Lookingglass300

Summary and Response to: Racial Formation by Michael Omi and Howard Winant

Race has been a stepping-stone for blood spilling in this country and globally for as long as our history has been written. The purification, the dehumanizing, and the efforts to save those who are living in such circumstances has started more conflicts on all levels of organization than any other cause. In the United States racial evolution has been very convoluted. The awareness of race traveled from a religious field to a scientific awareness and finally to a political stand point in policy making. The allocation of a biological definition in itself, leading to the justification of differential treatment based on race, has been in the works since the early 1800’s yet is still unsuccessful with modern technology but continues on today. The idea that race was more then just skin deep and could determine a persons more complex mental and physical attributes had lead to a “common sense” notion that race is normal and the racial line is needed to understand our world. With this ‘common sense’ government agencies have been able to control the masses under their order and striate them as seen fit.

The ideology behind such segregation are centered in the belief that race is an essence; something that is unchangeable and fixed. The opposite side is the ideology that race is a mere illusion and should just simply be eliminated leading to a color blindness in society. Both of these stances have their problems and neither really considers the social implications of a 300-year history based on racial profiling in this country. Although, when social implications are presented there are those who see racial injustice and inequality overall as just that; prejudice and bigotry. If this is the cause the solution would be just education and the need for tolerance. This ignores the socialization of racist ideals that have taken hold over the hundreds of years of oppressive conflict. Still one could argue that making it sound as if racism is engrained in every person the task of pin pointing it and making progress to change it is almost impossible. If the solution were really that simple the answers would have come forth and been resolved. But in fact the messiness of the racial order and racial projects are part of their very definitions.

Definitions no longer just cause conflicts pertaining to a forced categorization of racial orders but also to ways in which the systems of oppression are categorized within each movement. Racial formation, with its macro level social processes, political spectrum of racial formation and leading down to the micro level of analysis, states “…race is a matter of both social structure and cultural representation.” A racial project is stated as containing “…interpretation, representation, or explanation of racial dynamics, and an effort to reorganize and redistribute resources along particular racial lines.” The definition leads one to believe in a ‘black and white’ representation of these categories where there truly is nothing but grey. Racial formations can lead to running around inside a circle of arguments while a racial project in itself can be racist. But without a starting point nothing can be accomplished so acknowledge the possible flaws in these trains of thought we move on hoping for new ways of defining the world around us and integrating the messages so everyone, not just the highly educated westerner will have access to the benefits.

For me it is easy to blame an outside force for the problems I face due to my racial categorization as Asian, Chinese, or mixed depending on the observer. The idea that the media, schools, history, the government are all to blame leads me to fall into a pit where the problem is too big for me to handle and adaptation seem the only option. The ‘common sense’ mentality that this is just how it is penetrates every corner of my life. I am torn between being proud of my heritage and hating the cages of definitions which society runs on. When I am not Chinese enough to be truly Chinese or I have been in this country too long to consider myself Asian I find that I’m not a or b but somewhere down the line. A person without connections seems powerless but because I recognize where this powerlessness is coming from I am able to reclaim my identity as just that; mine. It matters very little what the man down the street thinks of me or my skin color, hair, or eyes for if I can look in a mirror and find hope for not only myself I consider it a productive day.