White Like Me By Tim Wise

Dalea Kandela

It is a book written by Tim wise, who is an antiracist white male. Wise was highly interested in the racism issue against colored people and its connection to the lives of white people. after long examination Wise discovered how the racial privilege had shaped or formed most of the while American`s life. This book is divided into six sections, born to belonging, privilege, resistance, collaboration, loss, and redemption. Through these chapters or sections, Wise wanted to open the eyes of people, or more specifically white people to the racial privilege that may not be aware of, by telling stories or incidents from his live. Wise blames the institute or the society that shaped this racial privilege. In this essay I am going to tell some chosen stories from the book that through it wise makes his point, and point to the little or small stuff, that we sometimes do not pay attention to.

One of the first sentences that showed me the road in which wise is heading to in his book is when he said, that a person would lose his innocence once he is born white. He also mentions that our society is so blended with race and its role in the national life, that it has become so hard for people to not collaborate with none dominant communities. One of the main points that he emphasize on is that even if white people enjoy a closeness to colored people, this closeness would still be complicated because it is controlled or shaped by the institutional structure. Wise used to attend a lot seminars concerning racism, and in one of those seminars, he met a women who was crying and she wanted her daughter to be friends with Latino, black, and Asian, and she didn’t want her daughter to be racist, and she wanted to fight racism, however Wise asked her about how would her daughter fight the institutional racism in keeping this friendship. To make it clear for the women wise tells the women his story. Wise tells the women that when he was little in school, he used to be friend with all the colored people, and now he is friends with none of them. Wise says that our friendship did not last not because I became a racist or they changed, but it is because of the institutional racism, that was shaped by their school, in which the white student were separated regularly from the colored student, which made him grow distant from his friends.

When Wise was a sophomore in high school he joined a club that was going against the school and the apartheid movement. The apartheid movement is a policy to separate people of different races from each other, and it was practiced in South Africa against colored people. So the school that Wise was attending had done some investment with companies that support and prompts apartheid. In 1988 Wise became the president of that group, and after toughly studying books that had to do with the places that invest with companies that violate human rights. Sp in 1989 Wise with his group demanded or pressured the school for an ethical investigation, and in order to convince them wise went on strike for about four days. Wise succeeded in reaching his goal. However all what he did didn’t satisfy him, and he felt that there is something missing. The truth is that there was something missing actually and in was the participation of colored or black people in their organization. Their organization went from fifty fifty colored and white to one hundred percent white, and he blame himself as a white person for that, because they were very dominant and hasty in making decision without consulting the black people who should have the main voice in discussing racism subjects.

 “Even if you are not racist, you inhale it no matter what.” that is one of the statements Wise made to start a new idea. In this section Wise talks about his family and how they dealt with racism. Wise mentions that his parents were not racist, but in their weak moments, they would hurt. To make it more clear, for example his mother when she is lonely and depressed she would start cursing and become racist. However the story that Wise on the most his his grandmother`s story in explaining his view. Wise`s grandmother who lived in the thirties in which people were very racist toward colored people, and at that time Wise`s grandmother stood in her father`s face against racism. Later on when his grandmother got old and go lost her memory to the point in which she was not able to recognize any member of her family, however she was able to recognize and curse the nurses helping her who were colored. So as Wise was telling the story he was amazed by the fact that his grandmother still remembers the racism issue although she had forgot everything.

One of the other things or points he emphasize is how the rules in the country segregate or bias in favor of white people, and one of the stories he mentions is from his life. In his story he talks about how the police used to ignore the partying or incidents and they do not arrest white people while in black communities they arrest people for simple or unworthy stuff. Wise mentions a lot of these incidents or comparisons in his book, and one of the points that he shows through these stories is the white privilege, because as he used to observe these points he would publish a paper about it and he get a lot of responses from people around him, so wise says that if it was a black guy publishing such paper, no one would have paid attention to him. So Wise showed how racism privilege can play a big role in or life

In conclusion, Wise in white like me wanted the people to turn their eyes to the truth that most of us are denying. In his point of view, we need to admit to the complication and confront with the contradiction with our eyes and hearts open, to the reality or racism privilege. Facing this reality can make our life easier and denying it is the worst thing. So we must not ignore this reality for our own benefit, and be willing to sacrifice.