WHITE RAGE IS GROWING AS THEY SEE BLACK PEOPLE AS A THREATS TO THEIR POWER & SUPERIORITY - TIM WISE

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]And there's another theory of America and another theory of social change, and that theory lives in a building that is literally two blocks from the new home of Donald Trump.

[00:00:10]It resides in the Museum of African-American History and Culture, which if you have not had the opportunity to visit it, you should take the time, make the effort, and go.

[00:00:23]Because in that building, two blocks roughly, long blocks but still, from Donald Trump's new home, where he will spend at least a little time when he's not locked away in Trump Tower, or Mar-a-Lago, in that building, one sees the alternative version of America.

[00:00:43]And most certainly the alternative version of change in a social context, because what does that building tell us?

[00:00:50]It tells us about a nation that is about pain amid promise, and promise amid pain. It tells of a country where all of the change that has come has been the result of the collective efforts of committed people waiting on no man, on no great leader to solve their problems. When you walk through that museum, you begin to see how change really happens. It does not come from the top, it comes from the bottom.

[00:01:19]It comes from the people. You walk into that museum and you see you begin at the bottom level. They go down 10 stories and start at the bottom with the enslavement of African peoples and work up. It is both symbolic and more than that. It is suggestive of how history unfolds and how change happens, and by the time you get up there, several levels above, right, you begin to see how the collective change, everything that has made this country anything remotely worth defending or supporting has been the result of the collective action of people who would not settle for the great man.

[00:01:59]Who would not settle for the great leader. Who would not settle for the empty promises and the rhetoric of fools.

[00:02:08]And so you come into one part and here's I don't want to spoil it for you, but tickets are hard to get right now, so it might be a minute before you get in. So I'm going to tell you what I have to tell you.

[00:02:19]There's a part where you come in there's a statue of Thomas Jefferson.

[00:02:23]And it's dark. The lighting's about like it is in this room. It's on purpose.

[00:02:28]Right?

[00:02:30]Statue of Jefferson and behind him on the wall lit up quite a bit better than his statue, right? Is an engraving on the wall of words from the Declaration of Independence, which he wrote, of course.

[00:02:46]At least most of it.

[00:02:48]And the first part of that, right? All men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

[00:02:54]Among these life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, right?

[00:02:58]And those words are lit up.

[00:03:01]And his statue is in the dark and behind him is something even darker. There's like this structure and you can't quite tell what it is when you first come in. It's like these sort of dark looks like boxes of some sort. Almost like the size of shoe boxes and they're all painted dark and you don't quite know what they are and you get a little closer and you begin to see that they're shoe box size bricks, basically, right?

[00:03:27]>> What's up, guys? Welcome back to the channel once again. Now, guys, Tim Wise, he is one of the few white Americans who openly speak about systemic racism and inequality in America. Whether people agree with everything he say or not, one thing you cannot deny is that he is willing to have uncomfortable conversation that many people avoid.

[00:03:53]Now, Tim Wise is coming out and talk about American history, racism, political division, and how powerful people have often used race to divide ordinary people. He also explain why understanding history matters if people truly want change in society. And also, Tim Wise is coming out and delivering a devastating speech as white Americans now feel black are taking over. So, I want you to continue watching this powerful speech and I'll be back with more comment at the end. Like bricks.

[00:04:34]They're intended to be bricks.

[00:04:36]And they all have names on them.

[00:04:40]And you get a little closer and you look at what the names are.

[00:04:44]And if you don't figure it out within a few seconds, the docents will be happy to tell you what the names and bricks represent, if you haven't figured it out already, right?

[00:04:54]And all of those bricks, hundreds of them, represent the human beings owned by the man who wrote those words that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.

[00:05:05]So, you see, truth and justice doesn't come from the great man.

[00:05:13]Because that man whom we consider quite great in our American history owned hundreds of other human beings, violated his own principles. The only reason we're here today is cuz black folks believed his words more than he believed his words. Know that.

[00:05:28]>> [applause] >> And then you move on, and you see some other things. There's an auction block from which human beings were sold by great men, quote-unquote. An auction block on which we're told Andrew Jackson once stood to give a speech.

[00:05:50]Nat Turner's Bible is there.

[00:05:53]There's an axe handle used to belong to Lester Maddox, segregationist governor of Georgia, who used to, before he was governor, run folks out of his restaurant with an axe handle who were black.

[00:06:06]And you're reminded as you walk through this place, Emmett Till's casket is there.

[00:06:12]You're reminded of something very important for us right now, and never forget it.

[00:06:17]And what is that lesson?

[00:06:19]That lesson is that folks of color have been overcoming bigger and badder than Donald John Trump for a long ass time. And if you think >> [applause] >> If you think for even 1 minute that this thing is done If you think for even 1 minute that folks of color are going to fold when they didn't fold for Bull Connor, when they didn't fold for Jim Clark on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, when they didn't fold when Martin and Malcolm and Medgar were murdered, when they didn't fold when Fannie Lou Hamer was beaten in the jail in Ruleville, I promise you you have not studied this country's history and you do not know black and brown people. So, this thing right here >> [applause] [applause] >> This thing right here is just beginning.

[00:07:17]This is not the end of anything, it's the start.

[00:07:20]So, welcome to the resistance, and here we go.

[00:07:26]>> [applause] >> So, what does this mean in real terms? See, here's the thing.

[00:07:34]This is what concerns me.

[00:07:37]Having said everything that I just said, I also importantly want to point out that this is not about Donald Trump.

[00:07:46]It's just a recent manifestation of some really old [ __ ] You know, if you saw the SNL skit like the week after the election, right?

[00:07:56]Chappelle and Chris Rock on the show, right? These white folks up in their crib in Brooklyn were all freaking out.

[00:08:02]They're like, "How could this happen? My god! How did How are people this racist?" And see the two black folks were like, "Really? Y'all are shocked by this?" Like This was like, "We just call this Monday, you know? This is" People of color weren't really shocked.

[00:08:17]That's not to say that people of color aren't upset now.

[00:08:20]There's a difference between being surprised that it happened and shocked.

[00:08:24]Maybe folks didn't think it was going to happen, but that doesn't mean that you were like, "Oh my god! How is this possible?" Right? You know, like Things happen, right?

[00:08:33]And so, we got to understand that even though some of this stuff is new in the sense of maybe the level of extremity or the level of danger that we're looking at right now because of some historic circumstances, some of this stuff is really old.

[00:08:49]Like the struggle right now isn't really that different than the struggle 6 months ago.

[00:08:54]It's not really that different than the struggle a year ago or 3 years ago or 5 years ago. The struggle for police accountability it's not any different. It may be harder, right? With an administration that is not going to investigate police unaccountability the same way. This is not going to attempt to hold police accountable for the things that they do nearly as much even as the last one. The last one didn't do enough either.

[00:09:19]But these folks probably not going to do it. That's That's a problem, but the struggle is the same. You understand?

[00:09:23]Even if the ability to find allies in high places is less, that doesn't change the struggle itself. We still make the same arguments. We still mobilize in the same way.

[00:09:34]And so, if unarmed black folks are three times more likely than unarmed white folks to be shot, and that is a fact nationwide, then the struggle is the struggle whether Donald Trump is president or not, right?

[00:09:47]If racial profiling is such that people of color are three to four times more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs even though white folks are twice as likely to have drugs on us on the occasion when we're searched, and that's a fact, the struggle is the same whether Donald Trump is the president or not. So, some of this isn't really new, and I want us to understand that because I don't want us to get knocked off stride by the idea that the struggles are now the result of this administration. This stuff has been going on for a very long time. Most importantly, and here's the really key thing, right?

[00:10:24]The very election of this man, based on the rhetoric and the narrative that he spun, is America 101.

[00:10:34]Because if I had to explain to you in one phrase the history of this country with regard to race and with regard to class, this would be the phrase.

[00:10:44]The whole history of America is the history of rich white men telling not rich white people that their problems are caused by brown and black people.

[00:10:56]That is the whole history of America.

[00:10:58]All the rest, as they say, is commentary, right? It's all footnote from there. Right? The whole history of America is rich white men, or at least men who say they're rich. Now, we don't really know, do we?

[00:11:11]>> [laughter] >> We don't really know.

[00:11:16]He inherited, not even inherited, took over a $237 million real estate empire from his daddy, but likes you to believe he is a self-made man, all right?

[00:11:27]Give me $237 million worth of assets, and I will probably become rich still.

[00:11:34]Doesn't take a lot of skill. It would take a hell of a lot of skill to lose all that dough. So, I'm not sure we need to applaud the man for that, but whatever. He says he's rich, and for the sake of my argument, I'm just going to give it to him cuz it helps my history lesson. So, we'll stick with it. Rich white men telling not rich white people that their problems are brown people. That [ __ ] goes back 400 years.

[00:11:56]All right? Go back to the 1600s.

[00:12:00]What do we see in the colonies of what would become the United States? We see rich white people who are very not even called First of all, they're not called white yet.

[00:12:08]Cuz we hadn't created that [ __ ] yet.

[00:12:11]Right? We hadn't thought of that.

[00:12:14]See, that was some other stuff. We came up with that. We hadn't thought of that yet. We were just There were some rich European people who owned all the land, and among them were what? African enslaved folks and European peasants, many of them indentured servants, right?

[00:12:26]Just one level above enslavement themselves.

[00:12:29]And they outnumbered the rich dramatically. In some places, five to one, 10 to one. Other places, two to one, but always outnumbered the rich.

[00:12:35]The rich were always a very small percentage. Just like right now, the top 1/10 of 1% of Americans owns the same amount of stuff as the bottom 90%.

[00:12:43]Wealth inequality's not really new. It's been the legacy of America. Might be more extreme right now than it's been in the contemporary period, but at the outset of the colonies, that was normative.

[00:12:53]So, you had this handful of rich folks from Europe facing poor Europeans and African enslaved folks and indigenous peoples whose land they were seeking to conquer, and they began to realize something.

[00:13:04]They were like, holy hell, like this is not going to work forever.

[00:13:09]Like, at some point, these folks are going to figure out that this is sort of shitty for them. Like, they're going to want to take our stuff.

[00:13:18]All right? Because they're going to realize we're hurting all of them, not just enslaved African folk and indigenous folk, but even these poor European folks. So, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do?

[00:13:27]We got to come up with something, man.

[00:13:29]We got to have some kind of a a game that we can run on them. What's the game? I We got a game. We came up with a game. The game was called the white race.

[00:13:39]Right, this game was called let's create this new fictional thing. Cuz we're going to call all these European people white people. Now, you know that's like not real, right?

[00:13:48]You think that Europeans thought of themselves as one big happy family?

[00:13:52]This is what's so funny about these white nationalists that are coming out of the woodwork in the wake of the Trump campaign. They act like whiteness has some historical pedigree.

[00:14:01]The hell. You think Europeans loved each other?

[00:14:05][ __ ] man. We spent most of our time trying to kill each other.

[00:14:09]The English hated the Irish. The Irish hated the English. Northern Italians didn't even think that southern Italians were Italians.

[00:14:17]Germans hated everybody.

[00:14:20]>> [laughter] >> And the world felt the same damn way about them.

[00:14:26]Europeans spent most of our time trying to kill each other or in the colonies of what became the United States trying to figure out who the witch was. That's the history of Europeans.

[00:14:37]You're a witch. Well, you're a warlock.

[00:14:40]Well, we're going to we're going to burn you with the stake for not worshiping our lord the right way. That's sort of what we did, right?

[00:14:50]So, the idea that we were one big team called white people is absurd. Whiteness became a concept created for one reason only.

[00:14:59]And that was to sucker poor, working class, immiserated, peasant Europeans into believing that they actually were on the same team as rich people.

[00:15:12]So, if you tell them, oh, well, you know, you're white now.

[00:15:16]Oh, yeah, I know. Wow.

[00:15:19]We've been kicking your ass forever, but uh now we're going to put you on the slave patrol. Oh, yeah.

[00:15:26]>> [clears throat and snorts] >> We're going to give you a horse and a badge and a gun and let you keep those black people in line for us, right? And these working-class white folks on the slave patrol, the ancient precursor, if you will, to modern policing, right?

[00:15:42]Working-class folks. See, cuz the police ain't rich and neither were the folks on the slave patrol.

[00:15:48]It was who rich people hired to protect their [ __ ] from everybody else.

[00:15:53]So, you get these poor white folks, put them on a horse to control enslaved people to do what? To ask for their papers when you see them out. Let me see your papers. Let me see your identification. Who do you belong to?

[00:16:03]Ultimate stop and frisk 16 and 1700 style.

[00:16:08]Racial profiling 16 and 1700 style.

[00:16:11]Right? Prove that you belong in this community. Show me that you're legitimately in this community. Prop 187 1600 and 1700 style. Anti-immigration [ __ ] 1600 and 1700 style.

[00:16:25]>> [applause] >> And it was poor and working-class white folks that got pulled into that because what? It made them feel like they're part of the team. Oh, I'm on the team now. I'm white now.

[00:16:36]For real, cuz these other white folks, they don't love you.

[00:16:39]They would starve you. They did back in the old country, but now they gave you a taste of power. They gave you what W.E.B. Du Bois called what? The psychological wage of whiteness.

[00:16:49]Right? And that [ __ ] won't pay your bills, but it'll make you feel better. It puffs you up, right? It's like, I mean, I have much, but at least I'm not black.

[00:16:58]I mean, I have much, but at least I'm not indigenous. I mean, I have much, but at least I'm not Mexican when we jack half of their country in a war of aggression that we started.

[00:17:07]I know that's not >> [applause] >> I know I know I know that's not what they taught you in the grade, but that's how that [ __ ] actually went down.

[00:17:20]You may not have much, but at least you're not Chinese brought to work on the railroads and build them from dust to dawn and dawn to dusk to build the transcontinental economy of this country. So, you may not have much, but at least you're better than them, see?

[00:17:34]And so, you create that mentality. You divide and conquer working-class coalitions. You give European people just a little bit of taste of power and say, "Those are your enemy." And then that [ __ ] works for generations.

[00:17:47]And then we come up to the Civil War era, right?

[00:17:50]And it's still working.

[00:17:53]Right? My folks from the South, I'm from the South, lived in the South all my life.

[00:17:58]And the only difference between those of us from the South and the rest of y'all is we know that our [ __ ] stinks, see?

[00:18:07]For real, like those of us in the South who are white, we know we have an issue.

[00:18:13]White folks in California not always clear on that, so y'all need to get clear.

[00:18:17]>> [applause] >> So, the Confederacy decides what these elite rich white landowners in the South decide they got to break away from the Union.

[00:18:34]And they made clear why they did it now.

[00:18:37]150 years later, we lie about it. My people lie about it. We act like it wasn't about slavery. Oh my goodness, no.

[00:18:44]Wasn't about wasn't about that. It was about states' rights.

[00:18:49]Well, what right do you think they were fighting for, buttercup?

[00:18:54]Do you think they were fighting for the right to determine the proper recipe for a mint julep?

[00:19:01]The proper way to smoke a pork butt?

[00:19:04]>> [laughter] >> No, they were fighting for one right only, the right to own other human beings and to extend ownership into those newly conquered territories to the west as a result of that illegal war with Mexico, etc. So, had nothing to do with states' rights in the abstract. The Confederate leaders said so at the time. They said, Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, "The cornerstone of this new government is the idea, the great truth, that the negro is not the equal of the white man." That's what he said. He didn't talk about trade policy.

[00:19:33]He didn't talk about tariffs. He didn't try to lard it up with a bunch of [ __ ] He just said straight up it was white supremacy cuz they weren't ashamed at the time. Now, we've reinvented history act like that's not it. But, at the time they were clear.

[00:19:44]Now, here's the trick though. Here's the trick. This is where it gets crazy cuz when you got a bunch of rich folks that are saying, "We need to go to war to protect our property interest in human beings, but now we're not going to fight."

[00:20:00]>> [laughter] >> CUZ RICH PEOPLE DON'T GO TO WAR.

[00:20:06]Rich people not going to fight.

[00:20:08]Whether it's in 1861 or in 1969, rich folks don't go to war. Rich folks get doctors to write [ __ ] notes saying they have heel spurs so they don't have to go to war.

[00:20:23]>> [applause] >> And if you don't know who I'm talking about, Google that [ __ ] when we're done.

[00:20:33]Rich people don't ever fight to protect their stuff.

[00:20:36]Rich people don't believe in fighting.

[00:20:38]They believe in getting poor people to fight for them.

[00:20:41]Every time, every year, every generation, it's poor folks that get sent off to fight and die for rich folks' stuff. And so, the rich in the south sent poor people, but how do you do that? How do you convince poor white people to go fight to protect your property interest in slaves? That's a tough trick, right? Cuz why would you do that, right? Like, why would you go fight for a rich person's property?

[00:21:01]Like, I I'm not rich, but I you know, I got a nice house. And for those of you who were students, just cuz like you're students, I probably got more than you.

[00:21:07]So, even though I'm not rich, right? I'm just saying like probably, you know, cuz I've been a little older, I've been around a minute. So, if I were to call y'all up on the phone next week cuz there was like an enemy army invading my block or some [ __ ] and I was like, "Hey y'all, look, there's an army. They're coming here. They got tanks and [ __ ] and they're about to take my stuff, but I don't feel like fighting cuz I just want to sit out on the back porch and have a drink.

[00:21:31]Why don't y'all come and protect my stuff for me? You'd be like, "Yeah, I like the speech and all that, but no."

[00:21:35]Like that would be it. Like you wouldn't do it. But these poor Southerners and working-class Southerners without a pot to piss in in the South, they went and fought and hundreds of thousands of them died to protect the property of the rich. Why? Because the rich said, "Hey, if these folks get free, they're going to take your job."

[00:21:56]No, fool. They already have your job.

[00:21:59]You get that, right? Cuz if you're white and you got to charge a dollar a day to work on that farm, but the owner can get the black guy or the black woman to do it for free because they own them, guess who gets the gig? The free labor, right? Cuz people like free, right?

[00:22:15]Given a choice between free, don't cost me anything, and a dollar a day, guess what? The white guy didn't get the job.

[00:22:20]So, in effect, white poor folks would have been better off to help overthrow the system of enslavement and white supremacy and work for a better economic deal, >> [applause] >> but rich rich white people held out that psychological wage of whiteness that said, "You may not have much, but at least you're above them."

[00:22:40]And then folks settled for that. Fast forward to the labor union movement.

[00:22:44]Same thing was happening. You had rich corporate owners that actually collaborated with some union leaders in many cases to keep unions segregated.

[00:22:54]Now, that's interesting, isn't it? Why would a labor leader fall for that?

[00:22:57]Right? Because you got to think about it, but they did because they would say, "Oh, well, we can't have we can't have black people and Mexicans and Chinese labor in our unions. It'll reduce the professionalism of the working class.

[00:23:09]No, fool. It'll double the size of your union.

[00:23:14]Right? Which is sort of a good thing.

[00:23:15]Like when you go out on strike, it'd be good if you had more people.

[00:23:19]Not fewer.

[00:23:20]Just like a math problem, you know.

[00:23:23]And also because if you don't bring people of color into your union, what's the boss going to do?

[00:23:28]The very boss that encouraged you to fight amongst yourselves, that boss is going to hire the very same black and brown folks that you didn't want in your union to replace your happy white ass.

[00:23:39]And then you're going to get mad at who?

[00:23:40]The boss? No, you're going to get mad at the black and brown labor who {quote} took your job. See, some [ __ ] doesn't change.

[00:23:49]Rich white folks telling not rich white people that their jobs got taken by people of color.

[00:23:55]Fast forward to the present. We got somebody swearing that if we can just build that wall, just build that wall, just but just that one wall on the southern border cuz we don't trip about this one. We we just trip about this one, not that one.

[00:24:08]>> [applause] >> We don't We're not worried.

[00:24:15]I guess we're not worried about crafty Canadians trying to figure out how to sneak into this country to take advantage of our superior health care.

[00:24:28]Right?

[00:24:29]We're just worried about these folks, but it's not about race. Remember, it's not about race. It's just about legal and illegal, even though 40% of the people in this country who were {quote} undocumented didn't even cross the border.

[00:24:41]They're not undocumented at the time they cross any border. They came on legal visas, be they work visas or educational visas, overstayed those visas. A disproportionate number of those are not in fact from south of that border. They are overwhelmingly disproportionately from places like Canada, like Europe, not from Mexico, Central and South America, but we scapegoat some and not the others because again, it's about rich white folks or presumptively rich white folks telling not rich white people that their problems are brown.

[00:25:09]It has nothing to do with facts, and by the way, >> [applause] >> the idea that if you build a wall, jobs are coming back, for real? Do y'all Does anybody understand economics at all?

[00:25:23]Do you actually think that like the nation's capitalist are sitting around just waiting they're like, "Holy [ __ ] I hope they don't figure out that they could just build a wall."

[00:25:32]>> [laughter] >> Do you actually think the capitalist are like, "We've got them. We've been screwing them for years. We haven't been paying them right. We've been you know, like not giving them benefits, but damn it, if they build that wall, we're going to have to give them all a raise."

[00:25:43]Really?

[00:25:44]You think that's how it works? You build a wall and then all of a sudden the jobs come back. No, the wall doesn't stop capital from moving.

[00:25:52]Neither does a tweet, by the way.

[00:25:56]An angry tweet doesn't actually cause a company to change its plans.

[00:26:02]If you think that an angry tweet makes a multinational corporation decide, "Oh, holy hell. Well, the you know, he's mad at me on Twitter, so I guess we'll just keep the jobs here." You you know nothing about economics at all, right? A tweet's not going to change neither is a wall going to change capital mobilization. Capital's always going to be free to cross borders.

[00:26:24]Goods are always going to be free to cross borders in search of the highest price, capital in search of the highest return. The only thing a wall does is chain labor to its country of origin. And if you have a policy that chains labor to its country of origin, but allows capital to move wherever the hell it wants, so I can still move my company south of the border. I can still move to Sri Lanka to take advantage of less labor protection, environmental protection, et cetera. All you've done is tilt the game against labor permanently, and not just labor south of the border, but labor north of the border as well. Labor in this country would be far better off to have more folks here who were fighting for justice, who were fighting for better wages, who were fighting for better benefits, not something like a wall or a deportation policy that would limit the ability of those folks to mobilize for radical change. That is not a pro-worker policy, but it is very much in keeping with the mentality that says to those non-rich white folks, your problems are those people. And as long as we can keep folks thinking that, we're not dealing with the real problems.

[00:27:25]As long as we can keep people focused on that. See, that's the divide and conquer mentality that has existed for generations. There is nothing new about it, and we've been falling for it for hundreds of years to our own detriment.

[00:27:38]So, we have to be prepared to actually deal with that. What does that mean?

[00:27:41]What does it mean to not know that history? See, it's not just a history lesson.

[00:27:46]Right? It also helps to explain what's going on right now. History, sometimes we don't get why it's relevant, you know? We sit in classes learning history, and we think like, why do I need to know this stuff?

[00:27:58]And I understand, cuz a lot of times it's taught in a very sterile kind of way, and sort of boring way, and it's like, why do I need to know this, right?

[00:28:05]Why is this important? Why can't we just ignore this? Well, a lot of reasons why you can't just as one little point, cuz you know, white folks, we love to do this, right? White white folks, particularly around race, we like to say things like, why can't black people just get over it? Like, slavery was a long time ago, and All [snorts] right?

[00:28:27]Why can't they just move on? Well, this is sort of precious coming from people who set off fireworks every July 4th.

[00:28:34]Cuz that's some old [ __ ] too, right?

[00:28:37]Like Independence Day, that didn't happen last week, right? We didn't break away from the British last Thursday.

[00:28:43]That's some old [ __ ] But, we're still celebrating that. So, when it's stuff that makes us feel good, we love it.

[00:28:49]When it's stuff that makes us feel better than others, superior, like we're the greatest people in the greatest country ever struck off in the forehead of God Almighty, oh, we'll remember that forever.

[00:28:57]We just don't like the stuff that brings us up a little short, makes us look a little less than superior, maybe not quite as good as we'd like to believe.

[00:29:03]If you don't understand why the past affects the present, particularly around issues like enslavement, putting aside the inheritance of wealth and the lack thereof, part of which is certainly an explanation for why currently the median white wealth is 15 times the median African-American wealth and 11 to 12 times the median Latino wealth, certainly that has something to do with history, who had access to resources and who didn't. But, putting aside that, let's just understand something. The only reason Donald Trump is president right now is because of a little thing called the Electoral College, which was put in place by folks. See, we got this revisionist history that we've been spinning for the last couple of months about the Electoral College. Oh, you know, it was put in there to prevent tyranny. For real? You think?

[00:29:45]Do you really think that?

[00:29:47]Cuz I don't think that.

[00:29:49]Now, that might have been one of the things that folks were concerned about, but it was also put in because folks like the folks in Virginia, in the bigger slaveholding states, right? Didn't want direct democracy or anything even remotely like it because it would have hurt them because so much of their population was not enfranchised, right? So much of their population, in some areas, 40% or over half of the people in some of those slaveholding states were what?

[00:30:16]Disenfranchised, counted as 3/5 of a human being, not considered people. And if you had anything remotely resembling direct democracy, those states would have been harmed by that. So, in fact, the Electoral College was in part a compromise with slaveholding states, states who were dependent upon enslavement as a mechanism of economic development so as to improve their political position vis-à-vis non-slaveholding states.

[00:30:39]So, if you you understand how slavery, cuz this is the point, right? Even if you don't think racism was key to Donald Trump's own campaign, which, you know, suggests to me that you might have been asleep for the last several months, even if you believe that, understand that racism in the 1700s white supremacy embedded in the structure of the country at the founding of the country is most definitely implicated in his election because without the obeisance to the Electoral College, without that compromise, we know he would not be president right now. So, that is why we have to think about the past, and that is why the past affects the present. See, inertia is not just a property of the physical universe. It is also a property of the socioeconomic and the political universe that we have to address.

[00:31:27]And it's important for us to address that as a systemic matter. See, this is the other problem we talk about race and racism, right? That I think we got to move through if we're going to be effective.

[00:31:37]Because ever since the election, it's been very, you know, it's easy, I suppose, for people to and they ask me this a lot, and you've probably, you know, sort of come up upon these kind of conversations where people are, you know, "Do you think Donald Trump's a racist? Donald Trump a racist? Are all of his supporters racist?" All of these are the wrong questions.

[00:31:54]Right? It isn't really about whether he's a racist or whether his supporters are racist or not. I I would never, first of all, assume that all of anybody's supporters are anything, right? I mean, that would just be ignorant. I would never say like, "Oh, the only reason you would ever vote for Donald Trump is because you're a bigot."

[00:32:09]Look, not only are not all of Donald Trump's supporters racist, not all of Hillary Clinton's aren't racist.

[00:32:16]Let's be clear about that.

[00:32:18]>> [applause] >> And in fact, in 2008, look, in 2008, I remember there were polls that came out like a month before the election, right? Where something like 28% of white Democrats who said, and I assume they were telling the truth, that they were going to vote for Barack Obama in a month or 6 weeks or whatever it was, 28% of white Democrats 6 weeks out from the election said, "Yeah, I'm going to vote for that guy." But they acknowledged to pollsters that they still believed at least one if not several racist stereotypes of black people to be true.

[00:32:55]So, what does that mean, right? It means like, "Yeah, I don't like a lot of them, but that one's okay."

[00:33:01]Right? It's racism 2.0, but it, you know, it's some updated software, but it's running on the old mainframe, you know, it's some of the same old [ __ ] You just sort of repurposed it, you know, repackaged it. But if I believe that the larger group is dysfunctional, the fact that I carve out an exception for one guy, right, or a handful of people doesn't change it, it's still racist. So, this isn't about like, "Oh, this person is awful and this person is great." And these people are awful and these people are great. We're all the mix of awful and great.

[00:33:30]It's the reality, right? We've all been conditioned to be racist and to be sexist and to be classist and all of this stuff, right?

[00:33:36]We We've been hit with that stuff ever since we were kids. So, none of us are completely free from that. That's that the idea that we can divide ourselves into like the racist and the un-racist is just nonsense, right? It's not about that.

[00:33:50]It's like if we ask if Donald Trump is a racist, it's sort of like asking if a drug dealer is also an addict.

[00:33:59]I don't know.

[00:34:01]And I don't care.

[00:34:02]Right? It's like with Donald Trump, it's like I don't know if he gets high on his own supply, but I know what he's selling.

[00:34:09]Right? So, at some point, whether or not he's a racist, if he's actually manipulating on the basis of race, if he's using race and racial resentment and racial anxiety in order to get elected, that action is racist. It's not about somebody's core character.

[00:34:27]And this is something that the right has been manipulating for a very long time.

[00:34:29]Go Go to 1981. There's a audio recording. You can Google this and listen to it yourself. 1981 Lee Atwater who was for a long time, probably before Karl Rove, the most prominent conservative Republican consultant of the modern era.

[00:34:48]He had worked for Reagan. He worked for George H.W. Bush. He worked for all the sort of leading conservative Republican candidates through the '80s and into the '90s. He has since died of cancer and um but before all of that, before he got sick, when he was still very much embedded in Republican conservative politics, 1981, there's an audio tape of him where he actually admits this as a strategy, right? He actually is on the tape saying, "Listen, you know, back in the 1950s, you could say and you know, it's the N-word. I'm not going to say it." He says it in the tape like three times. You know, he says it over and over and over again.

[00:35:23]And then he says, "But by the '60s, you know, late '60s, you can't say that word anymore. It gets you in trouble. So, you start using other words like states' rights and crime and welfare, right? And taxes, right?" And he says, "And now you're getting so abstract, it sounds like it's all just about economics, but the real purpose and the point here is that black people get hurt worse than white people."

[00:35:44]So, he's admitting this isn't what This isn't me saying this about right-wing folks. It's not me saying like that's what they're doing, right? It's not Ian Haney-López, the author of Dog Whistle Politics, saying this is what they're doing. It's the guy who's actually originated the theory and the practice who's saying, "Yeah, this is the [ __ ] that we do."

[00:36:03]We just make up words and make up concepts and we sucker people with these ideas to actually hurt black folks. That is what we do.

[00:36:14]Now, Lee Atwater apologized for some of that before he died. Other folks have not. They keep doing it.

[00:36:19]Right? And so, when Donald Trump gets up and says, "Now, see the difference, right? Is that like there's a difference cuz Atwater was all about the dog whistle and Trump is like about the bullhorn, right?

[00:36:30]Like the dog whistle is he used coded language, but Trump was just like screw it, Mexicans are rapists.

[00:36:37]Right? And we're going to stop Muslims.

[00:36:39]He didn't really learn all Atwater's lessons. Like Atwater would have been like, dude, just like could you could we talk a minute? Like you're not you're not really doing this right. Like you you need to pull back. But by the end of the campaign he was learning, right?

[00:36:52]Sort of what he would he would talk about um when he when he would address black folks, right? Of course he never actually addressed black folks. He would he would go into white suburbs around black cities and talk to white people about black people.

[00:37:04]So he went to the suburbs of Milwaukee and had all white audience where he talked about the inner city, which is just interesting phrase, right? Cuz we haven't used that phrase to describe urban space in like 25 years. So he's still stuck in the mentality of, you know, 25 to 30 years ago. He's like, the inner city is full of carnage and it's falling apart. Everything's terrible.

[00:37:24]You can't walk out the street without getting shot. Now, at the time, remember everybody said, oh, you know what he's trying to do? He's trying to signal to people that he really cares about the black folks.

[00:37:34]He's trying to signal to those suburban white folks who might want to vote for him, but they're sort of like, oh, I think he's racist, that he's not cuz he cares about the black That wasn't what he was doing.

[00:37:45]Right? What he was doing by reminding white folks about how dangerous and dysfunctional and pathological and horrible black folks in the city were was he was reinforcing their stereotypes and saying to them, I'm the one that can solve this problem. He wasn't signaling concern for those communities. He was scape And he was lying.

[00:38:07]He was lying because in fact violent crime in this country, including in black communities, is roughly half of what it was in the early '90s. That is a fact.

[00:38:18]And you can look it up, and you can argue with him, and he will ignore it because facts are fungible to him.

[00:38:26]And yes, there's been an uptick in the last 2 years in about half of the large metropolitan areas, but the other half there's been no increase or even a decline in violent crime. Overall, violent crime down. Violent crime even in Chicago a third below what it was in the early '90s. Violent crime in Los Angeles 40% below what it was in the early 1990s or 50% below. Crime in Washington D.C. at a level it hasn't been seen since 1965. Black male homicide rates lower today than they were in 1950. Now, that is what is factual.

[00:38:59]But we don't want to know about that because we want to paint certain communities as inherently dysfunctional, out of control, filled with carnage cuz then we can turn our will over to the great man who can solve all those problems. How? Because he says we're going to do stop and frisk. We're going to turn the police loose.

[00:39:14]Just like we did in New York cuz it worked so well. Stop and frisk, he says, worked so well in New York. Did it really?

[00:39:20]No, it didn't work. First of all, it's unconstitutional as hell. That's why it was thrown out.

[00:39:24]But more importantly, it didn't work at all.

[00:39:27]88% of the people that were stopped were people of color.

[00:39:31]Right?

[00:39:32]And only 6% of the people stopped even got a citation for jaywalking.

[00:39:39]Right? 94% of the time they hadn't done anything.

[00:39:43]6% of the time they got a citation for something, usually a very minor offense.

[00:39:47]Half of those got thrown out in court because there wasn't enough evidence to sustain the charge. So, ultimately, 97% of the people stopped, and we're talking millions of people over a 14-15 year period, hadn't done anything.

[00:40:00]But Donald Trump says it worked fabulously. No, that fabulous is too big a word. He said it worked wonderfully.

[00:40:05]It was awesome. It was amazing. It was great. It was fantastic. It was the best.

[00:40:13]I mean, there's a thesaurus. It has other words.

[00:40:16]>> [laughter] >> I'm sure there's one in the Oval Office.

[00:40:22]Right?

[00:40:23]He says, "It was great. It worked wonderfully." It didn't work because hardly anyone was guilty of anything.

[00:40:28]The theory was it was a good way to get drugs off the street. Well, they only found drugs in 1.2% of all searches.

[00:40:34]It's not very effective. They actually found drugs more often on the white folks they searched than the black and brown folks they searched. So, in other words, the hit rates were better when you stop white people, but they kept stopping black and brown folks disproportionately. So, that's some pretty shitty crime control, right?

[00:40:51]Tells you that the war on drugs ain't about drugs, right? But, actually we know that, right? Like, I know that cuz the war on drugs was about drugs, I don't know who'd be giving this talk to you, but uh >> [laughter] >> sure as hell wouldn't be me.

[00:41:07]Cuz I don't think they let you Skype that [ __ ] in from prison.

[00:41:12]And I can tell you this now because the statute of limitations has expired and they can't touch me, but >> [laughter] >> right?

[00:41:20]>> [applause] >> Oh, Jesus, don't don't applaud that. Like, WHAT IS THAT?

[00:41:24]LIKE, OH, WHITE PRIVILEGE DRUG USE, AWESOME.

[00:41:28]I'm going to go get high tonight. That's no, don't don't applaud that. That's horrible. I mean it's a laugh line. It's not an applause line. Jesus.

[00:41:39]Right?

[00:41:40]But, it's true.

[00:41:42]Right?

[00:41:43]So, 1.2% of the time they found drugs, not a very good anti-drug strategy. The other folks, like the chief of police who brought the program in, said, "Oh, it's a great way to get guns off the street." Really?

[00:41:54]Okay, so in the 9 years that were under review in the court case on stop-and-frisk, they had 4 and 1/2 million stops under review over the 9-year period. You know how many guns they found out of 4 and 1/2 million stops? They found >> So, guys, one of the first thing Tim Wise talks about is the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. He says that museum tells a different story about America, not just the story people learn in school about freedom and greatness, but also the painful history of slavery, segregation, discrimination, and struggle.

[00:42:36]According to him, the museum shows that change in America did not happen powerful leaders suddenly became kind.

[00:42:45]Real change happened because ordinary people fought for it. Black Americans organized protest, sacrificed, and demanded equal rights for generation.

[00:42:58]That That point is very important. Many times history talks for history history books focus only on famous president and leaders, but Tim Wise says real social change usually start from the people at the bottom.

[00:43:16]Not from the bottom, he says.

[00:43:19]Uh not from the bottom, he says progress came because people refused to accept injustice. He also talked about the contradiction in American history. For example, Thomas Jefferson wrote the words all men are created equal, yet he owned enslaved people. Tim Wise uses this example to show that America has always had a struggle between its ideal and its action. The country spoke about freedom while many people were denied from uh were denied freedom. And honestly, that is one of the biggest debate in America even today. America present itself as a land of equality and opportunity, but many communities still feel left behind or treated unfairly.

[00:44:16]Another strong point Tim Wise make is that racism in America did not begin with Donald Trump and it will not end with one politician either. He says those uh these problems are much older and deeper than one president's.

[00:44:34]According to him, throughout America history, powerful wealthy people have often blamed poor black and brown community for problems facing ordinary white Americans. Instead of poor people coming together to fight economic inequality, racism was used to divide them. That is one of the central argument in the in his speech. He explained how during slavery and colonial times, poor Europeans and enslaved African were both controlled by wealthy landowners, but eventually race became a tool used to separate poor white people from black people. Poor whites were made to feel superior simply because they were white, even if they were still struggling economically themselves.

[00:45:28]Tim Wise argues that this division helped wealthy elites maintain power.

[00:45:34]Now, whether everyone agrees with that analysis or not, it is true that race has always played a major role in American politic politics and society.

[00:45:45]He also talks about how politicians sometimes use fear during campaigns.

[00:45:51]Fear of immigrants, fear of crime, fear of certain communities, uh fear of certain communities. According to him, these fears are often exaggerated to gain political support rather than solve real problems. He criticized the idea that wealth, walls, harsh policing, or blaming immigrants will automatically solve economic problems. He says the real issue are more complicated than that.

[00:46:23]Another major point he raises is policing and racial profiling. Tim Wise argued that black Americans often feel targeted unfairly by parts of the criminal justice system. He mentioned policies like stop and freeze a stop and frisk and say many and says many innocent blacks and brown people were stopped by police even when they had done nothing wrong.

[00:46:53]This is these issues has created distrust between many black communities and law enforcement. And honestly, trust is very important in any society. If communities do not trust institution, it becomes harder for society to work together peacefully. One thing I also want to mention is why many black Americans appreciate voices like Tim Wise. For many years, black activists have spoken about racism and inequality, but sometimes their concern were ignored or dismissed. When white speaker like Tim Wise discuss these same issues, some audience who will normally ignore black voices suddenly start listening. That is why some people see him uh see his work as important. He uses his platform to educate white audience about systemic racism, privilege, and inequality. He challenge people who may never hear this conversation otherwise.

[00:48:01]At the same time, these discussions are still controversial in American because many people feel uncomfortable talking about race openly. Some people believe discussions about racism divide the country more while other believe ignoring racism make the problem worse.

[00:48:20]That is why this topic remain emotional and politically sensitive. Another thing Tim Wise repeatedly say is that history matters. He argued that you cannot fully understand modern America without understanding slavery, segregation, discrimination, and the long struggle for civil rights. According to him, many many many many current inequalities are connected to historical system that existed for generation. Whether it is wealth gap, education inequality, housing discrimination, or criminal justice issues, he believes history still affect the present.

[00:49:05]And honestly, history shapes every society in one way or another. The past does not simply disappear overnight. At the end of the day, I think the bigger message from Tim Wise is this. Society cannot improve if people refuse to have honest conversation about injustice, inequality, and history. You may agree with all his point, some of his point, or disagree completely disagree completely, but conversation like this force people to think deeply about how society are built and how they can become a fair for everyone. For me personally, I think Uh, every society should all should aim for fairness, equal opportunity, and mutual respect among different groups of people. A divided society creates mistrust, anger, and conflict. But, when people work together honestly, they can solve many problems together. Tim Wise believed that racism is not just about individual hatred, but also about system and structure that affect people differently.

[00:50:20]That is why he pushes for deeper conversation instead of surface-level surface-level discussion. And whether people uh, support him or criticize him, he has definitely become one of the most talked about voices on race and inequality in America. Anyway, guys, that is my commentary on this topic. I want to hear your thought. Do you agree with Tim Wise uh, Tim Wise argument about race and inequality in America? So, kindly guys, you can also drop your thought on the comment section. Tell me what you think about what Tim Wise has come out and say. Thank you so much. Give a video a thumbs up, and also subscribe if you haven't subscribed.