Tim Wise – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tim Wise
Wise in 2011
Timothy Jacob "Tim" Wise (born October 4, 1968) is an American anti-racism activist and writer.[1] Since 1995, he has given speeches at over 600 college campuses across the U.S.[2] He has trained teachers, corporate employees, non-profit organizations and law enforcement officers in methods for addressing and dismantling racism in their institutions.[3]
Wise was born in Nashville, Tennessee, to Michael Julius Wise and LuCinda Anne (ne McLean) Wise. His paternal grandfather was Jewish (of Russian origin), while the rest of his ancestry was northern European, some Scottish.[4][5] Wise attended public schools in Nashville, graduating from Hillsboro High School in 1986.[6] In high school he was student body vice-president and a member of one of the top high school debate teams in the United States. Wise attended 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.[7] 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. His anti-apartheid activism was first brought to national attention 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.[8]
After graduating in 1990, Wise started his work as an anti-racism activist after receiving training from the New Orleans-based People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. Wise began his anti-racism work first 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.[9][10]
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.[citation needed]
In 1995, Wise began lecturing around the country on the issues of racism and white privilege and his perceived solutions to them. The following year, he returned to his hometown Nashville, and he continued his work around the US, gaining a national reputation for his work in defense of affirmative action.[11]
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. 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.[12]
Wise argues that racism in the United States is institutionalized due to past overt racism (and its ongoing effects) along with current-day discrimination. Although he concedes that personal, overt bias is less common than in the past (or at least less 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.[13]
In societies such as the USA, where racism has been so common and racist thinking has been so prevalent, Wise argues that all people (white or people of colour) will have internalized various elements of racist thinking. However just because society has been conditioned this way does not mean that society is committed to racist thinking. Wise argues that members of society can challenge this conditioning and be taught to believe in equality.[14]
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