White Like Me

By: Stephanie Hardyway

“White like Me,” is a book written by a man by the name of Tim Wise. Through his experiences Wise gives his perspective on white privilege in society as well as the detriment of every other culture that is not white. Wise makes his point by saying things like, “any other person that wasn’t white,” but he mainly focuses on black people and their downfall in society. He believes that while it is great that he, a white man, is able to live a luxurious life, it is not right that black people or other cultures of color were treated so bad in the past that now in the present they are still not taken serious. The most important message that he wanted his readers to take from his book is that white people cannot just act like racism and slavery never existed, instead they need to take responsibility for all the pain they put upon the colored society and change. He believes that the world is still separated in the sense that white people are still higher in power or just in the way that people view them, and that it isn’t alright so white people have to work hard to change that. I happen to agree with him because I believe that in a sense we are still living in a white world. Everything revolves around what white people like or do not like, it is hard for people of color to be taken serious and so they have to work twice as hard and Wise is right, things have to change.

Throughout the book Wise tells little stories of what it was like being privileged as a white person, but how blacks were not. He gives examples of how even at an early age when segregation was supposed to be demolished; the white and black students were still separated in the classroom. He never felt any hate towards black people, or anyone for that matter, and so he states that he valued recess because for a moment he got to hang out with the black students. Since he was part of the privileged world he never had to experience racism and so he never had to learn what was appropriate for society or what not to do. However, he realizes that he black community did have to learn at a very young age about how white people have the upper hand on black people and so black people have to watch what they do or say. He says that one day when he was playing a game with two of his black friends, they started playing catch and when the two would through the ball to them they would say, “My nigger Tim!” However, since he never had to experience what it was like to be at the bottom of society, he just thought that what they were saying was a compliment. It wasn’t until later on when he was older that he found out that in reality what they children meant by that was that they were able to flip the script and in turn get a white person to do whatever a black person wanted. Instead of getting mad that without knowing it his friends were playing him as their own personal “slave,” he was sad because he realized that black people, even as young as elementary school, know what it is like to be treated bad due to the history of slavery and it isn’t alright.

Wise did make a good point that it isn’t alright for black people to have to watch their actions in fear that they will continue to make their race look bad, or be stereotyped in a negative way, or even be punished for acting a this way. It is sad that black people, as well as some other cultures, have to put on a mask for society and become something that they are not just so that they have a chance in this world. It is like cultures that are not white have to work twice as hard because not only do they have to worry about becoming educated to get a decent job, they also have to worry about their appearance, the way they talk, and their behavior in public. Wise brings up that white people like to say that it isn’t true and that black people can get into good schools, get good jobs, and the most famous line of them all is that they even have black friends and they don’t devaluate the as people. Just because white people have black friends, it doesn’t mean that black people aren’t viewed as less than white people. For example, in big business firms you see white people controlling the business and white people working for the business, yes there are some black people working there as well, but you don’t see too many and the ones that are there have to prove to everyone that they are intelligent and that they can handle the responsibilities the job entitles. Education and work are two of the hardest things that black people have to work for and Wise and I feel that it is wrong that such privileges are not just handed to people since we are supposed to live in an equal world.

He also brings up how black people are punished harsher than white people even though white people do the same things. He gives examples of how in schools even to this day you see teachers punishing black students harshly for misbehaving or not turning in their work on time, but letting the white students get away with things. The common excuse that teachers like to use is that black people are not going to be able to succeed anyway due to family disturbances or other stereotypical fallacies, as if it is alright to punish them and not punish white students. Again it isn’t right at all, but it is like it doesn’t matter because white people are the brains and power of this world, and what they believe or say is what goes. Another story that Wise brought up in his book is how black people are stopped by the police just because they are black. He says that he had this beat up old car with tinted windows and he would always get stopped, but on this one particular day he knew for a fact that he was being stopped because the officer thought he was black. He said he wasn’t making any violations on the road, but the officer followed him for blocks. Finally when the officer turned his lights on to stop him and came up to the window the first thing the officer said was, “oh” as if he were shocked that it was a white man he just stopped. That happens all the time, black people are stopped not because they have violated the rules of the road, but because they are driving while black. After the officer says oh, wise starts to stand up to the officer giving him attitude and he says that he knows that if he were a black man he would have been pulled out of the car and thrown onto the front of the car where he would have then been cuffed and arrested. There was and still is obviously a higher power or privilege to be white and it shows even through the discrimination that is portrayed.

There are so many instances that show that white people even to this day think that they are superior over any other race and it isn’t alright. It is almost like Martin Luther King made a speech for nothing and that all of his hard work to get everyone to be equal went in vein. I would think by now this world would be equal, but it is obvious that it isn’t and that it might not ever be. Wise makes a point that white people can’t just brush slavery and racism off there shoulders as if it never happened. They have to take responsibility for what themselves and their ancestors have chosen to do and change. This world has to become less about one race and more about every race and I don’t believe that can happen until white people take the time to change not only their actions, but also the way they think.