a Nation” to black nationalism, the cultures has ruptured into a unity of liberal nation through the civil rights movement.  The popularity and rise of Black Nationalism started an intense strategic and theoretical debate about what racism truly is and the future of black politics in America.

“The Racial State” shows how the Black culture survived from slavery through music, religion, African traditions and family ties, which created their own ideological projects: which was the development of a “free” black identity and a collective dedication to emancipation.

“War of maneuver” is a situation where subrogate groups seek to preserve and extend a definite territory to ward off violent assaults and develop an internal society as an alternative to the repressive social system.  “War of maneuver” is being replaced by “war of position” as racially defined minorities achieve political gains.

The new question that Omi and Winant have not answered is now that we have a black President of the the United States, do they feel that the “War of Position” has been achieved or not achieved? http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/93.3/

Contemporary Charge in the U.S. Racial order challenges the racial order and destabilized and reform started.  Racial politics now control “War of Position”.  Minorities have achieved significant (but not equal) so representation in the political system.  In an ideological climate racial equality can be debated, but the desire of equality is assumed. “To challenge the position of blacks in society is to challenge the position of whites.”

This statement is a great reformulation of the meaning of race.  There has been a “change” in the new “rules of the game”.

Omi and Winant ask: “How after several decades of attempts to eliminate racial inequality, had we arrived at this point?”  What political and ideological shifts had occurred to bring about a tragic reversal?” (p. 113)

“The Great Transformation” introduces the paradigm shift in racial politics and the system of racial meanings and identities, rooted from the ethnicity paradigms of race that proceeded to be an uphill battle.  The opposition were shaped by the civil rights movement, and challenged with segregation in the South, but transformed from the movements against racism. The next change was the mobilization of new social movements like the Black Panther Party that lead the black movement. Furthermore, these movements helped set the stage of reorganized of U.S. politics.

Do you think it is “normal” politics to include or exclude racial issues? Is there an issue of being “color-blind” in America?

In lieu of the Regan “Revolution”, some studies suggest that racism motivates some people to become Republicans, noted Merle Black.

Regan successfully assaulted the racial policies initiated in response to "The Great Transformation”.  Under Regan’s leadership, the federal government reversed itself and switched sides on racial policy.

Racial formation has been solidified as one of the primary paradigms of sociological understandings of race. Omi and Winant identify reductionism theories of race that identify race as epiphenomenal rather than durable as the chief competing theories of racial dynamics in contemporary sociology.

Omi and Winant conclude the book by asking this question:

“What would the contours and battle lines of racial contest be the next time around?”^[11]

I feel that the contours and battle lines of racial will contest more racism that comes from a lack of knowledge and understating of one another and their race.  I feel that people should try to make a better effort in getting to know someone from a different cultural background so that they would know their true “uniqueness” and find some kind of common ground to live in unity and in peace.

In conclusion, the theory of Racial Formation in the United States draws upon Gramsci's conception of hegemony to describe the social construction of the race concept in contemporary American society. Omi and Winant contend that race emerged as an organizing factor in society due to political actions that were called racial projects. These racial projects remain ongoing, making race an unstable social category that is constantly changing, as a result of racial events such as the Civil Rights Movement and changing nature of race relations do to political action. Furthermore, Gramsci would predict that the reforms secured during movements like the Civil Rights era serve to incorporate resistance; therefore political projects of racial equality remains incomplete.  According to Omi and Winant, the fundamental dynamics of race including continued inequality and institutional racism remain in place today and have created racial lines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_formation_theory

While evaluating this work I found these readings to be very valuable.  It answers a lot of questions in race relations and tells a story of the development of race in America. Race consists of individual psyche and relationships between one another.  It also identifies collective identities and social structures. The thesis of this book were well researched, however it is lacking future predictions that will be evidence for future readers.  The theory method is effectively used because they have a historical approach to there method of research and provide adequate notes to review further information.  The evidence is very thorough but can be over complicated at times.  I would be able to draw some of the same conclusions that racism will never end and injustice will remain in our societies, however that would not allow me the optimism that has inabled the country to grow and flourish as a nation. Black people have a history of rising through adversity, and it is an optimistic approach to the long road ahead with trials and triumphs that has finally lead us to a shift in political power with Black President Barrack Obama . In addition, this it just the beginning of justice for all mankind, although it doesn’t change racism, it reshapes the “Racial Formation in the United States".

The first part (ch. 1-4) was edited by Melissa Gardner