White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son

Tim Wise's name is well-known and I have read many of his essays over the years. So as I was about to read this book, it's safe to say I had some expectations for it. The verdict: it surpassed them. In the first few pages, the book seems a bit aimless, and at various points in the book his language is a little off-putting (by that, I mean his very free use of words like F-bombs). But after the first few pages, and getting past the occasional language obstacle, he shines with it. He proves very adept at illustrating how ever-present race is in everyday life, and I don't make this point lightly. I already felt I had a good understanding of this, but some of his examples prove that wrong and show that it's present even in places I didn't think that was the case. He shares stories from his family as well as life outside of home that all drive home his points well. Most of all, as is the case in his essays, Wise gets real about race as it concerns White people. He pulls no punches, evident in several parts of the book. He makes it clear more than once that merely "being a good person", for lack of a better phrase, will never be enough to make a significant dent in racism. He points out that for White people doing this work, the rewards are not what one might expect - don't expect to be on the cover of a major magazine or the top story on the six o'clock news, and don't expect to be loved by all the way athletes and entertainers are worshiped in America. And he does a great job of showing how racism hurts White people, examples including how privilege can put us in danger or rob us of our self-determination, and in perhaps an extreme example, how it can lead the poorest of Whites to support politicians and policies that don't help them at all but profess to be anti-Black - the latter being the reason they support the politician or policy. This is a challenging book. It certainly was for me, and I haven't been a passive observer on this subject matter during my life. It made me examine myself and my thoughts on this subject, yet it also in some points affirmed that if nothing else, I may be on the right track, as there were certainly parts I identified with. It's also realistic in that the overall picture it paints is that for many reasons, fighting the rampant White privilege in America is not easy at all. All in all, this book is well worth reading, especially for a White person who wants to do something positive on race.

I've seen other reviews stating that all white people should read this book. I think that EVERYONE should read this book. This book addresses race and race relations in a way that is unorthodox, clear and grabs your attention. As a race/ethnicity scholar and teacher, I'm always looking for ways to get my students aware of and concerned about (this is the tough part) racial issues in the US. Most feel and think that it's not a big deal, racism is over, etc. Most students express a "color-blind" attitude. But this attitude is harmful by ignoring institutionalized racism. The issue of white privilege isn't a new one, but Mr. Wise introduces us to some new ways of thinking about it. There is a lot of material and excellent examples to take from this book, but a few really grabbed me. One is getting at how white privilge operates in everyday life and at the institutional level. The other main and often subtle important aspect is how white privilege is dangerous not only to black people and other minority group members, but to white people as well, on a psychological level. Tim Wise makes his case by appealing to white people on a gut level by appealing to their egos and sense of self without attacking them as "bad people." And I think that blacks and people of other races can benefit by understanding how white privelege often operates unconsciously...We spend most of our lives learning to be racist and it takes a lot to unlearn all that crap. Tim Wise does his best to set us on this path.

Although I agree with the vast majority of the posts regarding the quality and insight of Wise's White Like Me, I think that, as a community of readers, teachers, activists and concerned citizens who loathe racial injustice, we must take care not to exalt Wise as THE authority on race and privilege in this country (basing this on another post that used similar language). Many African American scholars and writers - W.E.B. DuBoise, David Walker, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Sonia Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brooks and Amiri Baraka - have been saying the same thing (from the black perspective) that Wise does in his book, and decades BEFORE Wise did. While I applaud Wise's courage, I think that we shouldn't fall into another white privilege trap, which is to exalt a white person for a revolutionary work on race, when this same type of revolutionary writing was done by people without privilege years ago. I would hate to think that we can only accept admissions of white privilege from whites, when people of color - who have suffered from it - took risks and challenged racism when the topic was far from vogue (dangerous, actually). There are many great thinkers and writers of color out there; read Wise, but supplement your knowledge from those who are survivors, too. Peace to my fellow activists of EVERY hue.

Tim Wise's book, White Like Me, takes a look at racism from the perspective of the whites in the United States. Through his writings, Wise hopes to be able to open the eyes of white people to the privilege that has been bestowed upon them as the dominant racial group in our society. "Being a member of the majority, the dominant group, allows one to ignore how race shapes one's life" (Wise 2). Beginning from this premise, by using examples and stories from his own life, he attempts to show just how privilege has shaped his life and what he has done for the fight against racism. Privilege, according to Wise, amounts to almost every experience that a white person has within their life. Simple things like whether or not your presence in a certain area will be questioned or larger things such as access to college educations are all related to the color of our skin at birth. People don't automatically assume you are poor or going to steal when you are in a store, they don't cross the street to avoid walking past you, and they don't assume you are selling to drugs to buy your new shoes. This is not exactly the kind of thing that there is a lot of expert research on. All the evidence and claims that Wise make concerning the subject are all related to his personal experiences and his work relating to activism. However, this being the case I feel that he does make a very strong argument; I have been able to relate to what he is saying in many of his stories. During one such story he recounts that in his youth he would go to underage keg parties and when the cops would come by they would do little except tell them to keep the noise down. There was no doubt as to the fact that kids were drinking and smoking pot, but no one was arrested and no fines were given. During this same time Wise was running a fake ID business for which he never got in trouble when he or anyone else was caught with one. Wise chalks all of this up to the fact that these homes were in white neighborhoods and that the cops weren't out to make trouble for white kids (35-7). In all the keg parties I have been to, I can say that this definitely rang true for me. I have never seen any one get arrested or even fined at a party in Milwaukee when the cops have shown up. They merely kick everyone out and even that seems like a joke most of the time, people usually just come back within an hour or so. Considering the state of the country with terrorism and national security, you'd think that law enforcement would take possession of a fake ID very seriously. If a person of Middle Eastern decent was caught with a fake ID, I'm sure they would have had a much harder time than a white person. I have known several white kids to have had their IDs taken away with not so much as even a slap on the wrist. On another note, if you go to almost any of the bars near campus, many of them knowingly let in people with fake IDs, yet nothing is done to stop it. These bars of course are pac

Tim Wise is somewhat of a personal hero of mine. Once upon a time, I never really thought about race. It just wasn't something I was particularly interested in. Even after I became a "radical," I still skipped over all the news stories and editorials related to race. Just wasn't my cup of tea. After all, I was "colorblind." I knew racism was bad -- everybody knows that! Why bother reading about it? As I would later learn from Tim Wise, the fact that I was able to show such indifference to racial issues is a function of my own white racial privilege. As whites, we have the luxury of not caring. This was one of the many lessons I learned from Mr. Wise, and that I hope many other whites learn from this wonderful book he has given us. Wise is utterly convincing in showing us that racism is still pervasive in America society. He also shows us that racism, in addition to excluding people of color from power, also confers special privileges onto us. In this volume he makes the case through very accessible prose and devastatingly precise logic. And humor! If only half of us on the left had as much wit as Tim Wise, maybe more people would be willing to listen to us.