Racethnicity

     The way we personally acquire our own group identities are very complex and difficult. The way that we assign a group identity to others besides are ourselves is also very difficult. Race and ethnic group labels often vary with different opinions. Not everyone will agree, understand, and use this criteria.  Because not everyone will agree with each other someone may label you in a way that you don’t consider correct and might even take an offense to it. In order to really comprehend the diversity in the world you have to understand the criteria that’s commonly used to make group distinctions. Race and Ethnicity are the most common criteria’s.

       Ethnicity is the term for the culture of people in a given geographic region, including their language, heritage, religion and customs. To be a member of an ethnic group is to conform to some or all of those practices. The term race refers to groups of people who have differences and similarities in biological traits deemed by society to be socially significant, meaning that people treat other people differently because of them. Race and ethnicity can obviously overlap, but they are yet quite different. A girl that is considered Asian, Japanese-American to be exact, could can consider herself Japanese or East Asian race, but, if she doesn't really participate in their traditions or practices she can identify herself as an American.

    Today the theory of race has been utterly transformed. The socially constructed status of the concept of race, which we have labeled the racial formation process, is widely recognized. (Omi and Winant 1986) Racial formation is "the process by which social, economic and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings." It's a sociological theory and it's a bit complicated. It looks at race as a socially constructed identity, where the content and importance of racial categories is determined by social, economic and political forces. Unlike traditional race theories, in Michael Omi and Howard Winant's view, "racial meanings pervade US society, extending from the shaping of individual racial identities to the structuring of collective political action on the terrain of the state." Race was seen as a static and unchanging concept based purely on physical criteria like biology and upbringing. Omi and Winant suggest that race is somewhat fluid where "the racial order is organized and enforced by the continuity and reciprocity between micro-level (personal interactions with other people) and macro-level (social structures and common ideologies of a society like business, media, government, cultural and stereotypical beliefs on race, class, sexuality and gender) of social relations."