Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male

by Tim Wise

Overview

In this highly anticipated follow-up to White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, activist Tim Wise examines the way in which institutional racism continues to shape the contours of daily life in the United States, and the ways in which white Americans reap enormous privileges from it.

The essays included in this collection span the last ten years of Wise's writing and cover all the hottest racial topics of the past decade: affirmative action, Hurricane Katrina, racial tension in the wake of the Duke lacrosse scandal, white school shootings, racial profiling, phony racial unity in the wake of 9/11, and the political rise of Barack Obama. Wise's commentaries make forceful yet accessible arguments that serve to counter both white denial and complacency--two of the main obstacles to creating a more racially equitable and just society. Speaking Treason Fluently is a superbly crafted collection of Wise's best work, which reveals the ongoing salience of race in America today and demonstrates that racial privilege is not only a real and persistent problem, but one that ultimately threatens the health and well-being of the entire society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781593762070
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	09/01/2008
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Tim Wise is a prominent antiracist writer and activist who served as an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute. He lectures across the country about the need to combat institutional racism, gender bias, and the growing gap between rich and poor in the United States.

Table of Contents

Introduction-Why Treason?     1
Challenging White Denial (in Four Parts)     9
Minimization     15
Uh-Obama: Racism, White Voters, and the Myth of Color-Blindness     15
What Kind of Card is Race? The Absurdity (and Consistency) of White Denial     24
(Proto)Typical White Denial: Reflections on Racism and Uncomfortable Realities     37
The Oprah Effect: Black Success, White Denial, and the Reality of Racism     45
Majoring in Minstrelsy: White Students, Blackface, and the Failure of Mainstream Multiculturalism     63
Racism, White Liberals, and the Limits of Tolerance     72
More of a Thud, Really: Racism, Crash, and the Perpetuation of White Denial     80
Rationalization     93
Rationalizing the Irrational: Racism and the Fallacy of Personal Experience     93
Working for the Man Every Night and Day: Black Conservatives and the Politics of Self-Abuse     107
A God with Whom I Am Not Familiar     117
They Shoot Black Men, Don't They? Sean Bell and the Internal (and Eternal) "Logic" of Racism     122
The Tyranny of Common Sense: Examining the Faulty Logic of "Terrorist" Profiling     128
No, Not Everyone Felt That Way: Reflections on Racism and History     133
Deflection     140
Passing the Buckand Missing the Point: Don Imus, White Denial, and Racism in America     140
Situational Ethics, Conservative Style     151
Personal Responsibility Is a Two-Way Street: Bill Cosby and the Pathology of Passing the Buck     155
Selling the Police: Reflections on Heroism and Hype     159
Racism, Free Speech, and the College Campus     165
Of Immigrants and "Real" Amurkans: Reflections on the Rage of the Ridiculous     175
Competing Victimization     183
On White Pride and Other Delusions     183
A Particularly Cheap White Whine: Racism, Scholarships, and the Manufacturing of White Victimhood     195
Chocolate Cities and Vanilla Indignation: Reflections on the Manufacturing of "Reverse" Racism     203
When Blacks Attack! Reflections on White Victimology and the Ironies of Institutional Racism     209
On the Making of Undeserving Martyrs: Fact and Fiction in the Duke Lacrosse Case     216
Of Bigots and Broken Records: Reflections on the Psychopathology of Racist Thinking     224
Confronting White Privilege     235
The Real Face of Racial Preference     239
Whites Swim in Racial Preference     239
Default Position: Reflections on the Brain-Rotting Properties of Privilege     244
The Power of Perspectivism      251
Of National Lies and Racial Amnesia: Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, and the Audacity of Truth     251
Breaking the Cycle of White Dependence: A Modest Call for Majority Self-Help     264
Anywhere but Here: Examining the Crimes of Thee, but Not of Me     269
Some Folks Never Felt Safe: The Truth about National Unity     273
Don't Know Much about (Black) History: School Curricula and the Myth of a Common Narrative     278
Reagan, Race, and Remembrance: Reflections on the American Divide     283
Rebels without a Clue: Racism, Neo-Confederacy, and the Raising of Historical Illiterates     289
Bill of Whites: Historical Memory through the Racial Looking Glass     298
Preferring Our Violence Wholesale: Riots and Destruction in Black and White     302
Home Runs, Heroes, and Hypocrisy: Performance Enhancement in Black and White     307
Measuring the Costs     318
Overclass Blues: Class, Race, and the Ironies of Privilege     318
Collateral Damage: Poor Whites and the Unintended Consequences of Racial Privilege     325
School Shootings and White Denial     331
We Are All Collateral Damage Now: Reflections on War as Emotional Botox     335
Rethinking Superiority: Reflections on Whiteness and the Cult of "Progress"     343
Conclusion-Being In (But Not Of) This Skin     353

Editorial Reviews

"Tim Wise is one of the most brilliant, articulate, and courageous critics of white privilege in the nation ... He is a national treasure." -- Michael Eric Dyson

From the Publisher

In this absorbing compilation of essays, Wise (White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son), an anti-racist activist and writer, continues to plumb white privilege, racism and responsibility. The first grouping, "Challenging White Denial," ("White denial has been a hallmark of the nation's racial history") considers the mechanisms utilized by white people when dealing with the concept of racism: minimization, rationalization, defection, and competing victimization; the second, "Confronting White Privilege" reviews the historical and current exercise of white preferential treatment and assesses the costs to whites in contemporary American life ("detrimental in the long run to their economic, social, cultural, and community-related interests"). Wise's reflections are often stimulated by current headlines (e.g. Don Imus, Barry Bonds, Jeremiah Wright, the Duke Lacrosse case) and repetitions slip in; the essays are best read as they were written-in small doses. While those who disagree with White will probably avoid it, his bracing and bold arguments might inspire sympathetic readers to join his "fight for an end to racism and privilege, not merely as an act of altruism toward others, but for our own sakes too."
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