Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama |
Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama
City Lights Books
2009-01-15
120 pages
Paperback ISBN-10 0872865002; ISBN-13 9780872865006
Race is, and always has been, an explosive issue in the United States. In this timely new book, Tim Wise explores how Barack Obama’s emergence as a political force is taking the race debate to new levels. According to Wise, for many whites, Obama’s rise signifies the end of racism as a pervasive social force; they point to Obama as a validation of the American ideology that anyone can make it if they work hard, and an example of how institutional barriers against people of color have all but vanished. But is this true? And does a reinforced white belief in color-blind meritocracy potentially make it harder to address ongoing institutional racism? After all, in housing, employment, the justice system and education, the evidence is clear: white privilege and discrimination against people of color are still operative and actively thwarting opportunities, despite the success of individuals like Obama.
Is black success making it harder for whites to see the problem of racism, thereby further straining race relations, or will it challenge anti-black stereotypes to such an extent that racism will diminish and race relations improve? Will blacks in power continue to be seen as an “exception” in white eyes? Is Obama “acceptable” because he seems “different than most blacks,” who are still viewed too often as the dangerous and inferior “other?”
All of these possibilities are explored in Between Barack and a Hard Place, by Tim Wise, one of the nation’s most prominent antiracist activists and educators and author of the critically-acclaimed memoir, White Like Me.
Contents
- Preface
- Barack Obama, White Denial and the Reality of Racism
- The Audacity of Truth: A Call for White Responsibility
- Endnotes
- About the Author