mADneSs!

Cornel West, one of America’s most celebrated and provocative public intellectuals, in conversation with Paul Gilroy (KCL) on Politics and Race.

Professor Cornel West in conversation with Paul Gilroy on Politics and Race

This is a recording of my Feb 10, 2014 presentation at Princeton University. The first 40 minutes is my talk, followed by another 40 minute dialogue with scholar (and Princeton professor) Imani Perry, followed by a Q/A with the audience

Tim Wise At Princeton (With Imani Perry) 2/10/14: Colorblindness and the Myth of Post-Racialism

Tim Wise keynote at MOSAIIC conference, Lyric Theatre and Cultural Arts Center, Lexington KY, (12/5/2014)

"Racism, White Denial and Criminal Justice - Ferguson and Beyond," Lexington KY 12/5/14

My answer to a question at the Lexington KY MOSAIIC conference, December 2014, concerning the connection of regional identity to antiracist commitment...

Tim Wise On Race And The Value Of Southern Identity

Answer to question from my December 2014 speech at the Lyric Theatre in Lexington, KY...

Tim Wise On The Trick Of Whiteness - Historically And Today

My speech at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, April 20, 2015 - a new speech addressing the keys to challenging and eliminating racism as an institutional force.

Bryn Mawr Presbyterian 4 - 20 - 15

My appearance on KCRW to discuss the aftermath of the Charleston massacre and its meaning for the antiracism struggle. Other guests include journalist Jonathan Capehart, author Joshua Dubois, and Janai Nelson of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Black Deaths and White Culture: Fighting Racism After Charleston (KCRW, June 24, 2015)

Ok, so, it's not all that great..and yes, it's in the service of the utterly lackluster and pathetic campaign of Walter Mondale in 1984...but hey, it was against Ronald Reagan (which makes it all worthwhile) and it was my first political speech (outside the confines of competitive debate/forensics), and I was 16, so...you gotta cut me some slack. This is my closing statement in the mock presidential debate of 1984, at Hillsboro High School in Nashville.

Tim Wise, Closing Statement - 1984 Mock Presidential Debate Hillsboro High School, Nashville, TN

A radio-based presentation from 2006, in which I analyze the longstanding tendency for so many white, lower-middle class/working class voters to vote against their apparent economic interests -- by supporting candidates whose economic policies benefit mostly the wealthy -- and attempt to explain why this happens. Specifically, I explore the inadequacies of existing theories to explain this voting behavior (traditional Marxist analysis, as well as modern liberal analyses like those of Thomas Frank), and call for an understanding that places whiteness and white privilege squarely in the middle of the narrative.

What's The Matter With White Folks?

A snippet from my October 2001 speech at Ohio State University, as part of a conference on Building Movements for Social Justice. This clip discusses the ways in which the war on drugs and the criminal justice system function as mechanisms of social control, especially in the post-jim Crow era, and how even our definitions of crime and deviance favor some and disfavor others

Race, Crime and Social Control (2001)

A segment of a longer speech, delivered on September 22, 2011 at Spalding University in Louisville, KY. In this clip, I discuss the ways in which the U.S. political culture is becoming increasingly indifferent to suffering and injustice, whether in the criminal justice system, with regard to health care, war, bullying or any number of other examples. Begins with a discussion of the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia the night before this talk.

Feeling No Pain - America's Deepening Culture of Indifference

Just a short bit about a right-wing spokesperson for the American Family Association, who I had seen downplaying (one might say justifying) anti-gay bullying while wearing an American flag shirt. Thought it was worth noting how apparently wearing the flag on your sweaty-ass body is not desecration but letting it touch the ground or burning it or just failing to salute it is seen as disrespectful by these jackasses...

Desecrating the Flag? (2011)

A brief clip from my 2011 speech at Spalding University in Louisville, KY, in which I note the way that the current economic crisis facing millions of Americans (including millions of whites) has in part been made possible by our prior indifference to the same suffering when it was localized in communities of color for years. In other words, not caring enough about black and brown unemployment and suffering leads to an indifference that eventually bleeds over to the larger society, taking millions of whites down with it. 

White Unemployment: The Collateral Damage of Racial Inequity (2011)

From a 2008 speech, 10 days after the election of Barack Obama as the nation's 44th president. Brief snippet in which I respond to the common argument that Obama's victory means racism can't be a major national problem any longer. Here I explain the difference between individual success and achievement and collective liberation, and why the one does not say much, by necessity about the other.

Overcoming Racism: What Obama's Election Means (and Doesn't) (2008)

Section from a longer 2008 speech, 10 days after the presidential election, in which I discuss how racism of a 2.0 variety -- which I explain in the clip -- may be in full effect despite the election of Barack Obama to the office of the presidency. I also explore how black folks and people of color generally must meet a much higher threshold of acceptability to white voters than white candidates have had to meet, in terms of education, erudition, style and affect, and how the "archetype of acceptable blackness" may become more constricting then ever with the election of President Obama

Racism 2.0 and the Burden of Blackness in the Age of Obama

Brief snippet from longer September, 2011 speech in Louisville at Spalding University. In this clip I discuss the importance of human empathy and the ways in which USAmerican culture devalues it in the name of patriotism and hyper-nationalism.

Empathy, Nationalism and Our Twisted Measures of Greatness (2011)

From my September 2011 speech at Spalding University in Louisville. In this clip I discuss the way in which the U.S. clearly prioritizes incarceration over education, and analyze the systemic logic -- however twisted -- of inequality, and how it is "rational" from the perspective of those who benefit from the economic status quo...

Schools, Prisons and the Disturbing Logic of Inequality (2011)

This is the core of my speech at Georgia State, in Atlanta, in April, 2012, on Racism and Public Health. Here I discuss racial health disparities in the U.S., the way these disparities are ignored, explained away or rationalized by most whites, and the link between racial micro-aggressions and discrimination in health care delivery on the one hand, and worse health outcomes for people of color, on the other. I also discuss the unexpected costs of racial privilege for whites: the downside of developing an entitlement and expectation mentality and the larger societal costs of persistent inequities.

Racism, Public Health and the High Cost of White Denial

A portion of my recent talk at Emerson College, in Boston, MA. This talk was delivered one week to the day after the bombing during the Boston Marathon, which occurred approximately 6 blocks from the school.

Terrorism, Profiling and White:Christian Privilege

A portion of my speech at Emerson College in Boston, one week after the Marathon bombing, in which I discuss the disturbing connection between terrorism and other forms of injustice: economic inequity, the justice system, educational inequity, environmental pollution -- all connected by a mentality of disposability that defines certain people as deserving as others as "less than."

Terrorism, Inequality and the Mentality of Disposability

We are Niggastopheles, if you please. We are Niggastopheles, if you don't please...