White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son / Edition 3

by Tim Wise

Overview

From “one of the most brilliant, articulate and courageous critics of white privilege in the nation” (Michael Eric Dyson), this now-classic is “a brilliant and personal deconstruction of institutionalized white supremacy in the United States . . . a beautifully written, heartfelt memoir” (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz).

The inspiration for the acclaimed documentary film, this deeply personal polemic reveals how racial privilege shapes the daily lives of white Americans in every realm: employment, education, housing, criminal justice, and elsewhere.

Using stories from his own life, Tim Wise examines what it really means to be white in a nation created to benefit people who are “white like him.” This inherent racism is not only real, but disproportionately burdens people of color and makes progressive social change less likely to occur. Explaining in clear and convincing language why it is in everyone’s best interest to fight racial inequality, Wise offers ways in which white people can challenge these unjust privileges, resist white supremacy and racism, and ultimately help to ensure the country’s personal and collective well-being.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781593764258
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	09/13/2011
Edition description:	Revised Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Tim Wise is a prominent antiracist writer and activist who served as an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute. He lectures across the country about the need to combat institutional racism, gender bias, and the growing gap between rich and poor in the United States.

Table of Contents

Preface to the New Edition     v
Preface to the First Edition     vii
Born to Belonging     1
Privilege     17
Denial     61
Resistance     89
Collaboration     127
Loss     147
Redemption     173
Epilogue: An Open Letter to White America about White Privilege and Hurricane Katrina     179

Editorial Reviews

Activist, lecturer and director of the new Association for White Anti-Racist Education (AWARE), Wise works from anecdote rather than academic argument to recount his path to greater cultural awareness in a colloquial, matter-of-fact quasi-memoir that urges white people to fight racism "for our own sake." Sparing neither family nor self, Wise recalls a racist rant his antiracist mother once delivered, racial epithets uttered by his Alzheimer's-afflicted grandmother and the "conditioning" that leads him to wonder, for a split-second, if people of color are truly qualified for their jobs. He considers how the deck has always been stacked in his and other white people's favor: his grandmother's house, which served as collateral for a loan he needed for college, for instance, was in a neighborhood that had formerly barred blacks. Resistance to racism, Wise declares, requires support (it's better for a group to speak out against racial tracking than for one "crazy radical" to do it), and that's presumably part of what this volume means to provide. And while Wise sometimes falls victim to sweeping judgments-the act of debating racial profiling, he declares, is "white-identified," because only whites have the luxury to look at life or death issues as a battle of wits-his candor is invigorating. (Jan.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly