Essay Sample on Tim Wise's Views on Racism and Ethnicity

Introuction

Racism has been an issue of concern in the United States and even other countries where people of other colors apart from the whites exist. As a result, discrimination based on racial and ethnic lines has emerged leading to inequality in power and sharing of resources between the whites and non-whites. As such, there have emerged anti-racism activists among the whites and blacks. Among the activists is Tim Wise who is a white anti-racist.

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Tim Wise is an American well-known anti-racism activist and writer. He is also an educator who has gone to many institutions in the United States teaching about racism. In 2018, Tim was given a speech which was known as a National Dialogue on Race (Singh, 2018). The speech was about the privileges of whites over people with another skin color in the United States. Wise uses the opportunity to explain how racism has affected the lives of both whites and non-whites. According to him, the intensity of racism in the United States is based on social construction and white identity.

Tim openly claims that he is not such an expert in solving racial issues existing in the United States. According to Tim, his white skin has awarded him more privileges than other non-resident citizens in the state. Whites are always the top priority when giving out favors in different fields ranging from power to working positions. Tim confirms this since he is also a white who has enjoyed the rights of being a white.

Furthermore, Tim goes on to explain that politicians often talk about issues such as housing, poverty, education, and healthcare, but they rarely connect them to the role that racism plays in the United States. Most of the people who encounter the problems are the non-whites in the country due to the unequal treatment from their white counterparts. Thus, politicians should instead solve the issue of racism and white privilege so that the major issues mentioned above can be resolved to the whole population in the United States. Tim Wise proves to be a determined anti-racist who speaks out the truth about racism situation in the country. He even speaks openly about politicians who support racism and white privilege in the country. From 1991 to 2000 about one million black people were reported to have died due to insufficient healthcare in the United States, yet, the politicians in the country did not bother to take it seriously. Such a case shows that racism is evident since the non-whites are the most reported victims in any disaster.

More so, Tim Wise goes on to say that the white population sees racism as a petty issue which should not be taken seriously by politicians and other agencies. A recent poll showed that only 6 percent of the American population sees racism as a national problem. As such, the country has not found any reasons to cope with racism. According to Wise, the blacks are taken so unprivileged to the extent the country has set February of each year as Black History Month, yet, there is no White History Month. His point is that white privilege is usual. White History Month is every other month of the year.

Lastly, Tim explains that whites are rarely referred to any wrong actions such as terrorism even when they do it continuously (Sullivan, 2018). However, blacks are always victims of a blemish when the mess somewhere. Therefore, there is no fairness even in making accusations between whites and non-whites. As Tim puts it, blacks had to perfect in everything they did to avoid charges from the whites.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Tim Wise is a white person who grew up knowing that racism existed in the United States and should be abolished. He agrees that whites had more privileges compared to blacks in the country. Even politicians care about other issues such as poverty and healthcare without knowing that the problems affect mostly the non-whites. Therefore, there a need to focus on the issue of racism in the United States based on Tim Wise's views.

References

Singh, G. (2018). Post-racial pedagogy-challenges and possibilities. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(4), 555-563.

Sullivan, T. J., Thompson, K. S., Thompson, K. S., Thompson, K. S., & Sociologue, E. U. (2018). Introduction to social problems. Macmillan.