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Racial Formation in the United States From the 1960s to the 1990s

M I C H A E L O M I A N D

H OWA R D W I N A N T

In 1982–83, Susie Guillory Phipps unsuc- cessfully sued the Louisiana Bureau of Vital Records to change her racial classification from black to white. The descendant of an 18th-century white planter and a black slave, Phipps was designated “black” in her birth certificate in accordance with a 1970 state law which declared anyone with at least 1/32nd “Negro blood” to be black.

The Phipps case raised intriguing ques- tions about the concept of race, its meaning in contemporary society, and its use (and abuse) in public policy. Assistant Attorney General Ron Davis defended the law by pointing out that some type of racial classifi- cation was necessary to comply with federal record-keeping requirements and to facili- tate programs for the prevention of genetic diseases. Phipps’s attorney, Brian Begue, ar- gued that the assignment of racial categories on birth certificates was unconstitutional and that the 1/32nd designation was inaccu- rate. He called on a retired Tulane Univer- sity professor who cited research indicating that most Louisiana whites have at least 1/20th “Negro” ancestry.

In the end, Phipps lost. The court up- held the state’s right to classify and quantify racial identity.1

Phipps’s problematic racial identity, and her effort to resolve it through state action, is in many ways a parable of America’s un- solved racial dilemma. It illustrates the dif- ficulties of defining race and assigning individuals or groups to racial categories. It shows how the racial legacies of the past— slavery and bigotry—continue to shape the present. It reveals both the deep involve- ment of the state in the organization and in- terpretation of race, and the inadequacy of state institutions to carry out these func- tions. It demonstrates how deeply Ameri- cans both as individuals and as a civilization are shaped, and indeed haunted, by race.

Having lived her whole life thinking that she was white, Phipps suddenly discovers that by legal definition she is not. In U.S. society, such an event is indeed catastrophic. But if she is not white, of what race is she? The state claims that she is black, based on its rules of classification, and another state agency, the court, upholds this judgment.

Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formations in the United States, pp. 53–61, 180–181. Copyright © 1986 by Routledge and copyright © 1994 by Michael Omi and Howard Winant.

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But despite these classificatory standards which have imposed an either-or logic on racial identity, Phipps will not in fact “change color.” Unlike what would have happened during slavery times if one’s claim to whiteness was successfully challenged, we can assume that despite the outcome of her legal challenge, Phipps will remain in most of the social relationships she had occupied before the trial. Her socialization, her famil- ial and friendship networks, her cultural ori- entation, will not change. She will simply have to wrestle with her newly acquired “hybridized” condition. She will have to confront the “Other” within.

The designation of racial categories and the determination of racial identity is no simple task. For centuries, this question has precipitated intense debates and conflicts, particularly in the U.S.—disputes over nat- ural and legal rights, over the distribution of resources, and indeed, over who shall live and who shall die.

A crucial dimension of the Phipps case is that it illustrates the inadequacy of claims that race is a mere matter of variations in human physiognomy, that it is simply a mat- ter of skin color. But if race cannot be un- derstood in this manner, how can it be understood? We cannot fully hope to address this topic—no less than the meaning of race, its role in society, and the forces which shape it—in one chapter, nor indeed in one book. Our goal in this chapter, however, is far from modest: we wish to offer at least the outlines of a theory of race and racism.

What Is Race?

There is a continuous temptation to think of race as an essence, as something fixed, con- crete, and objective. And there is also an op-

posite temptation: to imagine race as a mere illusion, a purely ideological construct which some ideal non-racist social order would eliminate. It is necessary to challenge both these positions, to disrupt and reframe the rigid and bipolar manner in which they are posed and debated, and to transcend the presumably irreconcilable relationship be- tween them.

The effort must be made to understand race as an unstable and “decentered” com- plex of social meanings constantly being transformed by political struggle. With this in mind, let us propose a definition: race is a concept which signifies and symbolizes so- cial conflicts and interests by referring to dif- ferent types of human bodies. Although the concept of race invokes biologically based human characteristics (so-called “pheno- types”), selection of these particular human features for purposes of racial signification is always and necessarily a social and histor- ical process. In contrast to the other major distinction of this type, that of gender, there is no biological basis for distinguish- ing among human groups along the lines of race. Indeed, the categories employed to differentiate among human groups along racial lines reveal themselves, upon serious examination, to be at best imprecise, and at worst completely arbitrary.

If the concept of race is so nebulous, can we not dispense with it? Can we not “do without” race, at least in the “enlightened” present? This question has been posed often, and with greater frequency in recent years. An affirmative answer would of course pre- sent obvious practical difficulties: it is rather difficult to jettison widely held beliefs, be- liefs which moreover are central to everyone’s identity and understanding of the social world. So the attempt to banish the concept

as an archaism is at best counterintuitive. But a deeper difficulty, we believe, is inher- ent in the very formulation of this schema, in its way of posing race as a problem, a mis- conception left over from the past, and suit- able now only for the dustbin of history.

A more effective starting point is the recognition that despite its uncertainties and contradictions, the concept of race continues to play a fundamental role in structuring and representing the social world. The task for theory is to explain this situation. It is to avoid both the utopian framework which sees race as an illusion we can somehow “get beyond,” and also the essentialist formula- tion which sees race as something objective and fixed, a biological datum. Thus we should think of race as an element of social structure rather than as an irregularity within it; we should see race as a dimension of human representation rather than an illu- sion. These perspectives inform the theoreti- cal approach we call racial formation.

Racial Formation

We define racial formation as the sociohis- torical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and de- stroyed. Our attempt to elaborate a theory of racial formation will proceed in two steps. First, we argue that racial formation is a process of historically situated projects in which human bodies and social struc- tures are represented and organized. Next we link racial formation to the evolution of hegemony, the way in which society is or- ganized and ruled. Such an approach, we believe, can facilitate understanding of a whole range of contemporary controversies and dilemmas involving race, including the nature of racism, the relationship of race to other forms of differences, inequalities, and

oppression such as sexism and nationalism, and the dilemmas of racial identity today.

From a racial formation perspective, race is a matter of both social structure and cul- tural representation. Too often, the attempt is made to understand race simply or pri- marily in terms of only one of these two an- alytical dimensions.2 For example, efforts to explain racial inequality as a purely social structural phenomenon are unable to ac- count for the origins, patterning, and trans- formation of racial difference.

Conversely, many examinations of racial difference—understood as a matter of cul- tural attributes à la ethnicity theory, or as a society-wide signification system, à la some poststructuralist accounts—cannot com- prehend such structural phenomena as racial stratification in the labor market or patterns of residential segregation.

An alternative approach is to think of racial formation processes as occurring through a linkage between structure and representation. Racial projects do the ideo- logical “work” of making these links. A racial project is simultaneously an interpreta- tion, representation, or explanation of racial dynamics, and an effort to reorganize and re- distribute resources along particular racial lines. Racial projects connect what race means in a particular discursive practice and the ways in which both social structures and everyday experiences are racially orga- nized, based upon that meaning. Let us consider this proposition, first in terms of large-scale or macro-level social processes, and then in terms of other dimensions of the racial formation process.

Racial Formation as a Macro-Level Social Process To interpret the meaning of race is to frame it social structurally. Consider for example,

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this statement by Charles Murray on wel- fare reform:

My proposal for dealing with the racial issue in social welfare is to repeal every bit of legislation and reverse every court deci- sion that in any way requires, recommends, or awards differential treatment according to race, and thereby put us back onto the track that we left in 1965. We may argue about the appropriate limits of government intervention in trying to enforce the ideal, but at least it should be possible to identify the ideal: Race is not a morally admissible reason for treating one person differently from another. Period.3

Here there is a partial but significant analysis of the meaning of race: it is not a morally valid basis upon which to treat peo- ple “differently from one another.” We may notice someone’s race, but we cannot act upon that awareness. We must act in a “color-blind” fashion. This analysis of the meaning of race is immediately linked to a specific conception of the role of race in the social structure: it can play no part in govern- ment action, save in “the enforcement of the ideal.” No state policy can legitimately re- quire, recommend, or award different status according to race. This example can be classi- fied as a particular type of racial project in the present-day U.S.—a “neoconservative” one.

Conversely, to recognize the racial dimen- sion in social structure is to interpret the meaning of race. Consider the following statement by the late Supreme Court Jus- tice Thurgood Marshall on minority “set- aside” programs:

A profound difference separates govern- mental actions that themselves are racist, and governmental actions that seek to rem-

edy the effects of prior racism or to prevent neutral government activity from perpetu- ating the effects of such racism.4

Here the focus is on the racial dimensions of social structure—in this case of state activity and policy. The argument is that state actions in the past and present have treated people in very different ways according to their race, and thus the government cannot retreat from its policy responsibilities in this area. It can- not suddenly declare itself “color-blind” with- out in fact perpetuating the same type of differential, racist treatment. Thus, race con- tinues to signify difference and structure in- equality. Here, racialized social structure is immediately linked to an interpretation of the meaning of race. This example too can be classified as a particular type of racial project in the present-day U.S.—a “liberal” one. . . .

These two examples of contemporary racial projects are drawn from mainstream political debate; they may be characterized as center-right and center-left expressions of contemporary racial politics. We can, however, expand the discussion of racial formation processes far beyond these famil- iar examples. In fact, we can identify racial projects in several other analytical dimen- sions: first, the political spectrum can be broadened to include radical projects, on both the left and right, as well as along other political axes. Second, analysis of racial projects can take place not only at the macro-level of racial policy-making, state activity, and collective action, but also at the micro-level of everyday experience. . . .

The Political Spectrum of Racial Formation We have encountered examples of a neo- conservative racial project, in which the significance of race is denied, leading to a

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“color-blind” racial politics and “hands off” policy orientation; and of a “liberal” racial project, in which the significance of race is affirmed, leading to an egalitarian and “ac- tivist” state policy. But these by no means exhaust the political possibilities. Other racial projects can be readily identified on the contemporary U.S. scene. For example, “far right” projects, which uphold biologis- tic and racist views of difference, explicitly argue for white supremacist policies. “New right” projects overtly claim to hold “color- blind” views, but covertly manipulate racial fears in order to achieve political gains. On the left, “radical democratic” projects invoke notions of racial “difference” in combina- tion with egalitarian politics and policy.

Further variations can also be noted. For example, “nationalist” projects, both conser- vative and radical, stress the incompatibility of racially defined group identity with the legacy of white supremacy, and therefore ad- vocate a social structural solution of separa- tion, either complete or partial. Nationalist currents represent a profound legacy of the centuries of racial absolutism that initially defined the meaning of race in the U.S. Na- tionalist concerns continue to influence racial debate in the form of Afrocentrism and other expressions of identity politics.

Taking the range of politically organized racial projects as a whole, we can “map” the current pattern of racial formation at the level of the public sphere, the “macro-level” in which public debate and mobilization takes place. But important as this is, the terrain on which racial formation occurs is broader yet.

Racial Formation as Everyday Experience At the micro-social level, racial projects also link signification and structure, not so much

as efforts to shape policy or define large-scale meaning, but as the applications of “com- mon sense.” To see racial projects operating at the level of everyday life, we have only to examine the many ways in which, often un- consciously, we “notice” race.

One of the first things we notice about people when we meet them (along with their sex) is their race. We utilize race to provide clues about who a person is. This fact is made painfully obvious when we encounter someone whom we cannot conveniently racially categorize—someone who is, for ex- ample, racially “mixed” or of an ethnic/racial group we are not familiar with. Such an en- counter becomes a source of discomfort and momentarily a crisis of racial meaning.

Our ability to interpret racial meanings depends on preconceived notions of a racialized social structure. Comments such as, “Funny, you don’t look black,” betray an underlying image of what black should be. We expect people to act out their ap- parent racial identities; indeed we become disoriented when they do not. 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 unend- ing faux pas committed by whites who as- sume 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, indeed the whole gamut of racial stereotypes—that “white men can’t jump,” that Asians can’t dance, etc., etc.— all testify to the way a racialized social structure shapes racial experience and con- ditions meaning. Analysis of such stereo- types reveals the always present, already active link between our view of the social structure—its demography, its laws, its

customs, its threats—and our conception of what race means.

Conversely, our ongoing interpretation of our experience in racial terms shapes our relations to the institutions and organiza- tions through which we are imbedded in social structure. Thus we expect differences in skin color, or other racially coded char- acteristics, to explain social differences. Temperament, sexuality, intelligence, ath- letic ability, aesthetic preferences, and so on are presumed to be fixed and discernible from the palpable mark of race. Such di- verse questions as our confidence and trust in others (for example, clerks or salespeo- ple, media figures, neighbors), our sexual preferences and romantic images, our tastes in music, films, dance, or sports, and our very ways of talking, walking, eating, and dreaming become racially coded simply because we live in a society where racial awareness is so pervasive. Thus in ways too comprehensive even to monitor consciously, and despite periodic calls—neoconservative and otherwise—for us to ignore race and adopt “color-blind” racial attitudes, skin color “differences” continue to rationalize distinct treatment of racially identified in- dividuals and groups.

To summarize the argument: the theory of racial formation suggests that society is suffused with racial projects, large and small, to which all are subjected. This racial “subjection” is quintessentially ideological. Everybody learns some combination, some version, of the rules of racial classification, and of her own racial identity, often without obvious teaching or conscious inculcation. Thus are we inserted in a comprehensively racialized social structure. Race becomes “common sense”—a way of comprehend-

ing, explaining, and acting in the world. A vast web of racial projects mediates between the discursive or representational means in which race is identified and signified on the one hand, and the institutional and organi- zational forms in which it is routinized and standardized on the other. These projects are the heart of the racial formation process.

Under such circumstances, it is not pos- sible to represent race discursively without simultaneously locating it, explicitly or im- plicitly, in a social structural (and historical) context. Nor is it possible to organize, maintain, or transform social structures without simultaneously engaging, once more either explicitly or implicitly, in racial signification. Racial formation, therefore, is a kind of synthesis, an outcome, of the in- teraction of racial projects on a society-wide level. These projects are, of course, vastly different in scope and effect. They include large-scale public action, state activities, and interpretations of racial conditions in artistic, journalistic, or academic fora, as well as the seemingly infinite number of racial judgments and practices we carry out at the level of individual experience. . . .

N OT E S

1. San Francisco Chronicle, 14 September 1982, 19 May 1983.

2. Michael Omi and Howard Winant, “On the Theoretical Status of the Concept of Race” in Warren Crichlow and Cameron McCarthy, eds., Race, Identity, and Representation in Education (New York: Routledge, 1993).

3. Charles Murray, Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1984), p. 223.

4. Justice Thurgood Marshall, dissenting in City of Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989).

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