Tim Wise

Tim Wise
Born	(1968-10-04) October 4, 1968 Nashville, Tennessee
Nationality	American
Education	B.A.- Political Science
Alma mater	Tulane University
Parent(s)	Michael Julius Wise and LuCinda Anne (McLean) Wise

Tim Wise (born October 4, 1968 in Nashville, Tennessee) is an American anti-racist activist and writer.

Background

Tim Wise is an American anti-racist activist in the U.S., who started giving lectures in 1995 at over 500 college campuses across the US. He has trained a multitude of teachers, corporate employees, non-profit organizations and law enforcement officers in methods for addressing and dismantling racism in their institutions.

Wise was born in Nashville, Tennessee to Michael Julius Wise and LuCinda Anne (née McLean) Wise. Wise's father is Jewish, his mother Scottish. He attended public schools there, graduating from Hillsboro High School in 1986, at which school he was Student Body Vice-President and a member of one of the top high school debate teams in the United States. Wise went to college at Tulane University in New Orleans and received his B.A. there, with a major in Political Science and a minor in Latin American Studies. While a student he was a leader in the campus anti-apartheid movement, which sought to force Tulane to divest from companies still doing business with the government of South Africa. He first came to national attention as an anti-apartheid leader in 1988, when South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu announced he would turn down an offer of an honorary degree from Tulane, after Wise's group informed him of the school's ongoing investments there.

After graduating in 1990, Wise began his work as an antiracist activist, ultimately receiving training in methods for undoing racism from the New Orleans-based People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. Wise began his antiracism work as a youth coordinator, and then associate director, of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism: the largest of the various organizations founded for the purpose of defeating political candidate, David Duke, when Duke ran for U.S. Senate and Governor of Louisiana in 1990 and 1991, respectively.

After his work campaigning against David Duke, Wise worked for a number of community-based organizations and political groups in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, including the Louisiana Coalition for Tax Justice, the Louisiana Injured Worker's Union and Agenda for Children, where he worked as a policy analyst and community organizer in New Orleans public housing.

In 1995, Wise began lecturing around the country on the issues of racism and white privilege. The following year, he returned to Nashville, where he was born and raised, and continued his work around the U.S., gaining a national reputation for his work in defense of affirmative action. In 1998, he married Kristy Cason, with whom he has two daughters, Ashton (b. 2001) and Rachel (b. 2003).

From 1999 to 2003, Wise served as an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute. Wise received the 2002 National Youth Advocacy Coalition's Social Justice Impact Award as well as the 2001 British Diversity Award, for best feature essay on race and diversity issues. He has appeared on numerous radio and television broadcasts, including the Montel Williams Show, Donahue, Paula Zahn NOW, MSNBC Live, and ABC's 20/20, arguing the case for Affirmative Action and to discuss the issue of white privilege and racism in America.

Wise argues that racism in the United States is institutionalized, due to past overt racism and the ongoing effects of that past racism, along with current-day discrimination. Although he contends that personal, overt bias is less common than in the past (or at least less likely to be openly articulated), Wise argues that institutions have been set up to foster and perpetuate white privilege, and that subtle, impersonal, and even ostensibly race-neutral policies contribute to racism and racial inequality today.

Writing

As of 2009, Wise has written four books.

Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White (Routledge: 2005).

White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son (Soft Skull Press) is a memoir based on his own life's experiences.

Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male (Soft Skull Press) is a collection of essays released in fall 2008.

Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama, was released in February, 2009 by City Lights Publishers.

A fifth book, Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity, is scheduled for release in May, 2010 by City Lights Publishers

Other releases

In addition to books and essays Wise has produced a DVD entitled On White Privilege: Racism, White Denial & the Costs of Inequality and a double-CD entitled The Audacity of Truth: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama.

External links

• Official site
• Tim Wise at IMDb