White Like Me

Title: White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son
Author: Tim Wise
Pub Date: 2008Genre: Memoir; Race RelationsNutshell: Thoughts on race and privilege from a white anti-racism activist


There's this thing that I do when I know that I don't know enough about something to have anything like an informed opinion on it. I go to the stacks. Even if that opinion is only for my own edification, I still like to feel like I know a little something about whatever is maybe troubling me in the news or whatever. This most recent time, it was all of what was going down in Ferguson, Missouri. Note: I am the whitest white girl that ever whited. I am the great great generationally go on back great granddaughter of English colonial settlers who came over to Virginia in 1633. I'm not off the Mayflower, but I am not that far off it either. There's not even, to the best of my records, any so-called "dubious whites" in my family -- none of those Popish Italian or Irish or Eastern European later arrivals here; no, sir. Now, I don't know how rich we were in the mother country (after we stopped ruling it -- RIP Richard II), and we certainly didn't do particularly spectacularly for ourselves over here in the long haul either, but we certainly do have a long history, and that history is about as pale in hue as you're likely to get out of anybody.

All of that to say that I know that I know zero about being black in America. I also know that I hold a fair amount of privilege due to the fact that I was born at the tail end of all that pale history up there. I can tell you about being a (white) woman in America, and I can tell you it's not always fantastic, but when all that blew up in Missouri, I knew there was a lot going on that I did not understand. And I wanted to. So, off to the stacks. And by stacks, I mean the library, because I don't buy books anymore (out of room and/or money -- usually both). I wanted something that would tell me specifically about privilege.  I knew I had it, but I wanted to find out exactly what it was, where it was, and how to see and recognize it. So I found this book, which does an excellent job of laying all that out.

Tim Wise was very lucky in that grew up in a home where racism was not acceptable. His mother fought against it where she found it and provided a role model for him to become an anti-racist and activist later in his life. Wise has fought against racism since college, and lays out in this book how white people who also want to fight against racism and promote social change can do so. But, as whites, we have a lot of unpacking to do before we just jump in. He doesn't pull any punches, either. He had a lot of unpacking of his own to do, and doesn't shy from telling the reader about any of it. He made a great number of mistakes, and admits to them with candor and honesty. This is definitely a very personal work and something that isn't always easy to read. But if you're interested in this kind of thing, I would say it's important to learn.

I took a great deal away from this book, and I think it helped a lot in terms of learning more about my place in society. Wise makes an excellent point that white people should fight against racism, not because we think people of color can't conquer it on their own and they need our help, but because it is a poison of our own race. It makes us less than who we could be because it diminishes our ability to see the best of ourselves and everyone else. We should do it for nobody else's sake than our own. And we don't deserve anyone else's thanks or recognition or approval for it, either. I had never viewed it that way, but he has a really valid point. 

I'd recommend this to anyone, really. But especially if you, like me, are white and wish you could do something more for social justice and change. There is a lot to be done, but we need to tread carefully, and this book is a good place to start on that journey.