Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama: Jobs, Housing, Education, Criminal Justice (2009)

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Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama is a non-fiction book by the anti-racist writer and educator Tim Wise, published by City Lights in 2009. In the book Wise argues that the election of Barack Obama did not signal the end of racism in America, writing that his political success could instead "deepen the denial in which so much of the white public has been embedded for generations." Adam Bradley from The Washington Post stated that "the punning title of [Wise's] book, Between Barack and a Hard Place, belies the sobering material within. Wise paints a stark picture of racial inequality in the United States today. . . .Wise's short book reads like an old-school polemic: Thomas Paine's 'Common Sense' for the 21st century. . . . A post-racial United States is an imagined country." Referring to Wise's background as an educator, Media Mouse points to how Wise's book "continues the excellent work around the issue of White Privilege that Wise has pounded home in his books, articles, and public talks across the country." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_Barack_and_a_Hard_Place After graduating in 1990, Wise started his work as an anti-racism activist after receiving training from the New Orleans-based People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. Wise began his anti-racism work first as a youth coordinator, and then associate director, of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, the largest of the various organizations founded for the purpose of defeating political candidate, David Duke, when Duke ran for U.S. Senate and Governor of Louisiana in 1990 and 1991, respectively. After his work campaigning against David Duke, Wise worked for a number of community-based organizations and political groups in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, including the Louisiana Coalition for Tax Justice, the Louisiana Injured Worker's Union and Agenda for Children, where he worked as a policy analyst and community organizer in New Orleans public housing. In 1995, Wise began lecturing around the country on the issues of racism and white privilege and his perceived solutions to them. The following year, he returned to his hometown Nashville, and he continued his work around the US, gaining a national reputation for his work in defense of affirmative action. From 1999 to 2003, Wise served as an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute. Wise received the 2002 National Youth Advocacy Coalition's Social Justice Impact Award. He has appeared on numerous radio and television broadcasts, including The Montel Williams Show, Donahue, Paula Zahn NOW, MSNBC Live, and ABC's 20/20, arguing the case for affirmative action and to discuss the issue of white privilege and racism in America. Wise argues that racism in the United States is institutionalized due to past overt racism (and its ongoing effects) along with current-day discrimination. Although he concedes that personal, overt bias is less common than in the past (or at least less openly articulated), Wise argues that institutions have been set up to foster and perpetuate white privilege, and that subtle, impersonal, and even ostensibly race-neutral policies contribute to racism and racial inequality today. In 2010, Utne Reader magazine listed Wise as one of the "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World." Wise starred in a 2013 documentary entitled White Like Me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Wise