Tim Wise responce.

Tim Wise made some very good points. I agree with his opinion that the election of Barack Obama is not the end all be all. I liked the point he made about the major events during the Civil Rights movement such as Brown v. The Board of Education, the Civil Right's Act of 1964, and such as all being steps...because that is what they were. I also liked his ideas of "racism 1.0" and "racism 2.0". I like this because one might imagine racism is dead because events where someone is lynched or the Ku Klux Klan is viewed as being a beneficial organization are exceedingly rare. More common is the racism depicted by Wise, such as saying that people embraced Obama because he was "more white". This draws some parallels with Delpit and the culture of power.

Here are a few points I tend to disagree with.

When Wise talks about people not being able to run for president because they wear their hair differently or dressing differently. Here is the thing...I don't think that is necessarily a racial thing but rather what the culture dictates is appropriate for a person to maintain a professional image. For example, say if a white person was running for president...but had shoulder length hair and a beard then I think there would definitely be problems during their campaigns. This is true even though vikings had long hair and beards and they were about as white as a person can be. Hell, they were even about as aryan as one could get too, so there is no way that someone is going to be discriminating over race. Going even further into this topic of what culture dictates is professional, we could look to the fact that no president since Taft has worn facial hair. That is not to say facial hair is bad, I sport it myself, but it just isn't what mass culture wants for their president or other politicians. Interestingly though, in academia facial hair is quite common and considered to be "professional".

The other thing was when he started talking about Will Smith. He was saying his comments as if Will Smith, because he is black should have an idea of the problems what all african-americans are feeling. It sounded as if Wise was suggesting that they have hive-minds and all face the same exact problems. It reminded me of what President Obama once said in regards to affirmative action and his daughters. He said something along the lines of how he does not think that his daughter's should be taken into account for affirmative action because they have far more opportunity then the vast majority of people in the country, whether they're white or a minority.