On Sept. 27, Tim Wise, an American anti-racism activist and writer, spoke to Oswego State about police brutality and racism.
Wise has given speeches at over 1,000 college campuses and high schools across the United States and has trained law enforcement officers in methods for addressing and dismantling racism in their institutions.
The organizer of the event, Omara Rivera Vazquez, said she specifically picked Wise to be the activist speaker on campus because she has “been impressed by his interviews, speeches, lectures and literature. He does his research.”
Wise proposed that racism in the United States is institutionalized, due to past overt racism in addition to current-day discrimination. Wise said that personal, overt bias is less common than in the past, or at least less openly articulated. Wise said existing institutions proceed to foster and perpetuate white privilege and that subtle, impersonal and even ostensibly race-neutral policies contribute to racism and racial inequality today.
Wise is the author of seven books, including his highly acclaimed memoir, “White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son,” as well as “Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority” and his latest, “Under The Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America.”
According to his website, “Wise’s antiracism work traces back to his days as a college activist in the 1980s, fighting for divestment from apartheid South Africa.”
“Twenty years ago we didn’t have people protesting against such issues,” Wise said.
The 1992 Los Angeles riots, also known as the Rodney King riots, a series of riots, lootings, arsons and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles after police officers who used excessive force against King were acquitted, were the last of these groundbreaking protests against police brutality and racism.
After the interview, Wise said that out of all the colleges he has spoken at, a few stood out as taking initiative to implement his ideas.
“San Diego State [University] was progressive and gave a lot of feedback on social justice, while Furman [University], was more conservative and not aligned with my views,” Wise said. “But still gave feedback and were still very engaged.”
Wise spoke of the frequently proposed method of having police interact with the communities in which they police for 60 to 90 days to help the issues. During this time, they would go to churches, parks and barber shops to develop relationships. Wise spoke of these initiatives to counteract police brutality and racism through the strengthening of relationships between the community and police as he has tried to do for the past 20 years.
One of the first initiatives occurred when he was a college activist following graduation where he worked toward was his dedication into social justice advocacy full time, as a youth coordinator and associate director of the Louisiana Coalition against racism and nazism. The Louisiana Coalition was one of the largest of many groups organized in the early 1990s to defeat the political candidacies of white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Wise said that for racism and police brutality to come to a halt, there needs to be more black heroes talking about the problems and gaining a following that will develop conversations and initiatives to counteract racism and police brutality.
In multi-racial societies such as the U.S., Wise argued that all people 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 said that members of society can challenge this conditioning and be taught to believe in equality.
Oswego State student Jonathon Ashline, who attended the lecture, said he was not familiar with Wise until he heard about the social activist speaking on campus.
“I’ve never heard of him before seeing the flyers on campus,” Ashline said. “I think he spoke very passionately.”
