Between Barak and a Hard Place Book Report
Running Head: Between Barak and a Hard Place Book Report
Barak and a Hard Place Book Report
Ruth Amador
Park University – Human Diversity and Social Justice- Professor Esther Palma
Race has always been and continues to be a serious and subtle matter in our nation. Racial inequities are explored in Between Barack and a Hard Place, by Tim Wise, one of the countrie’s most aclaimmed white antiracist activists and educators in the United States. In this book Tim Wise explains how Barack Obama 's political success took the race debate to new levels and how to many whites, validating the American ideology that hard work pays off to anybody and it serves as the perfect example that institutional barriers against blacks no longer exist. But is there any truth in this belief or is it simply a myth? Despite Obama’s success, white privilege and discrimination have not yet vanished, and it affects the black community denying opportunities in each social area. Wise gives numerous of examples in his book on how this barriers are still present today. Tim Wise addresses in this book, the different ways in which racism is still exists in our society. From employment, housing, income, education and even the way in which the black minority are treated when applying for a mortgage to buy a home. Wise gives an anti racist look of what our society has and hasn’t changed after Brack Obama’s presidential election. Tim Wise starts his book talking about how in the American society, institutional discrimination, bigotry and the traditional way of racism has become what he calls “Racism 2.0”. This term is used by Wise to describe successful individual who are part of a minority but who have “transcended their blackness” which allows whites to celebrate the achievements of an individual such as Obama but still show prejudice towards minorities who do not achieve such success. Wise arguments of where we are coming from and where we are when it comes to racism are exceptionally
Barak and a Hard Place Book Report
Ruth Amador
Park University – Human Diversity and Social Justice- Professor Esther Palma
Race has always been and continues to be a serious and subtle matter in our nation. Racial inequities are explored in Between Barack and a Hard Place, by Tim Wise, one of the countrie’s most aclaimmed white antiracist activists and educators in the United States. In this book Tim Wise explains how Barack Obama 's political success took the race debate to new levels and how to many whites, validating the American ideology that hard work pays off to anybody and it serves as the perfect example that institutional barriers against blacks no longer exist. But is there any truth in this belief or is it simply a myth? Despite Obama’s success, white privilege and discrimination have not yet vanished, and it affects the black community denying opportunities in each social area. Wise gives numerous of examples in his book on how this barriers are still present today. Tim Wise addresses in this book, the different ways in which racism is still exists in our society. From employment, housing, income, education and even the way in which the black minority are treated when applying for a mortgage to buy a home. Wise gives an anti racist look of what our society has and hasn’t changed after Brack Obama’s presidential election. Tim Wise starts his book talking about how in the American society, institutional discrimination, bigotry and the traditional way of racism has become what he calls “Racism 2.0”. This term is used by Wise to describe successful individual who are part of a minority but who have “transcended their blackness” which allows whites to celebrate the achievements of an individual such as Obama but still show prejudice towards minorities who do not achieve such success. Wise arguments of where we are coming from and where we are when it comes to racism are exceptionally
References: Rothenberg, P. (2007). Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: 6th Edition. New York, NY: Worth Publishers. Wise, T. (2009). Between Barack and a Hard Place. San Francisco, CA: Citylights Books.