Celebrated anti−racism essayist, author, educator and speaker Tim Wise visited the Tufts campus on Wednesday to conduct a series of educational workshops that culminated in his formal appearance in Cohen Auditorium that evening.
Through casual, humorous and powerful language, Wise addressed a full house about the lingering racism and white supremacy still present in the United States today.
Wise explained that the American government has historically privileged the "male, rich, white folks," a trend that has been engrained in America's structure from the beginning.
"We live with the legacy of institutionalized white supremacy. We have inherited this, and we live with it today," Wise told the Daily.
Wise went on to talk about the ways in which racism slips into Americans' lives, even though they may not be conscious of them. Many people today are of the opinion that they live in a post−racial era, he said. According to Wise, the success of one, or even many, people of color — be they President Barack Obama, a black celebrity or just a successful African−American citizen — is not a marker of the end of racist institutions.
Wise emphasized that the concept of colorblindness, which many consider to be the ultimate solution to racist attitudes, may actually end up blinding individuals from the problem of racism itself. Not talking about racism, he explained, is detrimental because it is impossible to fight against a problem that people refuse to acknowledge. Instead, he promotes the idea of color consciousness, which neither covers up nor ignores existing prejudices, and which he discusses in depth in his most recent book, "Colorblind: The Rise of Post−Racial Politics and the Retreat From Racial Equity."
Wise said higher−education institutions that wish to foster diversity should take this message seriously. Schools like Tufts that claim to do so, he said, tend to have one problem: Their inability to recognize that a "solution" to explicit racism will not necessarily solve the more subtle fact that the white population still exercises power over a majority of the country's institutions.
"This promotion of diversity could be lacking context, which is important for young adults in their understanding not just of difference but also of power imbalances because that way they are aware of the social, structural inequality issues," he said.
Often, he explained, colleges that claim colorblindness also function according to power−blindness — and that is when the college's objectives fail.
For Wise, achieving a consciousness of existing prejudice is at the core of the speeches he gives on college campuses around the country.
"I hope to get a recognition of the seriousness of racism as an ongoing issue in the country. Young people tend to see it as a thing of the past or as a diminished problem," he said. "Also, I hope they recognize their own responsibility to address racism, not only in the classroom, in the community, etc., but also within themselves."
"We all have internalized biases, so we are all being conditioned, and part of interrupting racism is recognizing that it is a problem for you as well; it's not just for the other guy," Wise said.
Wise said he grew up in a racist environment in Nashville, Tenn.
"I had a pretty good understanding of how race had shaped the country and especially our region," Wise said. "I had this awareness from the time I was a kid. I had seen racism and I knew something was profoundly wrong in the schools I attended; the inequalities were pretty stark, and when I went to college that got more and more clear."
It was the Tulane University campus, where he graduated in 1990, that catalyzed his eventual career in anti−racist activism.
"People in Tulane, most of them people of color, became mentors and teachers to me, and they really opened my eyes towards racism issues in the city," Wise said.
But the realization that he, as a member of the white majority, had a responsibility to stand up for the underserved black community came not only through the political inequality he witnessed but through his personal life as well.
The year Wise graduated from college he was living in a house in New Orleans with nine other recent graduates and got into frequent bouts about the cleanliness — or lack thereof — of the house. At first, he said, he was stubborn about his housemates' refusal to get rid of their own waste, but when rotting food in the oven began to stink up the house, Wise realized that he was going to have to clean up after the others.
"It didn't matter [if] I made that mess; it mattered I was tired of living in that funk, even if I didn't cause it," Wise said during his speech.
That, he said, taught him one of his most valuable life lessons and laid the groundwork for his motivation to fight against the racism he hadn't created but had to live with.
Wise's interest in anti−racism was not confined to his surrounding city or even country, though. Like many of his peers, Wise was intent on challenging the apartheid system in South Africa at the time, and thanks to his mentors he was able to understand this racism in conjunction with the racism present in his own backyard.
"I was able to connect the dots, and that was the beginning of a deeper consciousness that developed into a career path," Wise said.
After graduating from college, Wise realized that his passion for anti−racist activism could not remain a hobby and he needed to make it into a full−time career. It was his two−year involvement in the campaign against David Duke, former Ku Klux Klan leader, who ran for U.S. Senator and then the governorship of Louisiana in 1990 and 1991, respectively, that led to this revelation.
"He is the most prominent white−supremacist neo−Nazi in the U.S. in the last 40 years. We wanted to defeat him, make sure he didn't win," Wise said. "In the end, he lost, but he did get the majority of the votes of the white population in Louisiana. This was very eye−opening, since all these people were willing to vote for him, and that made me realize I had to take some responsibility. I realized it was my work to change this. It wasn't the job of folks of color; it wasn't for them to change and educate white people. It was my job, as a white man, to change white people and deal with other folks in my community — to struggle with them and make them think differently."
Since then, Wise has spoken in 48 states, at over 600 college campuses and to community groups across the nation. He has published five books and contributed to myriad articles. He has trained teachers, professionals and government officials and has appeared on television and radio hundreds of times.
According to Wise, racism will most likely never be fully eliminated, although he hopes to minimize its effects.
"I do think we have the ability, as is true with any form of oppression and injustice, to minimize the damage that it does, to arrest its development and to intervene so that the ability of racism to limit peoples' lives is diminished," he said. "I hope I am giving some practical advice about the various things that [students] can do in college or in their larger society to interrupt racism and challenge it, both individually and collectively, both when it's blatant and when it's not so blatant," Wise said.
