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This article was downloaded by: [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] On: 08 October 2014, At: 10:09 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Ethnic and Racial Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rers20 Does racial formation theory lack the conceptual tools to understand racism? Tanya Golash-Boza Published online: 18 Mar 2013. To cite this article: Tanya Golash-Boza (2013) Does racial formation theory lack the conceptual tools to understand racism?, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36:6, 994-999, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2013.767919 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.767919 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub- licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly

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Page 1: Does racial formation theory lack the conceptual tools to understand racism?

This article was downloaded by: [University of Nebraska, Lincoln]On: 08 October 2014, At: 10:09Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

Ethnic and Racial StudiesPublication details, including instructions for authorsand subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rers20

Does racial formation theorylack the conceptual tools tounderstand racism?Tanya Golash-BozaPublished online: 18 Mar 2013.

To cite this article: Tanya Golash-Boza (2013) Does racial formation theory lack theconceptual tools to understand racism?, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36:6, 994-999, DOI:10.1080/01419870.2013.767919

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.767919

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, orsuitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressedin this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not theviews of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content shouldnot be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions,claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilitieswhatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connectionwith, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly

Page 2: Does racial formation theory lack the conceptual tools to understand racism?

forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Page 3: Does racial formation theory lack the conceptual tools to understand racism?

Does racial formation theory lack the

conceptual tools to understand racism?

Tanya Golash-Boza

Joe Feagin and Sean Elias (2012) argue that we need to understandhow racism works before we can theorize race. In contrast, MichaelOmi and Howard Winant (1994) contend we must understand howrace works before we can comprehend racism. Who is right?

Theories of systemic, structural and institutional racism provide uswith frameworks to understand the deep-seated nature of racialinequality in the USA. The emphasis in these analyses is on racism �and Feagin and Elias (2012) argue that only through a consideration ofracial oppression can we grasp the true nature of racial meanings. Incontrast, racial formation theory focuses on how race is constructed,and uses these analyses to understand racism (Omi and Winant 1994).The debate boils down to a chicken and egg sort of question � do weneed to understand race to understand racism or vice versa?

Rather than attempting to answer this question in the abstract, it ismore useful to examine the practical utility of these frameworks. Anunderstanding of why African Americans and Latinos are faring worseeconomically than whites in the aftermath of the Great Recession(2007�2011) would likely benefit from an analysis based on systemicor structural racism (Kochhar, Fry and Taylor 2011). A considerationof why Indonesian women use whitening creams yet insist they have nodesire to be Caucasian might get a more nuanced treatment from aracial formation perspective (Saraswati 2010). These two studies areboth grounded in the field of racial and ethnic studies, but havedifferent research questions and goals, and thus would draw fromdifferent frameworks. I will use my own work as an example to furthermy point that the easiest way to gauge the utility of these frameworksis by considering how they can be applied to empirical studies of racialdynamics.

In my work on African-descended Peruvians, I found that manyPeruvians identified as black, yet did not associate their blackness with

Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2013Vol. 36, No. 6, 994�999, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.767919

# 2013 Taylor & Francis

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a history of slavery or with African heritage (Golash-Boza 2011). AsI endeavoured to understand what it means to be black in Peru, theracial formation perspective was critical because it focuses on thecreation and construction of racial meanings. In my research in a smallvillage in northern Peru, called Ingenio, it was clear that I could nottake for granted what the term ‘black’ meant � I had to examine themeanings of blackness through ethnography, interviews, narrativeanalysis and historical research. My analyses revealed that the localhistory and customs of Ingenio intersect with global meanings ofblackness to inform the construction of blackness in this locality. Theracial formation perspective, or ‘the sociohistorical process by whichracial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed’(Omi and Winant 1994, p. 56), helped make it clear that the meaningsof blackness in Ingenio are informed by the global history of Africanslavery, the local history of sharecropping, regional traditions andcustoms, and gender and sexual dynamics.

Did systemic racism play a role in giving meaning to blackness inIngenio? Do we, as Feagin and Elias (2012) argue, need to understandracism to understand race in this situation? Yes. Even though thepeople in Ingenio do not see themselves as the descendants of Africanslaves, it is vital for a researcher to understand the history of chattelslavery to place Ingenio in its proper global and historical context. It iscrucial to know that the poverty and marginalization they face todayare related to the history of the slave trade and colonialism. It is alsoimperative to consider the ways that racism ensures the people ofIngenio have been excluded from efforts at modernization and shapeswhy their history is not taught in schools. To grapple with what itmeans to be black in Peru, we need to understand both how race isconstructed and how systemic racism has shaped the lives of people ofAfrican descent around the globe. The frameworks mutually reinforceone another and are both crucial.

I have also done work more centrally focused on racism. In my workon US immigration policy, I have been concerned with why the USAdeports over 1,000 people every day, why 98 per cent of deportees areblack or Latino, and why 85 per cent of deportees are men (Golash-Boza 2011). Research on the criminalization of black and Latino men,on rampant injustice in the criminal justice system, and on the racisthistory of the Border Patrol and immigration law enforcement moregenerally have been critical in these analyses. The systemic racismperspective facilitates our understanding of how and why the USAhas enacted draconian laws that primarily affect black and Latinoimmigrant men. What about racial formation? Do we need tounderstand how race is constructed to grapple with deportation?Absolutely. Omi and Winant contend that the state is the pre-eminentsite of racial construction. These insights make it clear how state

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policies shape the racialized meanings behind who belongs in the USAand who does not. Again, the two perspectives inform one another andthe research is better when it engages with both.

Aside from this difference of opinion with regard to the primacy ofrace versus racism, Feagin and Elias launch three other critiques ofOmi and Winant’s work. They contend that: (1) Omi and Winant’sabstractions about the state creating race are less useful than critiquesthat point directly at white state and non-state actors who upholdracial inequality because it is in their interest to do so; (2) Omi andWinant give racism too much of a pass whereas the systemic racismperspective exposes the depths of racism in the USA; and (3) Omi andWinant overlook many of the parallels between Jim Crow racism andpresent-day racism.

Feagin and Elias (2012, p. 10) argue that Omi and Winant do notprovide ‘a significant and explicit discussion of whites’ central andpowerful role in shaping the racial hierarchy.’ Instead of delineatingwho upholds the racial hierarchy, ‘the ambiguity of their terminologysuch as ‘‘the state’’ obscures activities of the mostly white (male)decision-makers who control the US political economy’ (Feagin andElias 2012, p. 10). Feagin and Elias (2012, p. 11) critique Omi andWinant for pointing to the ‘new racial state’ instead of the ‘new whitepolitical power elite-controlled governmental, policy-making struc-ture.’ They contend that, by not making it clear who the actors are thatreproduce racial inequality, Omi and Winant’s analysis is less usefulfor dismantling racism.

This is a fair criticism. However, Omi and Winant’s work isprimarily theoretical, and much less empirical. One certainly coulduse the racial formation perspective to better understand who theactors in ‘the new racial state’ are. If we want to understand why USimmigration policies disproportionately affect blacks and Latinos, it ispossible to use the racial formation perspective and to ask: who are theactors behind the Obama Administration’s mass deportation cam-paign? How is a black president able to execute a programme thatdeports more people than any previous president in US history? Toanswer these questions, it would be useful to draw from both thesystemic racism and racial formation perspective. Thus, althoughI agree that Omi and Winant could have done a better job of specifyingwho is creating the current racial order, I also appreciate that theirframework allows future research to pose these important questions.

The second critique is based on how we understand racism tooperate. Feagin and Elias (2012, p. 12) contend that ‘nowhere do [Omiand Winant] substantially and critically dissect the historical andcontemporary development of the persisting structural reality of USsociety’s racial group order.’ Feagin and Elias (2012) also argue that,in the racial formation perspective, race is primarily a question of

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individual prejudice, and that Omi and Winant give primacy tostruggles over racial meanings, instead of struggles for power andresources. Feagin and Elias ask: what group has the power to imposemeanings? They concede that racial meanings are important, yetcontend that racial meanings are best understood in the context ofracial oppression.

An evaluation of this critique requires a close reading of Omi andWinant to find out if they suggest that racism primarily is a questionof individual bigotry, if they do not link racism to structural factors,and if they ignore the history of white racial domination. Omi andWinant (1994, p. 57) argue that race signifies ‘difference andstructure[s] inequality’ and that ‘a racialized social structure shapesracial experience and conditions meaning.’ Thus, I think it is fair tosay, as Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (1997) pointed out, that Omi andWinant pay less attention to structure than they might, yet that it isnot fair to say that they completely fail to link racism to structuralfactors � because they do.

Finally, Feagin and Elias (2012, p. 19) contend that racial‘formation theory presents a relatively optimistic view of racialprogress, especially over the last half-century’ and that ‘Omi andWinant often seem to view white racism today as something tackedonto an otherwise healthy, progressing US democracy’ (Feagin andElias 2012, p. 12). Feagin and Elias contend that Omi and Winant havetoo rosy a vision of racial progress in the USA and need to take acloser look at the lack of gains made by African Americans since thecivil rights movement.

Again, we need to go back to Omi and Winant’s work to determineif this is a fair critique � do they argue that the USA has experiencedsignificant progress since the Jim Crow era, without regard for thepersistence of racial inequalities? Omi and Winant (1994, p. 71)contend that ‘[i]t is obvious that the attitudes, practices, and insti-tutions of the epochs of slavery, say, or of Jim Crow, no longer existtoday’ and that the struggles of the 1950s and 1960s ‘dramaticallytransformed the political and cultural landscape of the US . . . . [and]achieved limited but very real reforms’ (Omi and Winant 1994, p. 95).However, they also recognize that many gains have been lost, and thatracial inequality persists today. It would be hard to disagree with theircontention that these movements transformed the meanings of racialidentities in the USA, yet it is also possible that they have overstatedthe gains made in terms of racial inequality.

To explore this disagreement over the gains in racial equality in thepost-civil rights era, it is useful to consider how Omi and Winant’sdepictions stand up to Michelle Alexander’s (2011) contention thatmass incarceration is the ‘New Jim Crow’. Alexander (2011) contendsthat because incarceration has become a common life event for

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African Americans, and because it is legal to discriminate againstfelons, our criminal justice system systematically denies rights andopportunities to African Americans, effectively replacing openly racistpolicies of the past. According to Alexander (2011, p. 2):

Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that

it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you’re labeled a

felon, the old forms of discrimination � employment discrimination, housing

discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial

of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service � are

suddenly legal.

She even goes so far as to contend that ‘today a criminal freed fromprison has scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a freedslave or a black person living ‘‘free’’ in Mississippi at the height of JimCrow’ (Alexander 2011, p. 138). How do Omi and Winant’s claimshold up in the face of this evidence?

It seems that their main contention � that racial identities have beentransformed � can be retained, regardless of this reality. However, theircontention that the attitudes, practices and institutions of Jim Crowhave been completely dismantled seems overstated. Rather, it seems, asAlexander contends, that these practices have been replaced withother, equally pernicious, systems of racial control.

Joe Feagin’s contributions to our understanding of the historicaland present-day operations of racism in the USA � particularly withregard to anti-black oppression � are tremendous. Feagin’s work hasgenerated thousands of books, articles, book chapters, theses, anddissertations that focus on the operations of racism in the USA.Likewise, Omi and Winant’s (1994) seminal work, Racial Formations,has served as the basis of a substantial body of scholarly work onracial identities, meanings and iterations. As a scholar who has focusedon both racial meanings and the workings of racism, I have foundboth to be useful. As this short essay should make clear, these bodiesof work are most valuable in combination � as our work is best whenwe focus both on the construction of race and the rootedness ofracism.

References

ALEXANDER, MICHELLE 2011 The New Jim Crow, New York: The New Press

BONILLA-SILVA, EDUARDO 1997 ‘Rethinking racism: toward a structural interpretation’,

American Sociological Review, vol. 62, no. 3, pp. 465�80

FEAGIN, JOE and ELIAS, SEAN 2012 ‘Rethinking racial formation theory: a systemic

racism critique’, Ethnic and Racial Studies. doi: 10.1080/01419870.2012.669839

GOLASH-BOZA, TANYA 2011 Yo Soy Negro: Blackness in Peru, Gainesville, FL: University

Press of Florida

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*** 2012 Immigration Nation: Raids, Detentions and Deportations in Post-9/11 America,

Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers

KOCHHAR, RAKESH, FRY, RICHARD and TAYLOR, PAUL 2011 Wealth gaps rise to

record highs between whites, blacks, and Hispanics [online]. Washington, DC: Pew Research

Center. Available from: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2069/housing-bubble-subprime-mortgages-

hispanics-blacks-household-wealth-disparity [Accessed 20 January 2013]

OMI, MICHAEL and WINANT, HOWARD 1994 Racial Formations, New York: Routledge

SARASWATI, L. AYU 2010 ‘Cosmopolitan whiteness: the effects and affects of skin-

whitening advertisements in transnational women’s magazine in Indonesia’, Meridians, vol. 10,

no. 2, pp. 15�41

TANYA GOLASH-BOZA is Associate Professor of Sociology in theSchool of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts at the University ofCalifornia, Merced.ADDRESS: University of California, 5200 North Lake Road, Merced,CA 95343, USA.Email: [email protected]

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