Tim Wise

Barack and a Hard Place, Tim Wise

This video discusses Obama in relation to our countries racial issues. Wise states in the video that:

“What’s real is that we’re nowhere near a racial America.”

Basically he is saying that there is still racism in our society and people who think otherwise are being unrealistic. People are beginning to think that because Obama is the first African American president it will change people’s minds about racism. Although, this is not the case. It’s unfortunate that people still can’t look past someone’s skin color and more at what’s inside.

“We need to be on the lookout for racism 2.0 it allows people to accept Obama as transcending and as being different other then the black norm. “

I feel like he’s saying that Obama’s not a typical black man because he accomplished being president. I believe he is trying to make clear that not only white people are smart. There are just as many successful black people in the world as white. We just tend to look down at them because they are portrayed in a negative light.
“If they graduate 5th from the bottom of their class a black person wouldn’t have a shot being president.”

He is saying that black people are at the disadvantage. He mentions that a white person wouldn’t have to go to Harvard to be president. A white candidate could go to a normal university or state school but if a black person did it would be seen as negative. I disagree because I don’t take into interest where the presidential candidates go to school to decide on my vote. I look more at what they have to offer to our country.

I found this video to be interesting. I think that the purpose of this video is trying to make clear that there is still racism in the world although many people are still blind to it. Obama goes up in our nation’s history as being the first African American president. This video definitely helped me to make sense of these issues.