Anti-racism Writer Challenges Audience to Examine
Ingrained Prejudices as Part of Black History Month Recognition

Ioana Patringenaru | Feb. 22, 2011

Tim Wise, an anti-racism activist, spoke to a standing-room audience at UC San Diego last week.

What do you do when you’re an anti-racism activist and your own 6-year-old daughter tells you God is a white man? You start a conversation, which will hopefully help her understand privilege and prejudice a little better. That’s the kind of conversation we all need to have, said Tim Wise, a well-know anti-racism writer and educator who came to speak at UC San Diego last week.

During his two-hour talk, which took place in front of a standing-room only audience Wednesday at the Price Center, Wise touched on a wide range of topics, from the history of welfare programs for single mothers, to the recent meltdown of the financial markets, to his experiences as a father of two girls. But his message was the same throughout: we all need to recognize that we have ingrained prejudices. We also need to listen to others and learn to believe them when they say they’ve experienced discrimination.

“We have to decide now that we’re going to take this on,” he said.

Wise’s speech, was part of the “RESPECT” campaign, a student-led educational outreach initiative coordinated by the Associated Students Diversity Office. It also was one of the university’s many events recognizing Black History Month. Wise came to campus as the university makes strides to build a welcoming community that acknowledges and respects the diversity of each student.  He was recently named one of “25 Visionaries Who are Changing Your World” by Utne Reader.

Wise brings a different prospective to the conversation, said Glynda Davis, director of Campus Diversity Initiatives. “Speakers like Tim Wise provide a way to challenge what you think about issues revolving around diversity and inclusion,” she said.

Why should we fight against inequality and racism, Wise asked. Because it will inevitably end up having an impact on our own lives. For example, banks started selling loans that didn’t require proof of income to minority families in the early 1990s. No one stepped in to regulate the practice, so banks felt free to expand it to the market at large, creating the real estate bubble that almost took down the financial markets when it burst, he said.

Audience members listen to Wise's two-hour talk.

Similarly, politicians spent years cutting back on help for the long-term unemployed when it applied mostly to people of color and to the poor, Wise said. Now that the unemployment rate is hovering around 9 percent, everyone is suffering, he added.

“All these things I’m talking about, they need to matter to all of you, because they’re going to affect all of you,” he said.

Throughout his speech, Wise cautioned against the American belief that anyone can succeed if they work hard enough. It just doesn’t jive with today’s society, where not everyone is afforded the same opportunities to succeed, he said. That discourse leads many to view those who haven’t succeeded as lazy and inferior, he said. In 1976, the top one percent wealthiest Americans owned 22 percent of financial assets in this country. Today, they own 48 percent. It can’t be because they’ve more than doubled their efforts, Wise said.

“It’s not about effort and intelligence,” he said. “It’s about opportunity.”

The problem is further compounded by separation between ethnic groups, Wise said. A total of 85 percent of whites live in neighborhoods with few or no people of color, he said. But they can afford to be ignorant of other groups’ experiences, with no consequences. “To be white is to not have to know any different,” Wise said. And that ignorance is what breeds stereotypes, he said.

Stereotypes and biases are so ingrained that even small children have internalized them, Wise said. He discovered this when he watched the movie “Evan Almighty” with his two daughters, ages 6 and 4 at the time. Morgan Freeman, an African American actor, plays the part of God. Wise’soldest daughter said that Freeman couldn’t be God, because God is white.

“Something is coming into my home and it’s poisoning my children,” Wise said. “It gets in and gets out before I even know it it’s there. And it infuriates me.”

Wise said he chose to ask his daughter a few questions rather than lecture her. What did God do? he said. He created people, she replied. Where did the first people come from? From Africa. What would they have looked like? They were black. And God made people in his image, Wise told the little girl. “Her eyes got very big,” he said. She told him that God could be black after all.

After the talk, Mahlet Shenkute, a freshman from Oakland, said Wise’s talk made her think. “I thought it was really eye-opening,” she said.

This event was co-sponsored and supported by a number of organizations and departments at UC San Diego, including Associated Students (AS) Diversity Office, the Chancellor’s Diversity Office and Chief Diversity Officer, Thurgood Marshall College, Office of the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, the Center for Student Involvement and Greek Life, Student Promoted Access Center for Education and Service, the Women’s Center, the Cross-Cultural Center, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Resource Center, the UC San Diego 50th Anniversary and many committed individuals throughout the university community.