Synopses & Reviews
With a new preface and updated chapters,
White Like Me is one-part memoir, one-part polemical essay collection. It is a personal examination of the way in which 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 demonstrates the ways in which racism not only burdens people of color, but also benefits, in relative terms, those who are white like him.” He discusses how racial privilege can harm whites in the long run and make progressive social change less likely. He explores the ways in which whites can challenge their unjust privileges, and explains in clear and convincing language why it is in the best interest of whites themselves to do so. Using anecdotes instead of stale statistics, Wise weaves a narrative that is at once readable and yet scholarly, analytical and yet accessible.
Review
“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'…his candor is invigorating.” Publishers Weekly
About the Author
TIM WISE is among the most prominent anti-racist
writers and activists in the U.S., and has been called the ”foremost
white anti-racist intellectual in the nation,” having spoken in 46
states, and on over 300 college campuses, including Harvard, Stanford,
Cal Tech and the law schools at Yale, Columbia, Michigan, and
Vanderbilt. From 1999 to 2003, Wise served as an advisor to the Fisk
University Race Relations Institute. His anti-racism efforts have been
termed ”revolutionary” by NYU professor and award-winning author Robin
D.G. Kelley, and have also earned praise from such noted race scholars
as Michael Eric Dyson, Kimberl Crenshaw, Derrick Bell, Joe Feagin, Lani
Guinier, and Richard Delgado. Tim Wise is now the Director of the
newly-formed Association for White Anti-Racist Education (AWARE) in
Nashville, Tennessee. He has contributed to three recent anthologies: When Race Becomes Real; Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories (Chicago Review Press, Jan 2004); Should America Pay (HarperAmistad, 2003), a compilation of essays concerning slavery and its aftermath; and The Power of Non-Violence (Beacon Press, 2002).