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Racial formation theory is an analytical tool in sociology, developed by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, which is used to look at race as a socially constructed identity, where the content and importance of racial categories are determined by social, economic, and political forces. Unlike other traditional race theories, "In Omi view, racial meanings pervade US society, extending from the shaping of individual racial identities to the structuring of collective political action on the terrain of the state".
Instead of claiming race as something that is concrete, where the person's biology and upbringing are what shape racial identity, Omi and Winant suggest that race is something that is fluid, where "the racial order is organized and enforced by the continuity and reciprocity between micro-level and macro-level of social relations".
They refer to it as "racial order" that is able to have meaning and a varying system due to a result of the way that people choose to interact with one another in "micro-level and macro- level of social relations.
The "macro-level" social relations refer to the and common ideologies of a society. Relevant social structures include collective organizations like businesses, the media, and the government, and the common ideologies include cultural and stereotypical beliefs on race, class, sexuality, and gender.
Omi and Winant also believe that "race is an unstable and 'de-centered' complex of social meanings constantly being transformed by political struggle". Because of this, people are able to constantly contest the definition of both in the micro- and the macro-level.
The need for a justification for institutionalized racial discrimination led to the "biological essentialist" framework. In this framework, White European Americans were viewed as being born inherently superior. Religious debates also flared over the role of race in definitions of humanity: "Arguments took place over creation itself, as theories of polygenesis questioned whether God had made only one species of humanity ('monogenesis')."
In their book Racial Formation, Omi and Winant present race as a relatively recent phenomenon in the United States. They describe how race becomes established in social consciousness, even without anyone having an explicit intention to perpetuate it:
Everybody learns some combination, some version, of the rules of racial classification, and of their own racial identity, often without obvious teaching or conscious inculcation. Race becomes 'common sense' – a way of comprehending, explaining, and acting in the world.
This scientific debate was not, however, a purely academic one. It was a central icon of public fascination, often in the popular magazines of the time. Even today, scientists are still working on finding a genetic basis for racial categorization. None of these efforts has been successful in defining race in an empirical and objective way.
Racial formation theory examines race as a dynamic social construct with inherent structural barriers, ideologies and individual actions, whereas the biological essentialist understands individual deficiency as the basis for racial marginalization and oppression.
Omi and Winant define "racial formation" as "the process by which social, economic and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings". The racial formation perspective emphasizes the extent to which race is a social and political construction that operates at two levels, the micro (individual identity) and the macro (collective social structure). The two levels interact to form a racial social movement when individuals at the micro level are mobilized in response to political racial injustice at the macro level.
The black banker harassed by police while walking in casual clothes through his own well-off neighborhood, the Latino or white kid rapping in perfect Afro patois, the unending faux pas committed by whites who assume that the non-whites they encounter are servants or tradespeople, the belief that non-white colleagues are less qualified persons hired to fulfill affirmative action guidelines...
When our racial expectations are violated, our reactions can betray our "preconceived notions of a racialized social structure". There are many racial projects dispersed throughout society that "mediate between discursive or representational means in which race is identified and signified on the one hand, and the institutional and organizational forms in which is it routinized and standardized on the other".
Ad creators utilize this when thinking about what demographic they are trying to sell their product to. Journalists use similar method of thinking when they are writing to try and include certain audiences. These forms of media are mass consumed by a wide variety of audiences. The information within them can change social perceptions or reinforcing those that are already existing.
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