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constructed through human interaction and
relationships between people and institutions, as a
social force, it is real in its consequences. It is a fact, but
is it truth?
The Sociological Meaning of Race
Sociologists and racial theorists Howard Winant and
Michael Omi provide a definition of race that positions it
within social, historical, and political contexts. Their
theory accentuates the underlying connection between
racial categories and social conflict. In their book "Racial
Formation in the United States," Winant and Omi offer
the following definition of race: an unstable and
decentered complex of social meanings constantly being
transformed by political struggle,” and, that “...race is a
concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts
and interests by referring to different types of human
bodies.” Omi and Winant associate race, and its
implications, directly to political struggles between
different groups of people, and to social conflicts which
stem from competing group interests. To say that race is
defined in large part by political struggle is to recognize
how definitions of race and racial categories have
shifted over time, as the political terrain has shifted. 6
The most dramatic example of the inconsistent and
politically driven definition of race is linked to our
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