Written by Sheriffo Jarju, Blue Sky Graduate Assistant and MBA Candidate
As part of the ongoing BUILD Initiative, Boise State University invited Tim Wise to come to campus and give a presentation entitled, Challenging the Culture of Cruelty: Understanding and Defeating Race and Class Inequality in America.
Wise is a renowned writer and educator with 25 years in the field fighting against racism, institutional inequality, and privilege in the country to benefit marginalized people. Speaking on January 8, 2019, Wise acknowledged in his opening remarks the growth and the positive developments over the past twenty-five to thirty years since he started his activism and advocacy journey towards systematic inequality, racism, and privilege against people of color, the LGBT+ community and women in America.
Wise said that challenging systemic inequality begins with admitting it exists. He offered three takeaways that people can use to grow individual capacity to defeat racial and class inequality- understanding people’s perspective, understanding one’s own subjectivity, and owning personal bias towards minority groups.
First of all, is it important to understand people’s perspective before engaging in any conversation or debate. Wise said that holding open and understanding conversations were a key component of understanding and exploring inequality. “In a conversation with someone who sees things in a different perspective than you see it, you cannot start that conversation with arrogance,” he said. “Always start with the perspective or the view of the other party involved in the conversation, and exercise patience. Ask why he or she thinks negatively or positively toward the topic of discussion. This will help both the speaker and listener to understand one another without undergoing heated debates.”
Additionally, majority groups should work to understand their own subjectivity. Wise asked attendees to picture themselves as parents and how they would feel if one of their kids were subjected to racial injustice. Understanding our blind spots will help us understand people with different viewpoints and how our actions affect others, he said. Wise said we need to work collectively to make this world a better place for all regardless of color, race, gender, religious belief, or country of origin, and it all starts with open discussion. For white people, this means preparing our children about the realities of racial discrimination just as people of color have shared with their children. He also tasked those at the event to be honest about the situation and speak up against privilege and institutional inequality. He asked all to be ready and show solidarity and empathy to anyone who is down due to inequality.
Wise also stated that one must own a personal bias on any issue to be discussed. Owning personal bias opens the conversation without being acrimonious or too harsh to another person’s perspective. There has been a burden on people of color to speak out about how it feels to be black or brown in a society or in an environment. This burden on people of color causes many of them to feel uncomfortable. In his discussion, Wise asked, “Why not ask white folks to start talking about what it takes to be white, especially in this country?” Opening to one’s biases or racism toward people of color gives that minority group the courage to speak up about their own feelings.
In general, keeping an open conversation is a powerful tool to start combating institutional inequality. “People might have different perspectives or thoughts toward an issue, but this should not limit or hinder debate among the people we disagree with,” Wise said. “This helps the parties involved know how the other party came to their conclusion.”