The Triangle

Issue date: 2/13/09 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Karl Kuchs

When was the last time you read a book that changed the way you think? Not just the last book that you agreed with, but a book that reached into your head, took the way you perceive the world, and gave it a good, hard slap across the face. If you're being honest, it may never have happened. Changing minds is no small feat and most books and authors cannot simply accomplish that.

Of course, it is just as true that having your mind changed, or even challenged a little, hurts. The much easier option is to just avoid confrontation. Your mental model of the world serves you just fine, you say, as you make friends that agree with you and reach past books that scare you. Even when you are willing to argue beliefs, there are few topics that ignite more controversy, passion, and stubbornness than racism. Race is just something better off left alone - we should just avoid getting into any arguments about it. It really isn't that much of a problem anyway, right?

Complacency and ignorance about race are exactly the topics we need to be arguing about, says Tim Wise in his book "White Like Me." American society cannot afford any more time spent avoiding the subject because it is too much work or because we refuse to acknowledge it. Wise argues that racism is still a present and malicious force in American society today. But he doesn't just extol the evils of a racist society; his goal is far loftier than a simple guilt trip. He wants everybody to understand how systematic racism privileges the few at the cost of the many. He wants white people to realize the lifetime of advantages they take for granted have a real cost on both those who do and those who don't receive them. He wants to shatter ignorant racial comfort zones that so many people refuse to leave.

What makes this book so powerful is that he succeeds. Every page strikes too close to home for comfort. He re-examines everyday situations with an eye for racial undertones that white people have the luxury of ignoring. His style is readable and captivating; intimate and powerful. It is impossible to walk away from this book and not want to talk about it with somebody. Wise doesn't allow the reader to just read him. He forces anyone brave enough to read him to defend their beliefs.

Perhaps the most powerful part of the book comes at the end with his open letter to America concerning Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. It is as direct, forceful and inescapable as anything I have ever read. The book could almost be considered a class in racism and his letter a gloves-off practical exam. He breaks down the enormity of the tragedy that befell the city and the depth of our nation's willful ignorance. He explains the ability of a corrupt and incompetent government to run the city for so long by appealing to old racial tensions.

He lays bare the policy of ignoring potential disaster by pouring levee repair money into anything but. He shows the other side of biased media coverage that ignored racist rescue policies and lied about black violence. It reverses almost everything you think you know about Katrina.

But the most important point to come from his letter, and from his book overall, is the racial abuse that came from that event wasn't a failure of the system.

The word failure implies that the normal operations of the system are somehow different. They aren't. Racism is present at all times and all Katrina did was display its operation on a wider scale. Wise ends his letter imploring readers to want to do something more, to step up and speak out against racism. But the first step to action is knowledge. Challenge your comfort zone. Dare to think something new. Read "White Like Me." You won't ever be the same.

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