Week 2: Space and Racial Formation

(On "Normative Dimensions of Landscape" by Richard H. Schein

and "Racial Formation" and "The Racial State" by Michael Omi and Howard Winant)

I had the opportunity to read an excerpt by Omi and Winant during my freshmen fall semester for World Cultures: APA. I enjoyed gaining further insight on racial formation, especially on the role of institutions. While the authors briefly related the historical background, I made an obvious conclusion that racial states are increasingly becoming revamped. On page 72, it says, "system of racial subjection has been more monolithic, more absolute, at some historical periods than others," in reference to times of colonialism and slavery. During those times, there were definitely a lack of questions asked, challenges posed, and aspiration to reform. Nowadays, such racism or assumed characterization that causes racial formation are not tolerated as much as they were before.

It was also interesting to note the various stages or phases in which the government or state institution would take action in response to those that it governs. The definition of politics as, "the continuous process of formation and superseding of unstable equilibria" did have resonance for me as it did for the authors. It is said that the Chinese dynasties had a routine, or the Dynastic cycle, in which a dynasty rises, gains prosperity, corruption happens, and eventually the dynasty falls. The racial state showed many resemblance to this cycle: "a phase of crisis is initiated," "institutions adopt policies of absorption and insulation," "a series of reforms is enacted which partially meets oppositional demands" (81-2).

I learned much about racial formation last year, but the role of state allowed me to put my knowledge into a bigger context and understand how such ideologies are set in place and accepted in society.

I also had the opportunity to learn about space during freshmen fall semester by taking Prof. Brenner's Intro to Metropolitan Studies, in which we started the semester by analyzing how space is produced and used in cities. On page 202, a reference to Pierre Bourdieu is made. He theorized how social space is an articulation of capital and class distinction. He also maintained that such social networks produce inequality. With that said, establishment of 'racialized landscapes' is inevitable with regulations such as redlining that supports racial hegemony, hence the establishment of ethnic enclaves.

One thing that bothered me while I was reading this chapter by Schein was how the word "normative" or "normal" was used so often to describe this happening. It seemed to be a keyword: "This power of landscape makes it inescapably normative" (203), "normative dimensions of any landscape operate at a structural level: unconsciously promoted and unrecognized as anything other than common sense" (217).

These normative things, common sense, or absolute ideologies that prevent people from asking questions or challenging those obviously flawed ideas are what creates and recreates, establishes and reestablishes racism and racial formation.