“Racial Formation” by Michael Omi and Howard Winant abstractly covers the idea of race, both as an essence and an illusion, as it relates to modern practices within the United States. Race within politics, everyday life, science, and more is reviewed as a fundamental concept which is constantly affected by hegemony within our society. The idea that race is a historical concept is established to help create a concrete idea that race will eventually evolve into something new and unique from that which it is believed to be today.
In “Racial Formation,” the following passage exhibits the argument Omi and Winant are trying to imprint upon the reader:
Since racial formation is always historically situated, our understating of the significance of race, and of the way race structures society, has changed enormously over time. The processes of racial formation we encounter today, the racial projects large and small which structure U.S. society in so many ways, are merely the present-day outcomes of a complex historical evolution. The contemporary racial order remains transient. By knowing something of how it evolved, we can perhaps better discern where it is heading. (61)
Omi and Winant are trying to stress the importance of understanding the history of race in order to better lead and establish what “race” will mean to future generations.
The illusion of race as a fundamental means for understanding an individual is established as being socially constructed and therefore invalid. However, the idea that understanding race can better help individuals to establish non-racial projects for the future, in an attempt to better mankind, is stressed as being the articles’ purpose. The idea that understanding contemporary racial order as a fleeting structure establishes the solvency of racial evolution.
