Category: White Like Me

Storytelling is simply the art of delivering information to someone by telling a story with different agendas. Some people tell stories to teach the cultural norms of a specific group while others narrate stories to teach values and ethics to promote ethical conduct. It is through this way that knowledge is passed from one person to another. The story revolves around generations. Storytelling comes in various forms during delivery for instance, as oral traditions, which is most common and told through word of mouth, legends which narrate on essential people that should be celebrated for their work and actions. The purpose of this research paper is to cover on why storytelling is an effective mechanism for sharing information and personal influence from the storytelling.

Storytelling acts as a very effective mechanism when it comes to sharing information due to various reasons. Storytelling is mainly preferred because it influences memorability at a high rate compared to other forms. It engages the audience through facial expressions and body movements. Moreover, storytelling is very persuasive and can make a drug addict or a criminal turn on a new leaf. That is because the influence is sufficient to make a person deliver a sound decision while in a similar situation (Bietti, Tilston, & Bangerter, 2019).

In White like me by Tim Wise, his focus is on racism and the impact on the American people. He explores how racism affects the decision of white people using his life as an example. According to him, racism and privileges are highly associated together as the white people have more rights compared to the blacks when it comes to opportunities. Racism runs in all directions for the Americans from employment to the education system and the court of law as well (Trepagnier, 2017). Personally, through storytelling, Wise attempts to explain to the audience that racism and these privileges are real and therefore pose a lot of threat when it comes to social change. Furthermore, it affects the general wellness of a person and influences behavior as well. However, concerning this, he also points out that the past is not the future and it can be fixed through resistance to racism.

The first knowledge that people should know is that racism is a problem, and it started centuries ago up to now. Wise defines the history of racism, how it occurs today by narrating on the journey of discrimination. He goes on by pointing out the facts behind racism and some of the problems that still happen because of racism. Rocha, (2019). “Environmental Racism and Privileged Consumerism.”

On the diversity and dialogue, Manswell tackles on belonging where she goes on and says that instead of people trying to measure pertaining, they should instead do better and try to seek out on tangible things that do not belong and find a way to get rid of them. During her speech, Sandra Upton stated that for there to be change, there must be commitment and a lot of hard work (Hewitt, Flett, & Mikail, 2017). Therefore, there must be someone willing to give up on something to get another. According to her, the main challenge is the willingness to make a commitment and be ready to lose something to uplift another.

Summary, racism has causes mistreatment of people and leading to others being enslaved. Columbus Day was started by the indigenous people who were enslaved and to them; they believed that even if the past cannot be changed, the future could be improved. The more profound truth is that up to today, racism still occurs, and the influence has a wide range of consequences.

References

1. Bietti, L. M., Tilston, O., & Bangerter, A. (2019). Storytelling as an adaptive collective sensemaking. Topics in cognitive science, 11(4), 710-732.
2. Hewitt, P. L., Flett, G. L., & Mikail, S. F. (2017). Perfectionism: A relational approach to conceptualization, assessment, and treatment. Guilford Publications.
3. Rocha, J. (2019). Environmental Racism and Privileged Consumerism. Philosophy in the Contemporary World, 25(1), 5-20.
4. Trepagnier, B. (2017). Silent racism: How well-meaning white people perpetuate the racial divide. Routledge.

White Like Me is a documentary by Tim Wise’s on his life in a majorly black neighborhood growing up with black friends. It covers his views about white privilege and the structural advantages given to white people as he experienced first hand.

In the documentary, Tim wise chose not to follow the path with the least resistance and setbacks using his white privilege and which would have guaranteed him a safe and assured prosperous career. Instead, he decided to go through all the hitches and disappointments that people from other races and ethnic origins have to go through to experience their plight. Rather than assume their issues and grievances, Tim Wise joined and protested along with the other ethnic groups to show solidarity, support and most importantly understanding of what they are going through. He wanted to let them know that at the very least one white person out there cares for what they have to say and that the world is not completely deaf to minority races. Just like Will Campbell marched with African Americans who were fighting for equity in America instead of intimidating them, Tim Wise together with the other students stood up against the administration as they demanded their rights to be met. It is worth noting that Tim was not exactly affected by the issues that his fellow students raised against the administration yet he was still there to provide moral support.

Wealth provides a wide array of opportunities to Americans and makes it easier for someone to move from one residence to another, adjust quickly to a new job and even respond effectively to an emergency. Parents use their wealth to pay for their children’s education often entirely, if possible, so as not to riddle them with student loans hence giving them an advantage in life from the get go. American workers also use their wealth to create a sustainable retirement plan.

All of these cases make wealth the most complete metric to guarantee a family’s economic strength and future. Unfortunately, wealth is unevenly distributed especially along racial lines as African Americans and other minority races such as Native Americans and Latinos have a very negligible percentage of the wealth that is hoarded by white people. This structural disadvantage against minority ethnic groups began from as early as the 1600s when laws were created that gave the white man a lot advantage over the other groups. For example, at the time, it was very easy for a white person to become a citizen of the United States than for a black person (almost all of whom were still slaves at the time) or a Latino to be accorded the same privilege. This had an economic impact where only white people could get quality formal education that helped them to secure jobs and build a good strong financial foundation for generations to come. African American students, for instance, have to be content with the money their parents made in the last 20 or so years of their usually nonillustrious careers whereas many white students are usually on trust funds that were set up for them by their grandparents since they started building their economic strength earlier. In addition, the systems set in place to protect and assist those with financial needs do not work well for minority ethnic groups. As an illustration, the loans that given in the years between 1935 and 1962 were handed out to more than 98% of white Americans. Another case of financial discrimination was when the GI Bill which was supposed to provide assistance to all service members and veterans only served white veterans but left the other racial groups out in the cold. How, therefore, were the other groups supposed to move forward if they could not get the assistance they so desperately needed.

Despite all of the evidence that points towards racial inequities, many white people have continually and purposefully ignored the adverse effects of the vice. They are more comfortable with making the laws that grant them greater institutional power so that they can stay at the top of the food chain. In this respect, they associate Americans with darker skin color with laziness, crime, anger and other vices in the society. White people explicitly displayed racism when they actively prevented black people from sitting with them at the front of the bus and when they set up whiteonly schools to bar other races from using them. Financial institutions also set up models that ensured that people of color did not get as good an insurance coverage as white people or favorable loan and mortgage rates (for those who could actually get the loan).

Wise further points out that even if they do not actively show it, there exist white people with implicit racial bias who do not believe that people of color are as qualified as white people are. This has resulted in African Americans being viewed as second-rate citizens and getting subpar treatment from institutions. They end up being twice unlikely to be uninsured and African American children are more likely to die than white children because they do not receive quality health care. To compound the situation, college-graduate blacks who are often their families’ hopes for getting out of the system are more likely to end up unemployed.

However, in a bid to fight the guilt of the last 200 or so years of oppression, structures such as affirmative action have been put in place to try and give people of color an advantage so as to catch up with white people. The result of such systems is that there are white people who might be in genuine need of financial aid but cannot access it in certain neighborhoods simply because they are white and this is what is referred to as reverse discrimination.

White Privilege is a real thing in our society, it’s has been internalized making it seem like it’s nothing different, it’s just part of life. The definition of Privilege is a special right to resources such as housing and jobs. Within Privalage there are resources being yanked away from the hands of minorities. People of color are labeled, but when it comes to whites they are seen as normal, healthy human beings. The whites don’t get labeled with stereotypes, instead, they have protection from Law Enforcement unlike people of color. Tim Wise shares that even though he and the people around him were involved with drugs, he was protected from the criminal justice system just for being white. It didn’t matter that the police knew they were all heavy users, there were no consequences for them.

White denial is a concept the whites use to assure everybody else that racism isn’t a thing. They argue that they aren’t getting any racism upon them, so it must not exist. They think that the world lives in a Post-racial society. Tim says that white privilege affects his life in ways he doesn’t see because, in his life, it has become the norm. Time Wise shows us that whites defended themselves and their reputation by stating that saves were treated as some of the family when in reality this was a blunt out lie. This is carrying abroad white denial were the whites are denying any sort of racism being real. White denial goes deeper than this, whites feel that blacks aren’t being oppressed, if anything they feel that they themselves are the ones being discriminated against, they are also the people who complain about affirmative action, affirmative action wants to create more education and job opportunities. Everyone has the ability to self- determine themselves, and whites do not have the right to force any of their distorted view of reality on them.

Wise explains that Warefare is stereotyped as only a thing for black people, he says that whether we want to admit it or not, it is always associated with only black people, never whites, which is false. In fact, more whites receive help from a myriad of social programs than blacks do. Whites will never understand what it’s like to live in the United States as a black or brown person, they have a sense of entitlement and oppression. They have practically lost their culture for the purpose of being thought of as white. There is much psychology that is associated with negative things for whites such as suicide, eating disorders, and self-harm. This sets up whites to the idea that they can, or should, fill up to those “expectations”.

No matter how much people say they are anti-racist there are still internalized stereotypes and racism. Wise gives of the example of his grandmother who labeled her self as antiracist, and by the end, she had consented to the racist stereotypes and began to use the “N” word in a continuous way. The United States is the land of the White, we must think of a way to transform the authoritative class. To divide the poor working-class laws were created, they were very successful in doing this. There are recovery and power in the fight against racism, this fight is a tough one and a growing battle. Race was designed by the ruling class and used as a just cause for slave labor. It will take time and dedication so we must not give up. It can take many, many years for racism to be undone. If nothing is done there will be no change and people will permeate our sense of our reality. Everyone could benefit from eliminating racial suppression. We shouldn’t let evil win in the face of good.

Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise provides the reader with a very personal take on racism, whiteness, and white privilege in America. Wise explains how racism damages and effects not only people of color but white people as well. He also provides a powerful and accessible social introduction to the construction of racial identities. In this review, I will first be discussing the positive aspects of the book and thereafter I will discuss the negative.

Wise is an activist who wrote this book with the intention of bringing the idea of whiteness to the table and to give white people the knowledge and the tools to understand how privileged their lives are versus minorities in America. He also provided the idea that by doing the right thing when it comes to certain issues, such as race, they can help make the world a better place. While doing this, Wise gives the reader multiple examples of the things/situations that whites don’t have to worry about in their everyday lives in comparison to people of color. For example, being more likely to be arrested for your race or getting pulled over for a traffic violation. It’s also important to keep in mind that Wise’s book was written prior to all of the police shootings of blacks that have taken place over the past few years, which in the end shows a more recent example of one more thing that whites don’t have to worry about or really even think about in this country.

Like I said above, this book provides an engaging and interesting introduction for white people to encourage them to start thinking about race and privilege and I believe the content of this book is outstanding. Wise makes many great points about whiteness and the privilege it allows, that’s why I believe everyone needs to read this book.

Wise allows us and invites us to examine and analyze our own thought processes on the impact of cultural racism and on how we perceive and think about racism. He challenges and emphasizes the idea that white people sometimes claim that they “don’t see color’ or that they ‘don’t have a racist bone in their body’. These statements have always left me extremely uncomfortable, but I’ve also been unsure on how to address them. This book helps to explain why it’s essential and imperative that we examine those matters more closely and that racism damages and affects us all.

The people that claim that they “don’t have a racist bone in their body” or that they “don’t see color” also often claim that America is all about opportunity and that anyone, no matter their race, has the same chance to “make it” in our society. One of the best examples of this is our own former president, President Barack Obama. The issue with this is that the idea that everyone can make it is a myth and by claiming that one is being racist whether one is conscious of it or not. This also implies that despite the overwhelming odds, the people who don’t make it are at fault. These white people claim that instead they should have worked harder, studied harder, and so on. White people believing and telling these lies is an easy way to shield and blind our eyes to a system that pushes others down so that we do not feel like we are overtly racist.

In addition to this problem, the election of Trump is the most obvious sign that proves that racism is still very prevalent in our society today. If the opportunity is given, which by now under trump it has been, racism can and will surface in terribly overt ways. It’s interesting to think that in most spheres it is unacceptable to be overtly racist (as it should be), but that doesn’t mean those racist opinions have disappeared. More importantly, we are still living in a society that is structurally and socially engineered in white supremacy. Therefore Wise emphasizes that it is our responsibility to fight racism and white supremacy wherever we see it.

Even though many whites still believe that it has, racism hasn’t gone away. Many white Americans still believe that it is okay to tell African Americans that they should ‘get over slavery’ or that ‘reverse racism is just a bad’. This is extremely offensive, unacceptable, and ignorant. That’s why I believe that this book is so essential to read, because many still believe that racism in our country is dead, and this book proves that it is indeed not.

The high point for me in the book was in the chapter titled “Loss” in which Wise articulates and attempts to answer the question which I believe to be the central question of the book “why… would the privileged ever give up that thing that sets them apart from, and above, everyone else?’ If I am being honest, I was expecting a completely creative but unconvincing answer, but to my surprise Wise gave a very impressive and impeccable answer explaining exactly what is lost in the great homogenizing concept of ‘whiteness,’ and why it’s such a devastating forfeit on both a personal and collective level.

Wise’s book covers additional territory around his first hand experiences working with people in poverty, and presents a clear picture of what really happened in regard to Hurricane Katrina and how unfair it was to blame the African Americans who weren’t able to evacuate. Which brings me to address some of the negative aspects of this book. Now that I have addressed several positive aspects of this book, I will now discuss some of the negative aspects/aspects that could be improved.

Although I believe that this book was very well written and had many very important key points, I do believe that it could be improved in many aspects. The first aspect references his take on Hurricane Katrina in the book. Wise ranted for 10 pages to make it very clear to me that “I” don’t know what really happened there, about how ‘I’ still think race didn’t play an issue in the awful events that took place in New Orleans in 2005. His assumptions on my ignorance left me frustrated and annoyed. Frankly, as I watched the television news coverage in 2005, which Wise complains about for several pages, I was well aware that race was an issue. As a young girl, my mother made it very clear to me that race and racism was a part of the much bigger problem going on in Louisiana.

So, I get it. Race was the bigger issue than the hurricane, a fact I knew after it being explained to me as a child and while I was watching the news coverage. I really didn’t require a letter from Wise explaining it all to me, accusing me of putting a blindfold on or pretending like it wasn’t an issue. I noticed this in other parts of the book as well, and I believe that he could’ve explained things differently and in a more polite and understanding matter without insulting the intelligence of his readers.

Another disappointing aspect of the book is that there were no people of color even represented in the book, which is perplexing because how can one come to understand the effects of racism if one doesn’t have any meaningful relationships with people of color? This made me feel like the text at times was not authentic. It’s like claiming that one understands German culture without having met any person of German descent. I believe that in order for this book to be successful for all groups of people, Wise really needs to broaden his real life examples of experiences with people of color.

Another problem I had with the book kind of goes off of what I just said above. Why did a white person write this book? I do believe that he did a great job, but I also believe that we should listen to the people of color that have been actively experiencing racism for hundreds of years. It’s hard for me to understand how an affluent white male can take all of the credit for writing such a book, when I believe someone who has experienced it first hand could do a much better job and go even more in depth.

In the book a lady poses a question to Wise about wanting to do the same work as him, but she wants her contribution to be accepted. After her question was stated, a black woman in the audience said that she indeed does hate the lady and that she would not trust her contribution for a minute. This at first was really striking to me, but after consideration it got me thinking that you know what? That woman in the audience has a point. Why should she trust what a white person has to say about racism? White people are the cause of racism in the first place, what gives them the right to be able to preach about racism when they haven’t experienced it themselves?

When a white person is put on a pedestal for promoting racism awareness, doesn’t that just encourage racism even more? It’s also interesting to think that white people tend to trust other white people more when it comes to talking about racism which is in part causing this problem. Why are we discrediting people of color, when they are the ones who actually know what they are talking about?

Adding on to this, I believe that this book could’ve been titled “White liberal activist like me” because this book felt to be pretty narrowly aimed at the white crowd who claim that they’re progressive on race and other social issues and those who are begging to gain more insight on the insidious nature of white privilege. If Wise claims to be gifted in connecting with all sorts of groups of people, then why not write his book with the same aim?

With all that being said, Wise ends the book on a good note by saying “just do the right thing”. One of my favorite quotes from the book is ‘it is always harder to stand up for what’s right if you think you’re the only one doing it. But if we understood that there is a movement in history of which we might be a part, as allies to people of color, how much easier might it be to begin and sustain that process of resistance?’ This really emphasizes that we are all in this together, and in order for us to see progress in eliminating racism in our society we have to first become aware of our biases as white people then we can go out and spread the word. But the first step is acquiring that knowledge.

In conclusion I found this book to be a great read. Sometimes it was a little dry and felt as if I was in a lecture at 8am on a Monday, but the information was beneficial for me as a white person and this book helped me become even more aware of biases I didn’t even know that I held. However, I do believe that people of color could have been more represented within the book and I do believe that he could’ve been more inclusive in his approach in writing his book. I do think he could rewrite it revising these two aspects, but if not the book does still serve a purpose and deserves a read – especially from white people.