Racial Formation Theory

Racial formation theory describes political processes that construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct racial categories and their meanings in the United States. This theory counters views of race as a fixed, objective element of human identity based mainly on physical characteristics such as skin color, facial features, and hair texture. Instead, racial formation theory contends that race is an unstable social construct whose meanings change across sociohistorical contexts due to conflicts between dominant and nondominant groups' interests and values.

The perspective that race is constructed, contextual, and contested has important implications for communication studies because racial formation processes occur through communication. The primary tenets of the theory are as follows: Race is a pervasive, pivotal organizing principle of U.S. society; race is an artificial, fluid construction that derives from ongoing political conflicts; political conflicts manifest as racial projects based on links between racial representations and social structures; and racial projects occur at interrelated macro- and microlevels of society.

Ethnic studies scholar Michael Omi and sociologist Howard Winant developed racial formation theory in the late 1970s as a critique of social-scientific approaches to theorizing race in the United States. Concerned that those approaches were reducing the significance of race, and therefore diminishing the potential to abolish racism, they argued that race is and always has been fundamental to social organizing processes in the United States, including major social conflicts and recurring racial inequities in employment, education, and housing. They contended further that meanings of race are socially constructed and that they arise from conflicts among social, economic, and political forces. To explain these and related issues, Omi and Winant created racial formation theory.

Racial formation theory focuses on processes by which humans create racial meanings. It denotes race as an artificial social construction that varies in meaning depending on the sociohistorical context. The U.S. Census provides a prime example; census forms have always included items that implicitly or explicitly refer to race. The first form in 1790 distinguished Black slaves from White people, while throughout the 20th century, census forms listed 26 different schemes to categorize race or color.

Racial formation theory highlights conflicts over racial meanings and stresses connections between representations or significations of race and social structures. Representations or significations of race include classifications and hierarchies, as well as discourse about race. For instance, in the late 18th century, persons in power in the United States relied on an artificial, arbitrary racial classification system to reinforce and perpetuate a racial hierarchy based on the idea that the white race is superior to others. Known as White supremacist ideology, this typology has been a constant source of struggle among people in the United States. This typology also is reciprocally [Page 824]related to social structures such as policies, laws, and practices. Connections between representations of racial meanings and social structures form the core of racial formation processes, manifesting as what Omi and Winant term racial projects.

One example of a racial project is slavery. Many White persons conceptualized Black people as inferior beings, which helped to justify relegating Blacks to the lowest level of society and treating them like animals. Social structures such as laws and policies relied on definitions of blacks as inferior to maintain and enforce the racial project of slavery. For example, the U.S. Constitution classified Blacks as three-fifths human. Similarly, White supremacist ideology helped to justify oppressive treatment of native people as well as discriminatory behaviors toward immigrant groups who were not White. This imposed meaning system led to laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. In contrast, the racial project of abolition defined Blacks as human beings and demanded that they receive equal treatment in society. As these examples imply, racial projects can either reinforce or resist dominant representations of race and therefore develop and enact racist or antiracist social structures.

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