Uniformity of Nature? Nah.

In "Racial Formation in the United States," after describing an account of contemporary racial order, Omi and Winant say they will turn to examine "how it evolved...[to] better discern where it is heading." My reaction to this literary maneuver is critical, strictly philosophically speaking. That is, while their treatment of racial formation is persuading, I wanted to point out a fallacy in their extrapolation from/application of the past to the future. Seeing that this class is a philosophy class, I just thought I would make note of it. The point is that there is no basis to think that because we have witnessed an event sequence XYZ, n amount of times we can think that upon witnessing XY, Z will follow. That is, we have not shown that the universe operates uniformly and therefore reliance on the past to predict the future is irrational. While I must credit David Hume for this insight, it nevertheless applies to anytime we try to say something about the future from our knowledge of the past. If we take this seriously (which I am not suggestion we necessarily do, mainly because it is not very practical), we should object to Omi and Winant appealing to the history of racial formation to form their prediction of what it will be in the near future. Minor point, but I think important to notice.