These are short clips of longer speeches, focused on a particular narrow theme. Literally, sound bytes or a little more...

Insights and Outbursts - Volume 1

Race/History

Tim Wise

Tim wise

Black Education

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

My interview, 5/1/14 with Pete Dominick on Sirius XM, discussing race issues for the prior week, including Donald Sterling, Cliven Bundy, and other issues...

Tim Wise on Stand Up With Pete Dominick 5/1/14

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

A snippet of my 2005 speech at Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, discussing the ways in which privilege and the obliviousness that comes with it can leave people dangerously unsafe, whether nationally (as in the case of our reaction to 9/11) or locally (as with the reaction to the shootings at Columbine High School and others).

Why Do They Hate Us - Reflections on the Pathology of Privilege (2005)

This is my MLK Day Speech, 2010, delivered in Summit NJ and Fountain Baptist Church

Tim Wise MLK Speech 2010 - Fountain Baptist Church - Summit NJ

A brief snippet from my 2005 speech at Immanuel Presbyterian Church in L.A. In this clip, I'm discussing the way in which white liberal and left activists sometimes minimize the issue of race and racism within social justice efforts (around the environment, health care and militarism), and the way in which that fractures potential social justice coalitions.

White Liberal/Left Colorblindness and Social Justice (2005)

A brief snip from my January, 1997 MLK presentation at Central Michigan University, in which I briefly note the importance of radical activists in the struggle for social justice.

The Importance of Radicalism (1997)

A very brief snippet from my January, 1997 MLK presentation at Central Michigan University, in which I am contrasting our national reactions to personal evil and violence committed by individuals with our lack of reaction to institutional evil and violence perpetrated by policymakers. One thing that is immediately noticeable about my speaking back then is that I spoke waaay faster back then: partly nerves I am guessing, and also partly the inexperience that causes one not to value the power of a pause...

Personal Versus Institutional Violence (1997)

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)

Just a brief snip from my 2011 speech at Spalding University in Louisville, KY, in which I note the interesting fact that the U.S., despite (or perhaps because of) our relative power and advantage vis-a-vis the rest of the world has the highest rate of anxiety disorders on the planet, and ask what that might mean about the hidden costs of inequality, even for those on the top of the power pyramid...

Privilege, Power and Anxiety: Hidden Costs of Inequality (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)

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 talk at Spalding University in Louisville, KY. In this snippet, I respond to a question about how we should understand or think about biracial and multiracial folks' experiences in a system of racism/white supremacy.

Racism, White Supremacy and Biracial/Multiraciality (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

Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and educators in the United States, and has been called, “One of the most brilliant, articulate and courageous critics of white privilege in the nation,” by best-selling author and professor Michael Eric Dyson, of Georgetown University. Wise, who was named one of “25 Visionaries Who are Changing Your World,” by Utne Reader in 2010, has spoken in all 50 states of the U.S., on over 800 college and high school campuses, and to community groups across the nation. He has also lectured internationally in Canada and Bermuda on issues of comparative racism, race and education, racism and religion, and racism in the labor market.

Wise is the author of six books, including the highly acclaimed memoir, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son; an academic volume on affirmative action, entitled, Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White; an essay collection, entitled, Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male; two books on race and racism in the Obama era, entitled respectively, Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama, and Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity; and his latest, Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority, which examines rising white anxiety in an increasingly multicultural nation. He has contributed essays to twenty-five books, and is one of several persons featured in White Men Challenging Racism: Thirty-Five Personal Stories, from Duke University Press. He received the 2001 British Diversity Award for best feature essay on race issues, and his writings have appeared in dozens of popular, professional and scholarly journals.

Wise has provided anti-racism training to teachers nationwide, and has conducted trainings with physicians and medical industry professionals on how to combat racial inequities in health care. He has also trained corporate, government, entertainment, military and law enforcement officials on methods for dismantling racism in their institutions, and has served as a consultant for plaintiff’s attorneys in federal discrimination cases in New York and Washington State.

In summer, 2005, Wise served as an adjunct faculty member at the Smith College School for Social Work, in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he co-taught a Master’s level class on Racism in the U.S. In 2001, Wise trained journalists to eliminate racial bias in reporting, as a visiting faculty-in-residence at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. From 1999-2003, Wise was an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute, in Nashville, and in the early ’90s he was Youth Coordinator and Associate Director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism: the largest of the many groups organized for the purpose of defeating neo-Nazi political candidate, David Duke. He graduated from Tulane University in 1990 and received antiracism training from the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, in New Orleans.

Wise has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs, is a regular contributor to discussions about race on CNN, and was featured in a segment on ABC’s 20/20, in 2007.

Tim and his wife Kristy are the proud parents of two daughters.