Ishell Robinson Essays (2144 words) - Social Constructionism, Race

Ishell Robinson Elizabeth Kim English 10:40 24 July 2015 Social Construction of Race When talking about race people tend to just explain it at the bare minimum. Race does not just have one specific meaning. Race can be interpreted in a significant amount of ways depending on multiple customs. In the article "Racial Formations," written by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, they elaborate on how society needs to break the barrier of stereotypes and defining people of one's race because race is always changing due to society always changing. In Caucasia Birdie and Cole are sisters that live two different lives due to their outward appearance. Omi and Winant believe that race is changing due to social concepts such as racial ideology, racial identity, and racialization. This idea is enforced in the novel Caucasia , written by Danzy Senna. The protagonist can relate to these social concepts that form the real meaning of race. Omi and Winant argue that racial ideology has a huge impact on race due to social construction. Racial Ideology is people's preconceived notion of race, their set of beliefs on race. Most beliefs are based on how one thinks a certain race should act or how one should look. As Omi and Winant puts it, "We also become disoriented when people do not act black,' Latino,' or indeed white.' The content of such stereotypes reveals a series of substantiated beliefs about who these groups are and what they' are like" (Omi and Winant 4). The authors are stating how people become confused or dumbfounded when one's preconceived notion of race does not match how that specific race behaves. Stereotypes take part of how people believe a certain group should behave or act. Most people's preconceived notions come from stereotypes in their societies. This connects to Omi and Winant's main argument that race is not just one specific thing because physically it is hard to tell which race one ma y be. Stereotypes are created based on one's society. Stereotypes will continue to change as society keeps changing. Historians themselves cannot describe race because race is not a biological concept. Race cannot be determined just simply by one's outer appearance. Just because someone is light skinned does not mean they are white. It is a possibility that that person might be mixed. There are multiple example of racial ideology demonstrated in the novel Caucasia . Birdie states, "It reminded me of an old black - and - white plantation movie my father had forced Cole and me to watch on Sunday afternoon. The slave characters in it had been played by white actors who wore some kind of pancake makeup on their faces. My father had laughed whenever they spoke in their strained dialect" (Senna 14). The white actors had pancake makeup on to be perceived as black slaves. The situation that reminded Birdie of this movie was Redbone's slang. She described it as being awkward and twisted. Birdie also mentioned that her father would laugh every time he heard the "strained dialect" the white slaves were talking in the movie. The "strained dialect" is an impersonation of how the white actors thought black people talked, but was not true. The white actors talked in a strained dialect because of their preconceived notion of how they thought black people talked an d also how one looked due to the pancake makeup. The white actors were not born knowing how black people talked. They came up with that analysis throughout time that many different social interactions influenced their preconceived notion. This goes back to what Omi and Winant say about film and television being notorious in disseminating images of racial minorities (Omi and Winant 5). Omi and Winant discuss racial identity in their article and makes many important points about it. Racial identity is a group of people identified as "other groups" because of their physically or genetic traits. The authors state, "Skin color differences' are thought to explain preconceived differences in intellectual, physical, and artistic temperaments, and to justify distinct treatment of racially identified individuals and groups" (Omi and Winant 4). People thought to think that skin color differences were the reason to different thoughts of a person's nature. The