Racial Formation by Omi and Winnant - Article Example

Racial project. A term thatch the authors have used to allow and facilitate a deeper understanding of racism, in a partial context. A racial project can thus be defined as racist only when such a project creates and amplifies structures of domination over others purely on essentialism.Racial dictatorship. This refers to the stubborn persistent cases of racial inequality in a society, where one race is favored and gets special attention at the expense of others for being considered superior to another race in a social context.

The article, Science and the Idea of Race: A Brief History by Smedley illustrates how historical developments in different sciences and the idea behind race were strongly interwoven, in understanding the background behind certain persons, and IQ tests and how the mental testing activities came to be developed in understanding the different individual in terms of their mental capacity and abilities. The article investigates how race is connected to the above developments. Single-origin theory of the universe.

This is an important theory among Christians that unified all humanity and made them equal before the eyes of God as the universal being; it implied that even the savage could be made civilized making any human being equal. The psychic unity of humankind explains that all men are of one species, and have been provided with like tools and instruments of judging and understanding. Therefore, each individual is molded by laws, customs, and habits, and there can be no basis for trivializing a person as being inferior.

What is required is a relativist approach other than a judgmental approach in dealing with races.Quakers. These were the first group of Christian missionaries to voice their concerns in opposition to slavery in America, a practice that treated the black race as an inferior race, and were considered savage people who needed forced civilization. The Quakers were the first group to accept and speak out on the commonality of all races as equal and deserving to be treated with the dignity of mankind, with slavery being a gross abuse of this dignity.

Primitivism. This was a term used to define groups that portrayed dramatically different tendencies such as hunting and gathering. They were considered innocent, uncorrupted, and without any hypocrisy; they were people far away from civilization, and were portrayed by science have a much lower IQ and to be of a lesser race than others.