Tim Wise
Author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son
About the Author
Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the United States
Works by Tim Wise
Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity (City Lights Open Media) (2010) 196 copies, 2 reviews
Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama (2009) 159 copies, 4 reviews
Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male (2008) 109 copies, 1 review
Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America (City Lights Open Media) (2015) 76 copies, 1 review
Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White (Positions: Education, Politics, and Culture) (2005) 36 copies, 1 review
Associated Works
When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories (2002) — Contributor — 49 copies
Until Our Lungs Give Out: Conversations on Race, Justice, and the Future (2023) — Foreword — 20 copies, 2 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1968-10-04
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Tulane University
- Occupations
- social critic
speaker
social justice activist - Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- Nashville, Tennessee, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- Tennessee, USA
Members
Reviews
Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America (City Lights Open Media) by Tim Wise
Despite having rather sternly told myself I was not allowed to check out any books because I already had too many checked out at home, I saw this one in the new non-fiction section and could not resist. Reading it swayed me more to Bernie than any articles actually about the candidates did. The system of inequality is just too unjust for tinkering to fix. It needs a sledgehammer.
Reading this book was highly emotional for me. In many sections, especially early on in the book, the ideas Wise show more was selling I was already convinced of, but the details and examples were so maddening that I had to skim over them to avoid flying into a rage. At the same time, there were so many stories, studies, argument that we so strongly worded that I had to quote them on goodreads, on Facebook, read them to my family. One section in particular pushed me over the edge, and I had to put the book down so that I could go buy my own personal copy that I could mark up and underline for future debates, so that I could safely return my library copy.
If yu want to learn about systematic inequality, read this book. If you want to know how our (white) racism has damned us, causing us to shred our own safety nets just to erode the (rather more wobbly) nets for people of color, read this book NOW. show less
Reading this book was highly emotional for me. In many sections, especially early on in the book, the ideas Wise show more was selling I was already convinced of, but the details and examples were so maddening that I had to skim over them to avoid flying into a rage. At the same time, there were so many stories, studies, argument that we so strongly worded that I had to quote them on goodreads, on Facebook, read them to my family. One section in particular pushed me over the edge, and I had to put the book down so that I could go buy my own personal copy that I could mark up and underline for future debates, so that I could safely return my library copy.
If yu want to learn about systematic inequality, read this book. If you want to know how our (white) racism has damned us, causing us to shred our own safety nets just to erode the (rather more wobbly) nets for people of color, read this book NOW. show less
I read this short polemic in conjunction with watching Mr. Wise's lecture, The Pathology of Privilege: Racism, White Denial and Costs of Inequality (Wise, et al., 2008) on the recommendation of a respected member of my faculty whom I consider a mentor. I am grateful for the recommendation. Mr. Wise is an activist and scholar who makes us uncomfortable in order to confront the reality of our American society - racism is not dead, but alive and well.
I have read this book and watched his show more lecture at a time when Ann Coulter, a reprehensible pundit of the Murdock FoxNews dynasty, co-opted the social media activist message, #BringBackOurGirls, supporting the return of 200 kidnapped Nigerian girls by the terrorist group Boko Haram. Coulter posted a "selfie" with the words #BringBackOurCountry. The posting was largely a failure as liberals photoshopped the selfie to mock Coulter and her message, and to punch back at her vicious form of anti-liberal, anti-progressive satire. At this time, I could not have needed Mr. Wise more for his insight into exactly what such conservatives as Coulter want our country to return to.
Mr. Wise states that most who reminisce on what America once was are remembering the time around 1957. This was the time when all the people on television sets were white, families were projected as wholesome, and the American system benefitted hard-working people without large government or heinous taxes. Unfortunately, these individuals have mythologized this era obscuring the fact that taxes at that time were high (91% for incomes over $200,000/year for a single person and $400,000/year for a married couple) and big government entitlements like Social Security, the GI Bill, and VA home loans were heralded, loved, and more importantly, not available to people of color. It was a time remembered and cherished because while taxes were high, white people received the largesse of the benefits.
This system changed with the Civil Rights Movement. When people of color fought for and won access to white benefits there was a backlash. All of a sudden government entitlements had to be earned and people of color were lazy.
Lazy. That is a misused adverb. Wise points out that for centuries whites all over the world have pursued a life of leisure happy to subjugate, enslave, terrorize, misuse, and mistreat others to get them to do the hard work privileged white people staunchly avoid. Yet, with the Civil Rights Movement came the feeling that if a white person could not succeed it was because of the unearned compensations handed out to people of color (listen to: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/18/313618309/poverty-a-frustrating-mix-of-bad-choices.... Since Civil Rights made bigotry unacceptable, the truth must be rewritten and edited. And, rewrite and edit the likes of Coulter indeed do. The Tea Party, the "patriots" so fanatic about their strict Constitutionalism, often omit from their public readings of the sacred document the provisions protecting slavery inserted by our forefathers - those wonderful, white, slave-owning men so highly worshipped in our society wrote the laws as a means to ensure their supremacy. Wise is certain the America Coulter and her like-minded patriots want to return to is one that upholds white supremacy. I concur and the truth hurts.
Wise makes us think and he pulls no punches. In his lecture in which he mentions the March on Washington, he mocks, "..an event that every white liberal alive now claims to have attended..." making us realize that liberals are just as responsible for the climate of racism that is fostered. Whites are happy to go along, sometimes struggling, but always knowing that the image of the "All-American Boy" and the "All-American Girl" looks just like the person staring back at them in the mirror. We are happy to go along knowing that the rules of working hard and getting an education ensure we have a good chance to succeed even while the rules do not apply to hard-working, educated people of color. And when whites are hurt by the economic recession caused by greedy white men, it is only the entitled pain of white people that counts. It does us good to remember the Occupy movement was just as white as the predominantly white Tea Party.
No, racism is not dead in America. Racism is as entrenched as ever. So, what are we going to do about it?
___________________________________________
Reference:
Wise, T. J., Jhally, S., Young, J. T., Rabinovitz, D., & Media Education Foundation. (2008). The pathology of privilege: Racism, white denial & the costs of inequality. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation. show less
I have read this book and watched his show more lecture at a time when Ann Coulter, a reprehensible pundit of the Murdock FoxNews dynasty, co-opted the social media activist message, #BringBackOurGirls, supporting the return of 200 kidnapped Nigerian girls by the terrorist group Boko Haram. Coulter posted a "selfie" with the words #BringBackOurCountry. The posting was largely a failure as liberals photoshopped the selfie to mock Coulter and her message, and to punch back at her vicious form of anti-liberal, anti-progressive satire. At this time, I could not have needed Mr. Wise more for his insight into exactly what such conservatives as Coulter want our country to return to.
Mr. Wise states that most who reminisce on what America once was are remembering the time around 1957. This was the time when all the people on television sets were white, families were projected as wholesome, and the American system benefitted hard-working people without large government or heinous taxes. Unfortunately, these individuals have mythologized this era obscuring the fact that taxes at that time were high (91% for incomes over $200,000/year for a single person and $400,000/year for a married couple) and big government entitlements like Social Security, the GI Bill, and VA home loans were heralded, loved, and more importantly, not available to people of color. It was a time remembered and cherished because while taxes were high, white people received the largesse of the benefits.
This system changed with the Civil Rights Movement. When people of color fought for and won access to white benefits there was a backlash. All of a sudden government entitlements had to be earned and people of color were lazy.
Lazy. That is a misused adverb. Wise points out that for centuries whites all over the world have pursued a life of leisure happy to subjugate, enslave, terrorize, misuse, and mistreat others to get them to do the hard work privileged white people staunchly avoid. Yet, with the Civil Rights Movement came the feeling that if a white person could not succeed it was because of the unearned compensations handed out to people of color (listen to: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/18/313618309/poverty-a-frustrating-mix-of-bad-choices.... Since Civil Rights made bigotry unacceptable, the truth must be rewritten and edited. And, rewrite and edit the likes of Coulter indeed do. The Tea Party, the "patriots" so fanatic about their strict Constitutionalism, often omit from their public readings of the sacred document the provisions protecting slavery inserted by our forefathers - those wonderful, white, slave-owning men so highly worshipped in our society wrote the laws as a means to ensure their supremacy. Wise is certain the America Coulter and her like-minded patriots want to return to is one that upholds white supremacy. I concur and the truth hurts.
Wise makes us think and he pulls no punches. In his lecture in which he mentions the March on Washington, he mocks, "..an event that every white liberal alive now claims to have attended..." making us realize that liberals are just as responsible for the climate of racism that is fostered. Whites are happy to go along, sometimes struggling, but always knowing that the image of the "All-American Boy" and the "All-American Girl" looks just like the person staring back at them in the mirror. We are happy to go along knowing that the rules of working hard and getting an education ensure we have a good chance to succeed even while the rules do not apply to hard-working, educated people of color. And when whites are hurt by the economic recession caused by greedy white men, it is only the entitled pain of white people that counts. It does us good to remember the Occupy movement was just as white as the predominantly white Tea Party.
No, racism is not dead in America. Racism is as entrenched as ever. So, what are we going to do about it?
___________________________________________
Reference:
Wise, T. J., Jhally, S., Young, J. T., Rabinovitz, D., & Media Education Foundation. (2008). The pathology of privilege: Racism, white denial & the costs of inequality. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation. show less
I was quite happy when this book popped up on my paperbackswap wish list. I started reading it fairly soon after receiving it in the mail, stealing a few minutes here and there to read, often on the walk to work. Then, the train trip to Kalamazoo (for our fall OMA meeting) afforded me the chance to plunge through the rest of the book, fighting back tears in the Kalamazoo train station as I waited for Debbie to pick me up, as I read about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and finished the show more book.
As always, I found Tim Wise's writing to be insightful and incredibly informative. I had really been yearning for Wise's analysis of the racial issues surrounding Obama's election, and it was wonderful to have Wise not just validate all my uncomfortableness with some of the stupid crap people kept saying by laying those same issues out, but to have him really dig deep into exactly what made them so awful and wrong.
At times it felt like I was bookmarking every other page, and many quotes theories and anecdotes made their way into my conversations in the following weeks. I could go on and on about why I find the writings of this white anti-racism activist refreshing, but instead I filled my reading journal with a list of page references to quotes and arguments that I wanted to be able to refer back to. Normally, I just write the entire quotes. But with this book? There were too many and too long and it would have taken an age. Though I do want to record this one quote, which is a lovely statement on the book as a whole:
As always, I found Tim Wise's writing to be insightful and incredibly informative. I had really been yearning for Wise's analysis of the racial issues surrounding Obama's election, and it was wonderful to have Wise not just validate all my uncomfortableness with some of the stupid crap people kept saying by laying those same issues out, but to have him really dig deep into exactly what made them so awful and wrong.
At times it felt like I was bookmarking every other page, and many quotes theories and anecdotes made their way into my conversations in the following weeks. I could go on and on about why I find the writings of this white anti-racism activist refreshing, but instead I filled my reading journal with a list of page references to quotes and arguments that I wanted to be able to refer back to. Normally, I just write the entire quotes. But with this book? There were too many and too long and it would have taken an age. Though I do want to record this one quote, which is a lovely statement on the book as a whole:
... I have come to realize something: namely, even with Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of the United States, we will still need a back-up plan. For Obama cannot be relied upon, any more so than any other president or national leader, to shepherd our nation out of the wilderness of racism and inequality. The job is too great, and the single solitary man too small for such an effort. Which is to say that if we want the job done right, we're going to have to do it ourselves, all of us.show less
It's all thanks to Matt Peters that I discovered this engaging and informative book. Matt has frequently linked to Wise's anti-racist writings, so I added a few of his books to my wishlist and finally scored this off of paperbackswap.
This book is what it sounds like it should be, a memoir about race and white privilege. Wise does a remarkable job not just of identifying his own privilege and chronicling his anti-racism activism, but also owning up to times when he dropped the ball -- when show more his privilege blinded him to the effects of race in his own community.
I loved this book, from beginning to end. This should be no surprise, given how much I love Wise's essays online. I intend to read some of his other books, though I'd really love it if he wrote a more practical primer on anti-racism. He does include a section on action in this book, but the most impressive examples of how to effectively talk to people about privilege seem to require a much deeper understanding of issues like welfare, unemployment, the economy, that I just don't have. And are certainly not the dominant narrative in society -- it's the stuff that those who make money off of the disparity between the rich and the poor don't want you to know! So how does the average person, for whom anti-racism is one of a number of issues they are committed to, go about educating themselves? Where to start? show less
This book is what it sounds like it should be, a memoir about race and white privilege. Wise does a remarkable job not just of identifying his own privilege and chronicling his anti-racism activism, but also owning up to times when he dropped the ball -- when show more his privilege blinded him to the effects of race in his own community.
I loved this book, from beginning to end. This should be no surprise, given how much I love Wise's essays online. I intend to read some of his other books, though I'd really love it if he wrote a more practical primer on anti-racism. He does include a section on action in this book, but the most impressive examples of how to effectively talk to people about privilege seem to require a much deeper understanding of issues like welfare, unemployment, the economy, that I just don't have. And are certainly not the dominant narrative in society -- it's the stuff that those who make money off of the disparity between the rich and the poor don't want you to know! So how does the average person, for whom anti-racism is one of a number of issues they are committed to, go about educating themselves? Where to start? show less
Lists
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 15
- Also by
- 2
- Members
- 1,658
- Popularity
- #15,500
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 24
- ISBNs
- 33
- Favorited
- 1