Blog Post # 7 - Between Barack and a Hard Place (Reflection)

          In his video "Between Barack and a Hard Place", Tim Wise talks about topics of white privilege and how schools give advantages to white people and not to African Americans. Several good points were made and made me realize that some statements such as "I don't need to talk about racism, I have many black friends." I used to think this was a completely valid statement, if you have African American friends then you couldn't be racist. But as Wise explains, most people would either lie about this statement or simply state that they had friends but they were really more acquaintances. This with his statistics of white and black people in America made me realize this statement was false.

           Wise also touched on how different professions will practice these racist thoughts and stereotypes. Doctors and brokers will not give the same treatment to black people they give to white people. This was similar to several readings we have read thus far, especially "White Privilege" by Peggy McIntosh. Different racial groups will receive different treatment than white people, for example black people will be more likely to be suspected of shoplifting than white people.

          One of my favorite parts of the speech was that Tim Wise admitted to having racist thoughts. Wise, someone who fights everyday for racial equality in America, still has racist thoughts because he is conditioned to this because of several different factors in society. I was glad that he openly admitted this, and when he talked of the other college in which he did this, several students started sharing different stories of racist experiences. I believe that the first step in order to stopping racism is first admitting that it is prevalent in everyday society. If this first step is accomplished, I believe that these ideas will slowly fade from existence.


This song by Nas talks about the struggles of being brought up in a black community and the struggles such as drugs, gangs, gun violence and several other topics. Warning, contains strong language.