Tim Wise's Blog, page 34

How to Make Sarah Palin Look Rational: Christine O'Donnell's Special Brand of Crazy

Wow, the Tea Partiers just make it so damned easy to ridicule them. Just when you thought nobody could make Sarah Palin look informed by comparison, along comes Christine O'Donnell, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Delaware, she of the "masturbation is a sin" school of evangelical Christian insanity. O'Donnell is such an extreme religious nut that she actually thinks it is always wrong to lie, including LYING TO HITLER ABOUT HAVING JEWS IN YOUR HOUSE during World War Two. That's right...

Tea Party Float Portrays Obama Whipping White Taxpayer…Thanks for the Subtlety!

Amid denials by tea partiers that they are in any way motivated by white racial resentment and racial paranoia (about losing "their" country), comes now the following feast of psychological projection…a Tea Party parade in Yakima, Washington, in which some of those funny, ever ironic white conservatives have a guy dressed in an Obama mask, actually WHIPPING a white guy, wearing a shirt that says "Future Taxpayer." WHIPPING him…Of course, the caption under the You Tube clip assures us that...

Are Angry Conservatives Primed for Violence? Even Against Their Own?

As we head into the fall election season, stories from Nevada and Delaware suggest that some of the loving, peaceful souls in the Tea Party faction of the right are prepared to turn violent if they don't get their way: and not merely against evil liberals and leftists, but against those in their own party who are insufficiently committed to their wingnut world view.

To wit, the GOP chair in Delaware who was threatened with a "bullet in the head" for supporting the establishment Republican...

To My Baby Girl, After the Terror (FLASHBACK ESSAY)

On a day such as this — 9/11 — it is understandable that one might find oneself in a retrospective mood. As I thought about new things I might write, I realized that what I wrote immediately after the event was just as appropriate as anything new I could have said. While I have become a far better writer in the past 9 years, the fact is, these words are real, and raw, and honest. And now looking back and thinking about the passage of time (my daughter, to whom this "letter" was written was...

Review of 'Colorblind' in Indian Press

Just got this excellent and detailed review of my latest book, Colorblind, from the Chandigarh Tribune, in the Chandigarh territory of India (in Northern India), and thought I'd share it.

Crazy White Man Alert! (Or, More Things People of Color Can't Get Away With…)

Hello, my name is Phil Davison. I'm running for office and I live in a van down by the river.

Um, yeah, if by 'live,' you mean, cook up your meth there…Ok, Ok, he didn't say that, about the meth, or the van, or the river, but he perfectly channels the Chris Farley character who did…

Even in the pantheon of crazy ass white men in politics, this guy takes the cake. Any black guy does this, he's shot dead by the end of the first 60 seconds…or at least tasered. I'm really hoping this is a prank...

Asian Unemployment and the Model Minority Myth

Interesting piece today in the L.A. Times regarding the long duration of unemployment faced by Asian Americans during this economic downturn. As you know, white conservatives often use Asian Americans as an example of how "hard work and good cultural values" are all you need to make it in the U.S. They will argue, in keeping with this model minority myth, that blacks and Latinos need to follow the Asian example, rather than complain about racism and discrimination. In fact, they point to...

More on Growing Income Inequality (Series at Slate): The Effect of Immigration

Here is Part Three of Tim Noah's series on growing inequality, posted over at Slate. This piece addresses immigration, and examines whether large scale immigration since 1965 — and especially in the past thirty years — can explain, to any significant degree, that growing income disparity by way of lowering wages at the bottom of the scale. In all, I think Noah does a good job of debunking the idea that immigration has played a major role, even though he cites studies indicating a depressive e...

A Close Look at Growing Income Inequality in the U.S.

Timothy Noah does a great job over at Slate, breaking down the growing income inequality that has marked recent U.S. economic history. Slate is running a multi-part series on the growing income gap, called, The Great Divergence: What's Causing America's Growing Income Inequality? So far, the first and second entries are posted. They are:

Introducing The Great Divergence, and

The Usual Suspects are Innocent

Both are excellent, and I especially appreciate that Noah makes note of the fact that in t...

Tim Wise Interview at Racialicious, Part One: On the Role of the White Antiracist

Recently, Andrea (AJ) Plaid, over at Racialicious interviewed me about a number of subjects: some related to my book, Colorblind, others specific to race and popular culture, and then finally, a question about the role of white antiracists, and particularly my own role in the work against white supremacy. The results of our interview are now being released in two parts on their site, with the first part — the part about white antiracism — coming out today. Here is that segment. The second...