Between Barack and A Hard Place: Challenging Racism, Privilege, and Denial

Speaker Tim Wise begins his lecture of Racism Denial with explaining the unnecessary act of those who avoid a conversation about racism by retreating to the claim that they have "many black friends" so as to therefore not consider themselves part of the discussion, let alone part the problem. One quote he says, "It's the people who don't really have that level of closeness who sometimes make a big deal out of it than there is. See, what we do is we view racism as an inter personal phenomenon. When it's so much more than that. We view it as something that's between individuals". However, Tim finds such claims of personal relationships insufficient in the matter of undoing inequality or mistreatment. For that matter I agree with what he is saying. I believe the relationship you have with someone of another background or culture is irrelevant  to how you view others of different backgrounds or cultures and what you think about them. Saying "I have many black friends" doesn't stop a person from being bias about other backgrounds or cultures. Just like Tim said, "Being with a woman doesn't make a man not sexist". In other words, the relationship you have with someone doesn't constitute where you stand when it comes to racism or any ism for that matter. Racism is so much more than relationship, thoughts, or beliefs. Tim goes on explaining that one reason why relationship is not sufficient is because people have a tendency to drift apart from each other. Moreover, thoughts and beliefs don't necessarily change, but the relationships do. I can honestly tell you that this couldn't be any more through. I had a best friend in middle school and we spent all our time together. I still have our last picture taken of us when we were still in middle school. However, once we arrived in High School we drifted apart. Our relationship now is extremely discrete. I barely know anything about her nor don't share anything about myself to her because it just doesn't feel right anymore. My opinion about her didn't change, she's still a wonderful girl, but the relationship did. One reason that contributed to this detached relationship is because of different learning experiences and Tim once again couldn't be anymore right. My old friend and I never had one single class together in high school therefore, we had different learning experiences. She also was mistreated by some teachers while I got offers to take AP classes. We were both from the same background and culture, but we were treated differently. And unfortunately it took me a few years to realize that the different experiences she and I had. Mr .Wise often mentioned that most people unintentionally are not aware of their own privileges, which such fact applied to the reading of White Privilege we had in the class. He also mentions that if we are willing to own or acknowledge that racism is a part of who we are than we can take action to not act on it. We can resolve to challenge that within ourselves and encounter conditions within ourselves first. Some tend to believe nowadays that because we have an African American president racism has ceased to exist, but that's not true. Racism still exists. The problem is that some of us don't recognize it or  we don't internalize it as part of our lives. Attach to this blog is a list of 10 things that make white folks  more racist than they think they are.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/04/racist-white-people_n_6800522.html