Wise, "Between Barack and a Hard Place"

This topic of racism and inequality among blacks and whites while go on until the world ends. This has been a hot topic for generations. I choose three quotes that stood out to me throughout Wise speech “Between Barack and a Hard Place”. The first quote I found interesting was at the opening of his speech where he stated, “if people did not want to have the conversation about racism (white people) they would say I’m not racist most of my friends are black.” The word friend is often used to loosely with people in our society. Often time’s people claim others to be a friend but, like Wise mentioned that they have no clue about the people they are speaking of. This can be interpreted in many different aspects depending on one’s definition of a friend. I have many friends whether black, white, Hispanic etc., that I am friends with and I do not know their mothers name so it depends on the person.

            The second quote I found interesting is when Wise stated, “that him and his preschool friends were eventually not friends in high school, due to the teachers and staff treating the students fundamentally different.” As he went on to say that although he was not a very good student, he was able to progress and advance in school whereas, the black students a labeled, judged and reprimanded with harsher penalties such as suspension for behavior. This was confusing to me because, he said the staff and teachers in the school were primarily black, so I am not sure why there was such a negative impact on the black students.

            The third quote I found interesting “acknowledging that racism is part of your belief people can take time to not act on it” As we all know and do not like to admit, we all have racist tendencies in us. People are usually judged by skin color before anything else.

I connected this speech to Scwamp, Johnson Privilege, Power and Difference, White Privileged and the speech on Affirmative Action.

Here is a link to Tim Wise Biography

           http://speakoutnow.org/userdata_display.php?modin=50&uid=156