Monday, March 29, 2010

Tim Wise – Brown v. Board of Education
I found the website regarding Brown v. Board of Education interesting. I even took some time to watch the educational videos for Middle and High School Students and they were interesting. The teaching materials were interesting and looked very useful. Looking at the timeline in the history area you couldn’t help but think how much time passed to fight and struggle for something that is a basic right. To have equal opportunities in education should have been a promise kept at the end of the civil war with the promise of racial equality around the beginning of the 1900’s but it wasn’t passed for another 54 years until 1954. Today we have Tim Wise discussing racism and “whiteness” another 56 years after that. I liked the final post to the history page stating “most Americans believe that a racially integrated, ethnically diverse society and educational system is a worthy goal, though they may disagree deeply about how to achieve it. “

The videos were ok to listen to. I had watched his video before professor Bogad posted on Saturday so I had a good idea of the content. Tim Wise is a lot like Johnson and Christensen. White people are in denial and it is a big problem. His whole point about 1962 and 1963, if you ask people now if African Americans back then had equal opportunities they would say no. If you asked people back then in the years 1962, 1963 if people had equal opportunities in their neighborhood they would say yes. This is denial.

This is not “white people” it is “whiteness” It is not “who we are” it is “who we’ve been made into”. If you are white you don’t have to know black/brown reality - because nothing happens to you. If you are black/brown you have to know white – it is important - it is the test.

Tim Wise Doesn’t view Obama as bringing us to a post racial place. White people see Obama as transcending race, he is different from the Black/brown norm and this will not get us to racial equity. Obama has just resulted in moving us from a 1.0 to a 2.0 on the racism scale. He went on to say there are many black people that are just as bright as Obama but they don’t have his style. It is fine to aspire to be like Obama but they don’t have to “bring it on like Obama” I don’t know if Delpit would agree with this. We can respect culture but if you want to become President of the United States it come with a certain image.

Tim Wise is dramatic but his points are good. People need to be agents for their own liberation. And the White people need to lead the road and be the allies and the role models. I believe these are his points. We can’t look for Obama or anyone one leader. Obama is the community Organizer. We are the agents.

1 comment: