Giovanni Sisneros 1

As mentioned, this paper will seek to define race and ethnicity; moreover, it will display
how these two terms have played a center role in defining a pupils life chances, from the time
of Jim Crow segregation laws in the south to our current state of affairs in the American culture.
Specifically, I will exemplify how life chances for certain ethnic or racial groups have not
become inherently better over the last fifty years or so, and in some cases are deprived now more
than ever before. However, to better understand why and how life chances disproportionally
affect people of color (minorities) in the United States, it is essential to first understand some
major background themes regarding race and its fruition. I will provide an in-depth analysis of
what ethnicity and class is and how race/racism has become embedded in the American culture
as a prescriber to life chances by referencing Omi & Winants work, Paradigms of Race:
Ethnicity, Class, and Nation. Particularly, I will elucidate two theories the authors mention, the
blame the victim model under the ethnicity based paradigm and the stratification theory
under the class based paradigm, to better illuminate this idea of how race and ethnicity
encompass ones life chances.
Omi & Winants Paradigms of Race: Ethnicity, Class, and Nation, describes how theories
of race-its meanings, transformations, and significance have never been a top priority in social
science. 1 They as well go on to identify how ethnicity, class, and nation are key components to
understanding the paradigm of race, though I will predominantly cover that of ethnicity and
class. Before introducing these two models or theories, it is crucial to recognize how ethnicity
and class are associated with these two models. Within the framework of their text, Omi and
Winant state how the dominant racial theory provides society with common sense about race,

1 Omi and Winants Paradigms of Race and Ethnicity from Racial Formation in
the United States (New York: Routledge, 1994): 9.

Giovanni Sisneros 2
and with categories for the identification of individuals and groups in racial terms.2 Therefore, a
person or group comes to challenge the dominant racial theory when it fails to adequately
explain or identity a truthful state of race relations amongst that particular society.3 This opens
the door to who is right and who is wrong, though it also takes into account what or whose norms
and regulations is right and wrong constructed around. It is as well important to note here that
both during and after the 1960s (the contemporary period) ethnicity has been a dominant
paradigm of race, challenging class and nation for based paradigms of race.4 This is important to
note because we can see that from Jim Crow Laws to the Civil Rights Movement, even to present
times, ethnicity has become a key factor in distinguishing a persons life chances.
The ethnicity based paradigm ascended in the 1920s and 1930s challenging biologistic views,
whereas before the 1920s or before ethnicity was construed, race was associated with
distinctive hereditary characteristics.5 The Pre-1930s era, Omi and Winant reference, challenges
the biologistic view which contests the natural order of humankind; (i.e., suggesting a society of
inferiority and superiority).6 This superlative of an inferior and superior classified society asserts
the hegemonic group to innately believe that the less affluent, darker skinned, and ultimately
minority citizens are bearers of their own well-being, blame the victim model.7

2 Ibid. 11.
3 Ibid. 11.
4 Ibid. 12.
5 Ibid. 14.
6 Ibid. 14.
7 Ibid. 20.

Giovanni Sisneros 3
Within the Theoretical Dominance section of Omi and Winants work, they reference
Myrdal explaining America is free to choose whether the Negro shall remain her liability or
become her opportunity.8 Basically, should white Americans integrate blacks into society as
such a model minority, or is a black person to remain a beast or other, an entity of a tedious
work in progress; caring and treating these people comparable to livestock. At this time,
assimilation was viewed as the most practical rejoinder to the dilemma levied by racism;
however, it is important to recognize that an abundant amount of these views were established
proceeding the European immigrant model of assimilation.9 Again, the blame the victim model
is rendered here, where a person of perceived or judged inferior ethnic status is recognized and
judged according to white norms and regulations; grossly affecting minority citizens
disproportionally. When immigrant or foreign groups to the U.S. are forced or pressured to
assimilate to the dominant often Eurocentric norms of society, it leads to these groups losing part
of their culture and history; while at the same time leaving these people vulnerable to a narrowminded society, which intuitively and harshly makes them pay for any differences they may
encompass. The ethnicity paradigm tends to incorporate and instill all of the above rationalities
of race/ethnicity into the minds of its body of people and blames the victims for their personal
predicament, diverting attention away from the ubiquity of racial connotations and subtleties.10
The white racial/ethnic group has continued to disregard historical events of racial contrast and
are contempt with placing the differences in language, culture, and non-assimilability on the

8 Ibid. 17.
9 Ibid. 17.
10 Ibid. 20.

Giovanni Sisneros 4
shoulders of minority Americans; as if past events have not kept these groups negated from
prospering in society.
Class theories of race principally explain race by reference to economic ideologies.11 Omi
and Winant explain three categories to the class paradigm of race, which consists of market
relations (exchange), systems of stratification (distribution), and the final one which I will
chiefly elaborate on, process of class conflict (production). While the two concepts of ethnicity
and class can be explained as separate entities to the life chances of a human being, a direct
association can and should be recognized as predecessors to life chances through this model of
racial paradigms.
The stratification theory deals with the unequal distribution of resources, (post-1965)
based upon class more than race.12 Individuals who acquire roughly equal amounts of wealth and
income are theorized to statistically have equivalent life chances and are thus assigned to groups
in that status order, which is basically a hierarchy of classes.13 Moreover, this hierarchy of
classes establishes and widens the gap between different variations of a persons life chances. For
example, those in a higher class will receive more money and opportunities from birth to be
physical and socially successful compared to someone who is less affluent. To better understand
this concept Omi and Winant reference the piece, The Declining Significance of Race by William
Wilson.

11 Omi and Winants Nation and Toward a Racial Formation Perspective from
Racial Formation in the United States (New York: Routledge, 1994): 24.
12 Ibid 27.
13 Ibid. 27.

Giovanni Sisneros 5
According to Wilson, black life chances were formerly determined by racial
stratification, since 1965 they have been shaped directly by class stratification.14 It is important
to note that both forms of stratification (ethnicity and class) have been crucial to the
disadvantageous opportunities laid out before most minority citizens. After state enforced racial
policies were legally prohibited, such as Jim Crow Segregation, blacks were free to the
stratification of society; nonetheless only a miniscule crowd would obtain the same treatment
and opportunities as whites.15 At this state, even though most minority pupils are considered legal
equal citizens, imbalanced covert conduct has continued to keep these people less
advantageous, acquiring subordinate opportunities, and rendering them moneyless and
powerless. Overall, Wilson illuminates the idea that racial inequalities increasingly are less
significant than class inequalities for shaping life chances.16
The ethnic-group, nation, and class based paradigms all abandon this term race as a selfsufficient realm of social struggle, being politically affiliated, and of having significance in
culture and ideology.17 Specifically, authors are confined or are working each separately on their
own paradigms, searching their favorable or desired notions of race, depicting theories on their
own foundation.18 Therefore, though each paradigm points out certain postulates that may seem
counteracting, this whole concept is really a fluid construct incorporating intersectionality as the
basis of all train of thought. Basically, it is hard to understand and incorporate one topic
14 Ibid. 27.
15 Ibid. 27.
16 Ibid. 27.
17 Ibid. 48.
18 Ibid. 48.

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regarding race or life chances without knowing, understanding, or having insight from another.
Thus, we can see by theory how both ethnicity and class through the models of blaming the
victim and the stratification theory plays a heavy role in the life chances of an individual.