My Essay Collection--Speaking Treason Fluently--is Now Available!
...so what'cha waitin' for? Click on the book cover link on my redroom author page, or at timwise.org and order a copy today! As you can see, I'm not much for the subliminal sales pitch. Seriously, my kids are gonna need college money one day, so how's about buying three or four copies for friends, relatives, people you just really want to piss off, whomever!
The book contains 42 essays from 2000-2008 on pretty much every conceivable race-related issue of this decade. Some of them you've possibly read elsewhere, but nowhere else can you find them all in one neatly-contained place. So, as the cheesy saying goes, "read them again for the first time..." (cue the appropriate music...wait, radical polemics don't come with music, or rather, they do, but it's angry music, and angry music doesn't put one in the buying mood).
Ok, so that's the pitch: simple and slightly self-deprecating. We'll see how that goes. If it fails, there's always the option of developing a computer virus to cripple the systems of those who fail to buy my book (to the FBI snoops who occasionally troll the web, or so I'm told, that was a joke. I can barely operate my word processor).
Thanks in advance!
Keywords:
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...
Connections
You just inspired a 15 year old today..lol
I know this is 100% off-topic, but I just want to thank you for what you do. You have no idea how much you have inspired me and have sparked my interest in anti-racism. I live in a very stagnant non-productive part of Alabama (Tuscaloosa), and your voice and cogent essays spark a fire in me. I am a 15 year old black girl and I currently go to an all-white (and I mean ALL white, as in I am the only black person in the entire school) school, full of religious zealots, homophobes, and closeted racists. It's very frustrating to say the least. My friends at school ask me everyday "tips" on how to get along with black people, and often times profess their "fear" of black men to me. They no longer preface their statements with "I'm not racist, but......." so I suppose they think I'm "racially neutral" enough for them to ask me blatantly racist questions and I not get too "sensitive" about it.
On top of that, a lot of their kneejerk reaction to anyone pointing out racism seems to be "You are just playing the race card, there is no racism {insert situation here}...you are just being overly sensitive". To my eternal embarassment and disgust, I used to suffer from the same mentality of "black people are too sensitive and racism is a figment of our imagination and white people are being discriminated en masse" for a pretty long time...... until your essays inspired me to make a fractional effort to learn what the heck I was talking about.
Because a lot of white kids that I'm friends with view me as the Larry Elder of the group, when I hear their racist views, I get them uncut and raw, it's disturbing to think that one day these same people that think black people are innately stupid, criminals, and "dirty" will one day be agents in real estate transactions, police officers, and teachers. Anyway, I think I've rambled on enough....I just wanted you to know how much you were appreciated and how elated I am to view your next essay (I check your site once everyday...lol).
Good luck with all your future endeavors in regard to anti-racism, and thanks again.
Thank you so much
...your words are very kind, and they mean a lot to me. It is always nice to be told that you inspire anyone, especially someone who I'm sure is "up against it" in a school such as the one you describe. If my words can help you in any way to deal with the isolation that you experience at an all-white (daaaamn!) school, then that is quite a reward for me as well. Stay strong and don't ever let folks like the ones you describe get to you. You have far more wisdom than they, on this issue, and I'm guessing quite a few more!
Anyway, as for my writing, I am taking a break from new essays for at least the next month, so I can finish my next book, "Between Barack and a Hard Place: Race and Whiteness in the Age of Obama," but will start up with essays again in September. In the meantime, you might enjoy the new essay collection (sort of a "best of" collection), "Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections from an Angry White Male."
Thanks again and take care
tim
To Add...
Like Carol, you've been a transformative writer for me. The first time I encountered you was your stomping of David Horowitz in e-mail form, about as good as Michael Albert's similar devastation of that conservative straw puppet. Since then, you have transformed the way I think about race, turning it from an optional fight against something bad to a fight that implicates me deeply and that I am personally responsible for.
Like Frederic and Carol I
Like Frederic and Carol I would also like to thank you Tim.
As someone who, for the past year, has tried to read at least 2-3 articles from your essay archive per week (and reread them once I get through each one so they become second nature), I definitely plan on picking up your new book. If for nothing else, to say thanks for making those essay's free for so long for folks like me. Without a formal education on such topics, the only material are books and essay's such as yours.
Hopefully you'll make an appearance somewhere in north Jersey (Montclair State U again, or Clifton Barnes & Noble perhaps) and I can get all those books signed in person. :)
Ok I am so pissed (not really!)
Hey Tim,
I love what you are doing. I love your style and method of delivery it just works for me so I know you will appreciate what I am saying here and not take offense.
It bugs me that you are white. What I don't get is why when white people say things then yes it is true. I find it funny that you are a prominent anti-racist.
You know what else drives me crazy is all those experts on the africa, middle east, eastern europe who are all white that show up on CNN giving their two cents on this issue or the other affecting the given region.
What qualifies them as an expert? some degree from some snooty ivy league school almost always. It just irks me.
Expert...I'll give you expert, on womens' issues would be a woman, on being black it would be a black person, on being african it would be an african. I guess it is true what the bible says, a prophet is never revered in his own town!
It is all just so interesting to me how things works, but I am glad you are going against the grain.
Recently a friend tried to engage me in a discussion that centered around Israel & Condi Rice.
She is white middle class never had to work a day in her life. Spent the summer in Israel yadi yadi yada.
I am black, grew in Kenya (albeit a little before my time I am familiar with the whole entebe raid story). So there is a strong Kenya-Israeli connection, not so much for me.
As you can see this would have a discussion that could have lead to death. I chose not to participate becasue I know friend well enough to know that is would have been less factul, filled with emotion and it all boiled down to the fact that Condi is black and she is trying to give israel the only white nation in the middle east to the palestinians and that is wrong blah blah blah!
Having been around Israelis I know for a fact they are just as racist as the next person so my views are tainted, I also know history and may not have first hand account to the story, but the partitioning of Africa by the colonialist leads me to empathise with the palestinians. Not so great to have your home given away and then become oppressed for living in your home oh well that is a treatise in and of itself!
P.S. to quote tupac I ain't mad acha!
thanks for your comments and
thanks for your comments and kind words...one thing i am particularly interested in, which you mentioned: did your friend really use the word "white" to describe israel??? I ask because as a Jew myself, and an anti-Zionist, pro-palestinian jew, i have always suspected that the real motivation for zionism, unspoken, was white supremacy. The leading zionist thinkers all came out of the period of colonial thinking in europe, and always struck me as desperate to fit in with white society, even as they pressed special claims for jews, as jews...her admission to this would be an interesting piece of evidence to support that view
tim
Tim hardly needs me
Tim hardly needs me responding to your concern Patricia but I feel it must be noted that in the past Tim has acknowledged white privilege as a contributing factor in his success and the broad reach of his words.
Also, I highly recommend immediately ceasing obtaining your news and information from CNN or really any other tv news outlet. It will only drive you mad! You are guaranteed nothing resembling objective and critical journalism.
My favorite sources for news are WBAI (www.wbai.org) and the NPR network on radio, and if I absolutely must get my news from the TV, BBC. Otherwise, I get my news from a varied assortment of websites.