Omi And Winant Sociology Essay

Omi and Winant’s concept of racialization is formed around the theory that race is a social conception while Bonilla-Silva’s is formed around the theory of racialized social systems. We will first look at Omi and Winant, and then we’ll move onto Bonilla-Silva’s concept of racialization. Omi and Winant say “Within the contemporary social science literature, race is assumed to be a variable which is shaped by broader societal forces.” (Omi & Winant 1986, pg. 3) The racial line in the United States has been defined and reinforced over centuries. Whites are seen as a “pure” while those who are mixed are categorized as “nonwhite.” This sort of thinking comes from the idea of hypo-descent. The theory of hypo-descent is as follows: no matter how small the African American ancestry a person has, they are still considered African American. Marvin Harris said “The rule of hypo-descent is, therefore, an invention, which we in the United States have made in order to keep biological facts from intruding into our collective racist fantasies.” (Omi & Winant 1986, pg. 3) The notion of “passing” began after the implementation of hypo-descent. Individuals who are categorized as “black” according to hypo-descent attempt to bypass discriminatory barriers by “passing” for white. When an individual is “passing” they try to assimilate themselves into the other race. “Passing” made it to the Supreme Court with the Takao Ozawa case. Ozawa, a Japanese male, filed for United States citizenship under the Naturalization Act of 1906. Ozawa stated that he had assimilated to the “white” way of life and should be considered “white.” The Supreme Court found that only Caucasians were white, and the Japanese were an “unassimilated” race.
Omi and Winant in their c...

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...an see the white systems that put them there. They aren’t more racist than whites, they aren’t granted the privilege of denial that whites have. (Wise, The Pathology of Privilege)
I hope that I have proved that Omi and Winant’s concept of racialization is the closest to the truth. They trace the social concept of race back to its earliest construction during the sixteenth century through the Federal Housing Administration discrimination polices following the Second World War. Like how the game of Monopoly was construction, so is race. The goal of both Monopoly and race is to leave others at the bottom and be the only one top. The courts in our country have upheld race through cases like Plessy v. Ferguson which keeps blacks from becoming white. The system of race in the United States is constructed in a way were whites are dominant and other races are subordinate.