Talking Points #6 - Wise videos

In the first video Wise talks about how we as Americans have defeated what he calls racism 1.0 when we elected Obama as our president. However, he defines racism 2.0 as almost a double standard that we hold against people of color. His example is that in order to be "an acceptable person of color" you have to be just like Obama; you have to dress like him, act like him, have the same education as him etc. And in this sense, we as Americans really have not gotten much closer to racial equity.
In the second video, Wise points out that we have gotten rid of the overt racism towards people of color. However, what hasn't changed is the denial; the denial that there is a problem--just as Johnson points out. Wise said that if you asked white people today if people of color were treated equally in 1962 everyone would say that they were not treated equally--even the most conservative people. However, if you asked white people in 1962 if people of color were being treated equal, 2 out of 3 would say that they were being treated equal; 9 out of 10 said that black children had equal educational opportunities. He also says that we have to ask the "target people" if a problem is still a problem. Basically that we are oblivious to the problem: whites don't recognize that they are in the culture of power. He points that a lot of people think racism is gone but its not. He also points out that racism is not the only problem that people of color face, just as sexism isn't the only problem for women.
In the article about Brown v. Board of education, we learn that this case was a turning point for racism in American history. In 1954, "the Court stripped away constitutional sanctions for segregation by race, and made equal opportunity in education the law of the land. " Basically, the law made segregation illegal in the schools. And this case paved the ways of civil rights for people of color.
What Wise would say is that just because segregation is illegal doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist. Steps like this, or electing our first black president is great, but it is still just a Band-aid on a broken leg. I kind of think of it as just because you have to be 21 to drink alcohol, that doesn't mean that kids under 21 aren't going to party. Wise points out that the situation has gotten better since the times of Brown v. Board of Education but we still have a long way to go. Sticking with the Band-aid analogy, if you put enough Band-aids on a broken leg, over time it will eventually heal but only a little bit, and there will still always be scars.