Howard Winant

Within society people are placed within categories, of which is consider “appropriate” for who/ what they are. Society then uses the categories as a prototype, to then create labels onto individuals which changes how one see’s the world and how other’s perceive each other. In today’s world these categories are race, class, and gender. There are times when individuals can be placed in multiple categories then can have both advantages and disadvantages. Race, being the most common category that…

and significant. Gathering support from either philosophers and sociologists to naturalists, their work shapes around race and its implications. According to Micheal Omi and Howard Winant’s Racial Formation in the United States (1986), they formulate the idea or proposition that race is not biological. Omi and Winant start off to state that race is “largely a modern phenomenon”…

formation, as presented by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, is the process through which a society assigns racial categories to the groups of people living within it, with the notion of “race” being constructed through both cultural representation and social structure. Racial formation involves the creation and destruction of stereotypes throughout a period of time, and is connected to hegemony, which is the way that a certain society is organized and ruled (Omi, Winant 21). An artificial racial…

It is no secret that racism is still a big problem today. People in our society to this day still think that it is okay to treat people differently based of the color of their skin or ethnicity. Tim Wise mentioned in his speech at the University of San Fransisco that since racism isn't always easy to talk about, color blindness and color muteness is becoming an increasing problem. The concept of Race was socially constructed when the European’s discovered people that looked different from them.…

Social Formations and Their Representations in Society as Seen Through Music This paper will argue that Bessie Smith’s song “Young Woman’s Blues” and The Supremes’ song “Where Did Our Love Go?” exhibit both hegemonic and counter-hegemonic components through their reflections of sexist and racist ideologies that existed during their respective eras. Smith released “Young Woman’s Blues” in 1926 which was during the height of the Harlem Renaissance in which black people were able to create their…

All individuals are born with the capacity of becoming social beings. Our first social identities are predetermined; one is socialized even before being born. Socialization is an ongoing practice that continues to morph throughout the years of one’s life, in other words, the process of learning who we are as individuals and our place in the world is unsolidified. The experiences and interactions humans have with other members of society are contributing factors for how self-identity is…

On Saturday February 6, 2016, one day before Super Bowl Fifty; Beyoncé Knowles released a music video for her new song “Formation .” Filmed in New Orleans with the devastation caused by hurricane Katrina as a backdrop. The video featured a scenes where Beyoncé sits atop a half-submerged police car that continues sinking. Giving a nod to the Black Lives Matter movement, “at the end of the clip, a line of riot-gear-clad police officers surrender, hands raised, to a dancing black child in a hoodie,…

Transnationalism is a broad topic which covers distinctive areas such as: political, economic, and cultural exchanges. As bordering countries, the United States and Mexico have comprehensive history of transnationalism. From economic policies, such as the Bracero Program to political policies such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). But, what both economic and political policies share is the overwhelming influence that the United States had when determining these policies.…

Racial Inequality Throughout the history of the United States, racial inequality continues to be an issue in our society. Most of every race had come a long way from fighting to gain equality. The society today has definitely improved, but there is still racial inequality within today. Racial inequality is imbalance of opportunities and treatments that occur based off someone’s race. There are many explanations on why racial inequality exists and the film Do the Right Thing shows various ways…

by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, as the “sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed” (69). Collectively, racial projects form racial formations, a process of racial interactions we conform…