Tim Wise's Blog
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May.21.2012
Write this down if you need to.
Tweet it to yourself.
Put it on your Facebook wall, never to be deleted from your ever-growing and cluttered timeline.
Memorize it.
Trayvon Martin is not an inkblot, the meaning of which is yours to interpret.
He is not a walking Rorschach, whom one is free to see...
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Apr.10.2012
I swear, if I hear one more transparently racist person insist they aren’t racist because they have black friends, I am going to shoot them. But not because I’m violent. I’m not violent. And this I know because I have friends who are pacifists.
Yes, this is a joke, but seriously, it’s getting...
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Mar.27.2012
For a while now we’ve known that there were significant numbers of white Americans who wanted to “take their country back” to some mythical period of the nation’s hagiographic past. We’ve known it because they’ve told us so, as often and endlessly as their lungs will allow.
Little did we realize...
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Mar.21.2012
By now, you probably know the shameful details, but they are worth repeating, in any event.
On the evening of February 26, George Zimmerman, a self-appointed “neighborhood watch captain” in a gated, upscale Orlando suburb, shot and killed 17-year old Trayvon Martin.
Because Martin was black...
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Jan.12.2012
This commentary is rated MA for mature audiences. It contains some foul language, although honestly, only so much as is needed to get the damned point across. Parental discretion is advised…
Attention to all self-proclaimed liberals and progressives.
I would like to properly introduce you to a...
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Dec.29.2011
You’re tellin’ white lies You’re tellin’ white lies Well I can see right through that thin disguise Can’t you tell I can tell when you’re telling’ white lies? —Jason and the Scorchers, “White Lies”
Forget so-called “political correctness.” In Arizona, there is a far greater threat to free speech...
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May.02.2011
There is a particularly trenchant scene in the documentary film, Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead, in which Blecker - who teaches at New York University School of Law and is the nation's most prominent pro-death penalty scholar - travels to Tennessee's Riverbend Prison for the execution of convicted...
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12 comments
Jan.17.2011
Perhaps it's no great surprise that Glenn Beck would distort Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s message, as he did when he held a rally for mostly white reactionaries on the 47th anniversary of King's "I Have a Dream" speech in August, all the while suggesting that the group was "...
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3 comments
Nov.23.2010
Thanksgiving has always been among my least favorite holidays.
Not merely because of the mendacity of the traditional narrative regarding its origins -- you know, the whole "Indians and Pilgrims living in harmony" nonsense that conveniently ignores the genocide being planned even then...
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Sep.03.2010
In all the rancor over whether or not one group of Muslims should be allowed to build a cultural center and worship space near the site of the 9/11 attacks -- which were committed by a separate and totally unrelated group of Muslims --there is one thing above all else that no one appears anxious to...
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10 comments
Aug.30.2010
It has been said that even the devil can quote Scripture for his purposes. So too, apparently, can conservatives quote Martin Luther King Jr. for theirs. To wit, Glenn Beck, who has perfected the craft of cribbing from Dr. King, thereby debasing the majestic prose of the latter and distorting...
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Aug.30.2010
To be angry with Glenn Beck would be easy. So too, to conjure an ungenerous spirit of contempt for his acolytes who came from around the country to attend Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally this Saturday, would hardly take Herculean effort. His demented narcissism and their cult-like devotion...
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2 comments
Aug.18.2010
This is the second part of a two-part series on racism on the right and left of the United States' political/ideological spectrum. Part one, which can be found here, provided the reader with a working definition of racism, and then explored how racism at both the ideological and institutional...
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6 comments
Aug.02.2010
Memo to Ross Douthat: Sometimes, people fact-check.
One of the perks of being an op-ed columnist, as Douthat is--he being the resident conservative essayist at the New York Times--is that you can say pretty much anything you like. It's your opinion, after all, so the standards of accuracy to which...
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2 comments
Jul.30.2010
In this summer of white resentment, one would think it sufficient to have to suffer through the daily droning of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the rest of the crew at Fox News, or perhaps the dishonest machinations of professional liar and fear-pimp Andrew Breitbart.
What with their endless claims...
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5 comments
About Tim
Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S., and has been called, "One of the most brilliant, articulate and courageous critics of white privilege in the nation," by best-selling author and professor Michael...
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