Sociology

The 20th century was marked with the development and discussion of numerous theories of race and domination. In many aspects, the 20th century became the period of continuous reformulation and reessentialisation of race as a purely biological construct toward seeing race as the product of human domination. Such scientific attention to race and domination was justified by the historical changes that occurred in the latter half of the 19th  the beginning of the 20th centuries dozens of colonial countries finally became the free members of the so-called third world. For this reason, theorists found it necessary and appropriate to reconsider the meaning of race and the role it plays in the development of power relationships in the world. From Marx and W.E.B. DuBois, through Fanon and Omi and Winant, up to Dyer and Said, the concept of race was gradually becoming a convenient object of sociological, economic, cultural, and political analysis. Contemporary social theories reflect the gradual evolution of the theoretical thought about race and domination, from race as the tool of class exploitation, to race as a man-made construct flexible enough to be used for the satisfaction of the changeable political interests however, none of the existing theories of race can serve a reliable tool of erasing racial differences in society.

Karl Marx, class exploitation, and the beginnings of the postcolonial analysis of race
Karl Marx can be fairly regarded as one of the first in the system of postcolonial studies to see race and domination as the object and the instrument of class struggle, exploitation, and as the basis for developing and establishing. For Marx, who states that capitalist production develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth  the soil and the labourer (Marx, Mandel  Fernbach 1992), this labourer is often a racial minority representative, without whom domination, imperialism, and exploitation become impossible. However, it is not enough to say that racism lays the foundation for the development of imperialism rather, it is more than important to see what racism is and how race works in the system of owner-labourer relationships in the capitalist society.

Racism for Marx looks like the conjunction of the three critical elements first, racism is a systematic ideology second, this ideology is based on the belief in racial inferiority and third, racism is hardly limited to beliefs and attitudes but is actually a complex system of discriminative practices and super-exploitation principles (Marx, Mandel  Fernbach 1992). Although Marx does not provide any clear and universal definition of race (the task which, until the present time, remains largely unresolved), he is confident that race is a category constructed by humans for the purposes of exploitation, domination, and class struggle (Marx, Mandel  Fernbach 1992). Here, the effects of Marxs vision on the development of the new theory of race is two-fold on the on hand, he is one of the first to consciously reject the concept of race as a biological construct on the other hand, Marx creates the new theoretical line, which will be followed by dozens of postcolonial theorists after him. After Marx, postcolonial studies in racism and domination either took the vision of race as a social construct for granted, or sought to examine, minimise, and reject the vision of race as the combination of purely biological characteristics. To a large extent, what Marx wrote about race and racism was later used and extended by W.E.B. DuBois in his attempt to produce a single and comprehensible definition of race.

W.E.B. DuBois from Marx to Marx
That W.E.B. DuBois based his vision of racism on what had been written about race by Marx is a surprise. Contemporary studies of race and domination often place Marx and W.E.B. DuBois as the representatives of one and the same sociological school, but there are several essential differences between their personal understandings of domination and race. Although, in his The Conservation of Races, DuBois continues the line set by Marx and tries to look deeper into the socioeconomic aspects of race consciousness, he proceeds further to explore racism as the fundamental prerequisite for the cultural cohesiveness and stability within minority groups. It would be fair to say that what W.E.B. DuBois wrote about race and domination was a step away from the 19th century biological ideas of racism and a step closer to the new 20th centurys vision of race as a historical and social construct.

First of all, DuBois views race not as the product of social illusion and imagination, but as an entity that is socially, historically, and politically constructed and is extremely important for the analysis of the major social processes (Dubois  Edwards 2007). Second, DuBois views race as the instrument of power relationships in society which, as these power relationships evolve, also changes its nature. Moreover, DuBois was confident that the concept of race led to the development of the so-called race consciousness, without which black progress would have been impossible (DuBois  Edwards 2007). The biological distinction between the three major races for DuBois is meaningless as long as it cannot explain specific cultural and historical differences between them. DuBois defines race as a vast family of human beings, generally of common blood and language, but always of common history, traditions and impulses, who are both voluntarily and involuntarily striving together for the accomplishment of certain more or less vividly conceived ideals of life (DuBois  Edwards 2007). As a result, race for DuBois is nothing else but the product of cultural, social, and historical processes, and the development of the mentioned racial consciousness is aimed to help different groups leave their historical message for the generations that follow.

In this context, the question is in how the members of one and the same race identify themselves with one particular and not any other race. Also, why did DuBois himself, being the descendant of both the Dutch and the Black, seek to identify himself with the Negro community Those questions, left by DuBois without answers, were fully answered by Frantz Fanon in his Black Skin, White Masks  the book, which became a logical continuation and the sign of the gradual progress in the development of postcolonial vision of race.

Frantz Fanon and the process of racial identification of the self
Fanons vision of race and domination is interesting in a sense that it serves a kind of logical continuation of what W.E.B. DuBois was unable to address in his works about race. The process of racial identification and the development of individual race consciousness as the products of domination and exploitation are probably the most important in Fanons book. Fanon (1967) is confident (and in many aspects, it correct) that as long as the black man is among his own, he will have no occasion, except in minor internal conflicts, to experience his being through others.  The black man among his own in the twentieth century does not know at what moment his inferiority comes into being through the other.  and then the occasion arose when I had to meet the white mans eyes. An unfamiliar weight burdened me. For Fanon (1967), the new racial consciousness and the process of identifying oneself with one particular and not any other race goes in line with and is inseparable from the meaning and the notion of domination. It is domination that leads individuals to recognise themselves as a part of some particular race and to realise their inferior social position compared to the dominant race. The dominant societal groups perceive race as the source of otherness, but does that mean that by eliminating the notion of race, society will finally succeed in developing sound equity relationships between different social groups And if society claims that it was able to grant racial minority groups sufficient opportunities for profitable performance and self-realisation, does that also mean that it was able to erase the boundaries between races and shape the ground for the development of fair racial relationships

Here, Fanon (1967) makes a challenging claim the mere fact that society intentionally and persistently tries to reject the notion of otherness and its biological  sociological features, and the mere fact that society emphasises how black and other racial communities act and interact without being discriminated against means that this society was not able to discard and erase racial distinctions between individuals. Rather, the system of domination was transformed to follow and satisfy the changeable political needs of society.

In its current state, society is increasingly interested in respecting equality between races, but the lines of racial distinction are not erased nor are they forgotten. I knew, for instance, that if the physician made a mistake it would be the end of him and of all those who came after him.  The black physician can never be sure how close he is to disgrace (Fanon 1967). As such, and according to Fanon (1967), the rise of the race consciousness and the societys striving to erase the boundaries of race are nothing else but the products of continuous domination and the signs of the misbalanced power relationships. Black people turn into black people as soon as they meet the representatives of the white dominant race, and this process of identifying oneself with Blacks is aimed to give an individual a clearer idea of his inferior position in society. This knowledge of ones inferior social position is later used by the dominant (usually, white) race, for the sake of exploitation and for the purpose of redistributing limited economic and social benefits between different members and groups. Whether race is openly condemned or whether it is used as the basis for developing equality strategies  it is always a tool of racial domination and a convenient and rather flexible tool of satisfying changeable political needs of society.

Omi and Winant Racial Formation
Race as the tool of political domination and fight  this is exactly how Omi and Winant (1994) try to position race in their theory of race formation. Omi and Winant (1994) show race as an unstable component of the social structure, which makes it possible to transform race under the influence and for the purposes of political struggle. Race for Omi and Winant (1994) is a concept which signifies and symbolises social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies. In their discussion Omi and Winant (1994), on the one hand, question the pre-colonial vision of race as the conjunction of biological features and, on the other hand, try to see how possible it is for the enlightened world to operate without taking the concept of race into account.

To some extent, what Omi and Winant (1994) write about race is similar to what Fanon (1967) was trying to show through the prism of the new racial equality trends in society, which do not erase but only emphasise the line of distinction between the superiority of the white people and the imposed inferiority of other races. As a result, the process of racial formation turns into the essential component of all social processes in the world and comprises the two stages the process of organising human bodies and historical structures around historical projects, and the process of reformulating these projects to follow the standards and requirements of a particular hegemony (Omi  Winant 1994).

The link between power and race is the distinctive feature of postcolonial studies about race, which all theorists and sociology professionals consciously or subconsciously accept as the basis for contemporary sociological analysis of racial relationships. However, Omi and Winant (1994) make a significant progress in the postcolonial vision of race and domination in distinction from their predecessors, they are able to add the new cultural dimension to everything that had been written and said about race before them. As a result, race comes out as the product of both social and cultural influences. Race looks like a complex conjunction of cultural representations and interpretations of racial differences in society, and it also serves a flexible instrument of political struggle and a convenient tool of achieving predetermined political objectives. The significance of such cultural interpretations and their usefulness in the current structure of domination and hegemonies is undeniable and too evident to be neglected and these cultural interpretations actually shape the ground for the development of other racial theory  Orientalism in the eyes of Edward Said.

Edward Said, Richard Dyer, Orientalism, and the new dimension of race
No matter how persistently society tries, it can hardly release itself from the legacy of racial discrimination and domination left by the 19th century. The need for domination and the current structure of political and economic hegemony show race and racism as the convenient instruments of exploitation and political struggle and the eternal opposition between everything western (civilised) and everything oriental (non-civilised) is one of the brightest representations of the racial dichotomy so widely presented and discussed in literature.
This is, actually, one of the major paradoxes in the postcolonial representation of race and domination numerous theorists position race as the concept and the construct extremely flexible and adjustable to the changeable political conditions, but this flexibility also reflects the surprising stability of the binary racial opposition between races that are considered civilised and races that are considered uncivilised and socially inferior.

Dyer (2000) writes that white identity is founded on compelling paradoxes a vividly corporeal cosmology that most values transcendence of the body a notion of being at once a sort of race and the human race, and individual and a universal subject. This is also what Said (1979) implies in his theory of Orientalism, discussing racism as the product of historical changes. According to Said (1979), under the influence of historical liberation and the rise of new independent states in the Eastern World, racism became a good guarantee for the stability of racial dichotomy and the existing racial hegemony in the world. The textual representations of race, on which Said (1979) relies in his work, are included into a set of devices common to the work of important poets, artists, and scholars, which were used to confirm the historical dominance of western political institutions over the eastern world. Unfortunately, neither Said nor any other theorist discussed in this paper was able to propose any relevant solution to the problem of races today. None of those who were critically examined in this work ever tried to develop a relevant plan for eliminating and erasing the notion of race from our consciousness. Rather, the discussed theories show race as the essential component of social functioning, without which the current social structure will become obsolete. Moreover, given the relative stability and continuous dominance of this structure, it is hardly possible to predict the consequences of such anti-racial transformations in society.

Conclusion
In light of everything that was written and said, race stands out as the concept that was historically and socially constructed for the purposes of continuous political and social domination, exploitation, and class struggle. Race also shows as a flexible instrument of political change, which was and is used by numerous political groups to pursue their interests. However, the mere fact that numerous theories of race and domination were developed also implies that race is far from being an illusion nor is it a product of social and cultural imagination. It is hardly possible to use these theories for the sake of achieving any racial balance in society. These theories cannot also erase the differences between races, but can only emphasise the relevance of the stable white race hegemony and the stability of the racial dichotomy between western civilisation and oriental racial wildness. At a closer look, all these theories confirm race to be a convenient tool of political dominance and an extremely flexible tool of managing racial consciousness in a way, which will always grant the dominant race a chance to preserve its political and social position in the world.