Racial Formation Issues - Essay Example

Racial Formation Racial Formation Race and humanity are two inseparable entities that continue to shape the success of varying social relations and social structures. These entities are equally important in the racial formation where race is assessed from a social construct instead of the succeeding social meanings caused by either ethnicity or individuality. Another vital perspective of racial formation that is of interest to Omi and Winant involve the societal expectations that usually affect the collective political action (Archer & Tritter 89). As this paper will explain, assessment of the benefits of racism has also elicited debate with Gary Becker, an economist predicting its eventual extinction because it has no economic gain. A. Racism as an individual prejudice or attitudes are too limited based on many reasons worth highlighting. For example, according to Omi, Winant as well as Jurik’s PowerPoint, race emanates from a social construction that is connected to one’s identity. Therefore, racial categorization is wholly influenced largely by political, social, and economic factors. Similarly, a focus on the individual prevents scholars from evaluating the wider perspective of micro and macro levels. In micro-level social relations, scholars investigate the various ways people interact with others in the society. Conversely, at macro-level social relation, understanding of the social structures plays an integral role in determining how collective groupings such as class, media, and gender affect a human being. Accordingly, aspects of social policy and discourse equally manipulate racial identities and human nature because they are attached to the material consequences found in existence. As a result, certain features are missing from individual attitudes such as the inconsistency of biological basis to explore the nature of race distinctions (Jurik, ppt. 2014, slide 6). Assumptions, therefore, are vital in understanding the racial concept both as a symbol of assessing the individual prejudice and formulating a larger conceptualization of race that surpasses the immediate environment. B. Conceptualization of race according to Omi and Winant is a manifestation that goes beyond a person. The scholars assert that race possesses real material consequences that are attached to a specific social construction. This social construction often ranges from ethnicity to class within the society and under a particular time frame. As result, in the ethnicity paradigm, the conceptualization of race is connected to cultural contexts. Solution, therefore, remain the assimilation of classes to introduce economic advancement (Omi & Winant 84). Additionally, the projection of race as a nation helps in comprehending how cultural nationalism, internal colonialism, and pan Africanism aids in critiquing the issue of racial identity. Historical changes also manipulate the concept of racial formation such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement that dominated America in the 1950s and 1960s respectively. These fundamental milestones ushered in racial equality because different amendments and legislations occurred that eventually resulted to policy implications. Race consciousness is another instrumental perception that continues to reverberate in the dynamics that enable people to understand racial formation. On that account, the collective social structure is important because it helps people to forge a permanent individual identity that is aligned with suppressing structural barriers and racial marginalization. C. The conceptualization of race differs from other popular views particularly those that interlink race with biology or ethnicity. Biology, for illustration, attempts to connect the genetic make-up of a being and his racial identity without some races seeing themselves as superior than others. This has resulted to the issue of racial superiority that has obsessed the white people. It has also brought the phenomenon of racial categorization that was largely opposed by Omi and Winant. According to the scholars, a social construct is the guiding framework that binds individual actions and structural barriers in order to establish an objective conceptualization of race (Jurik, ppt. 2014, slide 20). Therefore, this social construct causes a disharmony in the social movements that usually initiate change and policy toward promoting any emerging competing views of determining racial purity. The psychological impact, consequently, causes the person to improve their social relations and common ideologies that encompass stereotypical beliefs and aspects of sexuality. Likewise, the social meanings derived from the biological origin of all individuals demonstrate the complexities that ensure that humanity find structural relevance in their respective lives. Overall, formulation of race formation is upon both the individual, but most critically, the society. D. Omi and Winant, thus, propose that there is a bigger manifestation of their racial formation theory that supersedes the utilitarian perspective proposed by Gary S. Becker. According to Becker, racism has no longevity because it is not economically profitable for the wider society. In the rational choice theory, individual behavior is wholly impacted by instrumental rationality of a phenomenon and it could be either race or ethnicity. It implies that Becker’s assertion on utility basis is valid, but does not match the propositions of Omi and Winant that label race as social construct. The nature being a social construct differs from the rational choice theory (Omi & Winant 97). This is because the latter believes racism is a behavioral issue that is caused by varying societal factors that include sex, political affiliation, and gender dynamics. On the other hand, from an economic framework, race is a burden upon society and lacks any meaningful returns when evaluated in terms of cost-effectiveness. Another interesting process that debunks the utility perspective involves how human desire and motivations lead to racial purity. In the diversification of culture and attitudes, race is both a social and economic problem when it is used to suppress the identity of others. It, therefore, is imperative to evaluate the general implications of racial formation especially when it is attached to the social construct as proposed by Omi and Winant. This suggests that new methodologies that revolve around connecting race with ethnicity and class enables scholars to find real solutions for racial segregation (Archer & Tritter 126). Another crucial issue involves the collective implication that often occurs when race is assessed from multiple perspectives that include economics as was proposed by Gary Becker. In other words, rational formation theory cannot be ignored because it helps in understanding the relationship between race as a social entity or utility. References Archer, M. & Tritter, J. (2013). Rational Choice Theory: Resisting Colonization. Mason, OH: Routledge. Jurik, N. 2014. JUS 303 Racial Formation Theory Powerpoint. (Unpublished) Omi, M. & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States. New York, NY: Routledge. Read More