tim wise...

is one crazy bastard.

seriously. i hate him, but man all i can do is agree with him.

suuuuuuuperrr annoying.

he totally pisses me off with something he says and then i turn the page and he's proven himself right and got me actually laughing and agreeing with him, then the next page i think he's is friggin nuts... this goes on for about 150 pages and then the last 2 pages are so inspiring i just wanna go out and be the second Ghandi.

anyway.

i read (am reading) his book White Like Me for my multicultural class (thank goodness for Mike Patch or we'd (8am cohort students) all be dead) and these are a few of my favorite things from the book...

"The most commonly heard refrain from educators, in my experiences with them, is something to the effect that they "treat all kids the same and don't even see color" when they look at them. Putting aside the absurdity of the claim itself - studies have long indicated that we tend to make very fine distinctions based on color, and that we notice color differences almost immediately - color blindness is, in fact, not the proper goal of fair-minded educators in the first place. The kids in those classroos do hav ea race, and their race matters, because it says a lot about the kinds of challenges they are likely to face. To not see color is to not see the consequences of color; and if color has consequences, which is surely does, yet you've resolved not to notice the thing that brings about those consequences, the odds are pretty good that you'll underserve the needs of the students in question, every time."

"All I am suggesting here is that we should live our lives as if justice were possible, too, but wehter or not it is, treat it no differently than one treats one's percieved obligations before God... And let's just be honest: there is no such place called "justice," if by that we envision a finish line, or a point at which the battle is won and the need to continue the struggle is over. After all, even when you succeed in obtaining a measure of justice, you're always forced to mobilize to defend that which you've won. There is no looming vacation. But there is redemption in struggle."

"I have no idea when, or if, racism will be eradicated. I have no idea whether anything I say, do, or write will make the least bit of difference in the world. But I say it, do it, and write it anyway, because as uncertain as the outcome of our resistance may be, the outcome of our silence and inaction is anything but. We know exactly what will happen if we don't do the work: nothing. And given that choice, between certainty and promise, in which territory one finds the measure of our resolve and humanity. I will opt for hope."

"And what is required is that we be prepared to die for our principles if need be, but even more so, to be unafraid to live for them. So let us begin."