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Commentary Wise: Fear and Loathing in Suburbia

Commentary, July, 09 2001 Tim Wise
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If intellectual gymnastics were an Olympic sport, we white folks would be the team to beat. Especially whites from the suburbs, who go to amazing and tortured lengths to convince others (and perhaps themselves) that their wish to steer clear of bl...

Commentary Wise: Breaking the Cycle of White Dependence: A Call for Majority Self-Sufficiency

Commentary, May, 19 2001 Tim Wise
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I think itÕs called Ôprojection.Õ When someone subconsciously realizes that a particular trait applies to them, and then attempts to locate that trait in others, so as to alleviate the stigma or self-doubt engendered by the trait in question.

Commentary Wise: 15 Dead in Ohio: The Black and the Blue in Cincinnati

Commentary, April, 17 2001 Tim Wise
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Sometimes, folks don't even bother hiding their racism. Take Keith Fangman, President of the Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police. In the wake of this past week's uprising to protest the killing of Tim Thomas and fourteen other black men by his co...

Commentary Wise: Motive and Opportunity: The Difference Between White and ÔOtherÕ Racism

Commentary, February, 12 2001 Tim Wise
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There are few points made about racism that get folks as upset as the oft-heard and repeated maxim by some, that only whites can be racist, because racism is a power relationship, and only whites have institutional power--at least in the United St...

Commentary Wise: Motive and Opportunity: The Difference Between White and ‘Other’ Racism

Commentary, February, 12 2001 Tim Wise
Wise's ZSpace page

There are few points made about racism that get folks as upset as the oft-heard and repeated maxim by some, that only whites can be racist, because racism is a power relationship, and only whites have institutional power--at least in the United St...

Commentary Wise: The Truth is Rarely Pleasant

Commentary, January, 18 2001 Tim Wise
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Having been a white man for 32 years, I have learned there are some things white folks aren't supposed to say.For example, we aren't supposed to acknowledge that we have received, and continue to receive substantial privileges, simply because of s...

Commentary Wise: White Christmas?

Commentary, December, 21 2000 Tim Wise
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Well it's that time of year again. Time for all good Americans to focus on what really matters. Not family, community, or world peace, but that national sacrament of late-stage capitalism known as Holiday shopping. Whether you do it online, or dra...

Commentary Wise: Of Monsters and Vampires: People Who Kill People (and the People Who Kill Them)

Commentary, December, 04 2000 Tim Wise
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My mother lied to me. She told me when I was a boy, so as to allay my fears to the contrary, that there were no such things as vampires; that there were not, in real life, those whose lust for human blood drove their every waking moment. And this ...

Commentary Wise: No More Mister Fall Guy

Commentary, November, 09 2000 Tim Wise
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Well, the long knives are out. Media pundits, Democratic Party officials, and I would suspect Al Gore himself before long, have or will soon begin to do the predictable: search out a scapegoat for why the Presidential election turned out the way i...

Commentary Wise: Getting Serious About White Deviance

Commentary, November, 03 2000 Tim Wise
Wise's ZSpace page

To Whom It May Concern: With great excitement, I recently discovered your organization's work for the betterment of mankind, through the applied science of racial research. As someone who has been investigating the disproportionately pathological...

Commentary Wise: Freeh's Blind Mice: A Critical Look at "Tolerance Training," FBI Style

Commentary, September, 24 2000 Tim Wise
Wise's ZSpace page

That I'm no Biblical scholar is an understatement of monumental proportions. And yet, recently I found myself--for reasons I'll explain shortly--thinking of the following verse from the book of Matthew, if memory serves:

Commentary Wise: Gore-Vey!: Joe Lieberman, Jewish Mobility, and the Politics of Race in America

Commentary, August, 29 2000 Tim Wise
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I am a Jew. And according to what others of my faith tradition tell me, I should be beaming with pride at the fact that Al Gore--a Southern Baptist whose denominational leaders once said God didn't answer the prayers of folks like me--has picked a...

Commentary Wise: Bill of Whites: Historical Memory Through the Racial Looking Glass

Commentary, July, 24 2000 Tim Wise
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In 1992, white supremacist Jared Taylor lamented the ostensibly growing influence of people of color in the U.S. when he wrote:"The old, standard history united Americans...It emphasized one point of view and ignored others. It was history about w...

Commentary Wise: Membership Has It's Privileges: Thoughts on Acknowledging and Challenging Whiteness

Commentary, June, 22 2000 Tim Wise
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Being white means never having to think about it. James Baldwin said that many years ago, and it's perhaps the truest thing ever said about race in America. That's why I get looks of bewilderment whenever I ask, as I do when lecturing to a mostly ...

Commentary Wise: Rebels Without a Clue: Neo-Confederacy and the Ironies of White Supremacy

Commentary, June, 06 2000 Tim Wise
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We Southerners are famous for wishful thinking: in fact, you could say it's something of a regional pastime. This should come as no surprise given our interminable heat in the summer which leaves nearly all wishing for rain to cool things down, an...

Commentary Wise: "Seeing the System: Alan Greenspan, Unemployment, and the Validation of Radical Analysis

Commentary, May, 10 2000 Tim Wise
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"What's the difference between a radical and a liberal?" It is a question I'm regularly asked at lectures, usually by college students struggling with their own sense of the world, trying desperately to figure out where they stand on the seemingly...

Commentary Wise: A Tale of Two Cities: "Rational Racism," Amadou Diallo, and Us

Commentary, March, 22 2000 Tim Wise
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They are two places that at first appear wholly unrelated to one another; but of course, rarely are things as they seem. On the one hand, we have New York City, whose police-thanks to acquittals in the Diallo shooting trial-have been given carte b...

Commentary Wise: "When Anti-Racism Strikes Out"

Commentary, February, 26 2000 Tim Wise
Wise's ZSpace page

When it comes to discussions of racism, or any other kind of "ism" for that matter, sometimes we miss the forest for the trees. Such was the case recently when it was reported that Atlanta Braves relief pitcher John Rocker had cut loose with a str...

Commentary Wise: Resolutions for Radicals

Commentary, January, 26 2000 Tim Wise
Wise's ZSpace page

I don't normally make New Year's resolutions, or use the new year as an excuse for significant reflection on the one just ended. But this year, I'm making an exception. After all, we have (arguably, I know) entered a new millennium: and the end of...

Commentary Wise: Springing the "Diversity Trap"

Commentary, January, 11 2000 Tim Wise
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You know you're in trouble when Ronald Reagan starts to sound progressive. And you really know you're in trouble when so-called progressives make him sound that way, thanks to their own pathetic gesticulations on one or another issue.

Commentary Wise: "Springing the Diversity Trap"

Commentary, December, 16 1999 Tim Wise
Wise's ZSpace page

You know you're in trouble when Ronald Reagan starts to sound progressive. And you really know you're in trouble when so-callYou know you're in trouble when Ronald Reagan starts to sound progressive. And you really know you're in trouble when so-c...

Commentary Wise: The Trouble With Tolerance

Commentary, November, 27 1999 Tim Wise
Wise's ZSpace page

They came in the mail again, even though I never ordered them: those personal address labels that say "teach tolerance" -sent out by the Southern Poverty Law Center: America's favorite civil rights group. The one run by Morris Dees: America's favo...

Commentary Wise: Kill First, Ask Questions Later

Commentary, October, 15 1999 Tim Wise
Wise's ZSpace page

It's been nearly four decades since the last execution in Tennessee. During that time, my state has resisted boarding the killing train engineered by folks in places like Florida and Texas, where execution has been refined to a near science, appli...

Commentary Wise: The Kids are all White

Commentary, August, 26 1999 Tim Wise
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Let me get this straight: if people of color respond to an unjust verdict in a police brutality trial, not to mention years of racial and economic oppression, by taking to the streets, burning stuff, looting stores and engaging in assorted violenc...

Commentary Wise: Hate Crimes

Commentary, August, 12 1999 Tim Wise
Wise's ZSpace page

There is no question so irrelevant as the one to which all or nearly all can respond in like fashion. Thus, asking people their views on child molestation, or whether or not they'd like the schools to be "better" has always seemed absurd: like ask...

Commentary Wise: Whiteness and the Recollection of History

Commentary, July, 03 1999 Tim Wise
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For the writer, there's nothing so frustrating as to sit in front of a keyboard and find oneself at a loss for words. To know there are a million things which need saying, and yet, you can't think of even one. Having experienced this often, I've d...

Commentary Wise: The Threat of a Good Example

Commentary, June, 20 1999 Tim Wise
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Occasionally when I'm speaking to college students, attempting to inspire at least a few to commit themselves to social justice as a way of life and perhaps career, I'm asked the question for which there is no easy answer; the one that goes: "What...

Commentary Wise: The Devil Made 'Em Do It: Social Crisis and the Misuse of Faith in America

Commentary, June, 01 1999 Tim Wise
Wise's ZSpace page

I mean, what does one do if Satan really is the author of all this unhappiness? IÕm pretty sure that at that point gun laws and conflict resolution training become sortaÕ useless.

Commentary Wise: Famous Last Words

Commentary, April, 24 1999 Tim Wise
Wise's ZSpace page

Every now and then a lesson comes easy. Other times we learn things by accident, if at all. And inevitably it seems, the lessons that matter most, often come from the least likely sources, and at the most inopportune moments.

Commentary Wise: White America's Dirty Little Secrets

Commentary, April, 01 1999 Tim Wise
Wise's ZSpace page

Sometimes itÕs best to just tell the truth. Even when it makes folks angry. In fact, particularly then, because itÕs at precisely those times that the truth is obviously most in need of being spokenÐotherwise resistance to it probably wouldnÕt be ...

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