What is identity? Is it really necessary if yes then is it correlated to race? These are some of the questions that scurried in my head when I was reading through the articles “Black behind the Ears” and “Racial Formation in the United States”. I began to analyzed them and reached a certain form of self-enlightenment; I could finally grasp the bigger picture i.e. Identity is as you perceive it to be some people may identify themselves with their race while other may chose to view themselves a being products of their society. Identity may also be forged from culture, traditions, heritage, religion and even ideas. Therefore; in authenticity identity is ultimately based on how you distinguish yourself from others.
The African American community suffered a lot during the major course of the US History. The first part of this dark history entailed slavery which was brutal (it was also the first time in history that slavery was based on race alone) then after almost two hundred years when freedom was finally obtained, the Jim Crow Laws trickled in which were some of the most unfair and harsh laws that were positioned in to maintain segregation in areas that were strong believers in white supremacy. The most surprising thing was that during the 1940’s even the Capital of the United States of America (which represents the country as a whole): Washington D.C was a strong supporter of these laws. This is backed up by Candrlario when he states “To see racial projects operating at the level of everyday life, we have only to examine the many ways in which, often unconsciously, we ‘notice’ race.” This show that race is a major incentive that propels the everyday life of the American society.
During this read I realized that “America” doesn’t only apply to the US but all the countries in the Americas (North, South and Central America) and all these countries have different people who have different races, heritage, culture, ideology and even different religions but they are all Americans and they all have their own identity and each end every person living in these countries has his own individuality. Therefore; in my opinion stereotyping people and making sweeping generalizations about a certain group of people based on their phenotype is highly inaccurate, unjust and misleading. In “Racial Formation,” Michael Omi and Howard Winant introduced their definition of race which was, “race is a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies.” This shed light on the idea that social conflict is invoked once behavior is traced back as the premises of interaction among people. The article also explains how racial formation can occur at different levels (such as macro and micro) in the following excerpt:
“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 cannot suddenly declare itself “color-blind” without in fact perpetuating the same type of differential, racist treatment. Thus, race continues to signify difference and structure inequality.Here, radicalized 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.”
Here the idea of color blind racism is introduced by Michael Omi and Howard Winant who try to highlight the fact that in the past the government mistreated the people based on their race (such as the Jim Crow Laws) so we can’t just ignore the history and start from a clean slate because even today there are certain loopholes which promote inequality which in turn “racialized” the very structure of the government.
All in all, I believe that a race cannot be used to generalize people, it can only be used as a tool for self-identification and to promote individualism.