TIM WISE: I want to thank all of you for coming out. I want to start off by telling you that
I think it is probably a good idea when somebody stands in front of you and is
proclaimed by virtue of their bio and by virtue of their curriculum vitae, their resume, that
part of which is read to you, by way of their nice comments made of them by others,
proclaim to be an expert. Ask yourself why it is that you are listening to that person and
not somebody else. In this culture, we are lead to believe that if someone stands before
you, a proclaimed expert, that it must be that they are the brightest bulbs in the box –
that they know something that the other people don’t know.
I am not standing in front of you, and you are not listening to me, because I am the most
informed person in the country on racism or white privilege, not because I am the best
speaker on the subject. I am fairly good, and I intend to demonstrate that to you amply
in the next hour. It isn’t because I am the best writer on the subject, though I am ok with
that as well. It is instead because I, and I know this, fit the aesthetic that is needed on
too many campuses and too many communities around the country in order to come in
and give this talk.
Nothing that I am going to say tonight, or at least very little, originated in my head.
Nothing that I am going to say tonight, or at least very little, is in fact new. Almost every
single thing that I am going to say this evening is wisdom that has been shared with me
either patiently, or sometimes not so patiently, by people of color who have in almost
every instance forgotten more about the subjects of racism and white privilege since
breakfast yesterday than I will likely ever know, and yet they will not be asked to give
eighty five engagements around the country this year or next on this subject. Not
because they have not the wisdom to do it but because privilege, the subject that I’ll
deal with tonight, bestows upon me that advantage, and so, as a matter of responsibility
and accountability, I have to own that up front so that when you go away from this, this
evening, thinking to yourself, “My goodness that was good,” and that is my subliminal
way of telling you that you are going to think its just great. And when you go away from
here thinking that I have filled your heads with all this great knowledge and wisdom,
please know that it is not mine. And then, next time you hear it from a person of color,
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2
the next time it is shared with you, for those in the audience particularly who are white,
the next time it is shared with you by a person of color, as it will be and as it has been in
one form of another, please listen to it, and please know that it is from that source that I
get virtually all of my material. We will know that we have made progress only on that
day when a person of color can get up and give the talk that I am about to give and be
taken half as seriously as I expect to be taken.
THE ERASURE OF RACE IN POLITICS & CULTURE
WISE: It is interesting to see so many people come out to these events because, to
hear some people tell it, you would think that this conversation was almost wholly
unnecessary. To pay attention to the American political process, and what the
candidates for this nation’s highest office have to say and not say about the issues that
are of importance to them and thus we are to presume importance to the Nation, you
would get the impression that the issue of race, that the issue of racism, that the issue
of discrimination, and certainly that the issue of white racial privilege were non existent
issues; that they were of really no importance, or that of very little importance, because
you will not hear and have not heard any of the candidates for the presidency of the
United States, in either party, of whatever political ideology, make this an issue. Yes,
they talk about poverty and occasionally they talk about schooling and education. They
talk about healthcare. They talk about all of those things, but not once have any of those
candidates tried to directly connect the role that racism, the role that racial
discrimination, the role that institutional racial oppression and white privilege play in
regard to health care, in regard to housing, in regard to schooling. It is as if those issues
exist in a vacuum and have no relationship to color, have no relationship to race, have
no relationship to a history of racial subordination.
What does it say, about our Nation’s political process, and about our Nation’s political
and social culture, that none of these candidates for political office has seen fit to tell the
American public the following things? All of which you would think would be campaign
issues of some importance, at least to some people, and yet they won’t say them. Why
is it that none of them mention, that it was last year, 2006, not 1996, not 1986, not 1976,
or 1966, but 2006 which witnessed the highest number of race based housing
discrimination complaints in recorded history? The fair housing act was passed in 1968,
the year of my birth, and yet it was not 1968 that witnessed the highest level of
discrimination complaints based on race. It was 38 years later, in 2006.
What does it say about our culture and the politicians, the choices we’ve been given for
leader of the so-called free world, that none of these candidates sees fit to mention, as
they talk about health care, which is a subject they do talk about with some regularity,
what does it say that none of them mention the research that was published in the
American Journal of Public Health in 2004, which had looked at ten years of excess
mortality data for African Americans, from 1991-2000, looking at the number of black
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3
folks who had died above and beyond the number that would have died, but for their
blackness, in effect, and the social and economic conditions that ascribe and essentially
adhere to blackness in this country? And what they found in this study, which received
almost no media attention again, published in an academic journal, not read by the
average American, not read by political candidates, read by doctors and people who
research the health care industry, but that’s about it. This study found that between
1991 and 2000, there were almost one million black people in this country who died who
would not have died had they merely been white and had the average health care
quality and access of the typical white person in this country, had they been living in
neighborhoods, like white neighborhoods, in which the levels of exposure to toxicity had
been as low as it is in the typical white neighborhood, as opposed to excess exposure to
toxics, pollutants, etc. in black and brown spaces. Almost one million excess dead
people, in this case black folks, who wouldn’t have died had the system of health care
access and exposure to toxins been equal between white folks and black folks. How is a
million dead black people not news? You see, if James Bird gets dragged to death
behind a truck in Jasper, Texas, you will hear about that and well you should. If one
individual is the victim of a vicious hate crime, you will hear about that and well you
should. But if nearly one million people die, not because of bigotry, not because of
hatred, not because of some white supremacy organization, but because of systemic
and institutionalized injustice, you will not hear anything.
How is it not news, and why are no candidates mentioning...
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Originally Posted by Hyve
50+ minute video, responses in the negative within minutes of posting. -_-
"You six-piece Chicken McNobody."
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