University of Cincinnati students — particularly white students — were challenged Wednesday to give an honest appraisal of history when it comes to race issues in America.
Noted anti-racism activist and writer Tim Wise delivered a nearly two-hour speech focused on racism, white privilege and other issues. He strongly argued against the idea that ignoring racism will make it go away.
“No other problem is solved that way,” Wise said. “If we stopped talking about world hunger, do you think food is going to suddenly appear?”
Wise has written six books, numerous essays and has spoken in all 50 states on the issue of racism. The forum was moved from its original location — Tangeman University Center Cinema — to a larger room, 525 Old Chemistry, due to public interest in the speech. The auditorium-style lecture hall was filled to full capacity. Students waited in the hall outside of the lecture room, hoping to hear bits of Wise’s speech.
Wise spoke out against the nation’s purposeful ignorance about the issue of racism.
“When you are the dominant group, the main reason you don’t know about the experience and inequality of other groups is because you don’t have to,” Wise said, referring to white people as well as other ethnicities.
Wise also spoke about educational, medical and economic inequalities. He reminisced about his upbringing in Nashville and his college experiences in New Orleans. One particularly powerful moment he recalled was when he was protesting Apartheid in South Africa and a student asked him what he had done to help the race issue in New Orleans, to which he had no reply.
“[I hadn’t done] much, honestly, and I knew I had to do something about it,” Wise said.
He made a distinct difference between personal racism and institutionalized racism.
“Racism creates a system of inequality that is so deep rooted and so normal that we don’t even realize that it’s happening,” he said.
The speech also was the subject of protest from the Traditional Youth Network, a traditionalist youth-oriented Christian organization. Six protestors — including Matthew Heinbach, the organization’s founder — stood outside of campus holding picket signs and a Confederate flag.
The organization has protested Wise’s speeches in the past. Their protest of his speech at Indiana State University the previous week turned violent when Thomas Buhls, the president of the Bloomington, Ind., chapter of the organization, was allegedly attacked.
“We are trying to spread our messages that no one should be afraid, and that each race should be allowed to fulfill their own destiny separately,” Heinbach said. “I started doing this because I am a Christian, and I feel that this is not only a racial issue, but a spiritual one.”
One person, who was not seen with the TradYouth group protesting outside, confronted Wise during the Q&A after the speech. Wise commented about the film “Schindler’s List,” then the man stood up and said the film was fiction and began shouting, “You’re not even white; you’re a Jew.” UC Police removed the individual from the lecture hall.
“As easy as it is for me to condemn those people down on the corner, I understand the desperation that causes someone to join a hate group or a street gang, and I feel sorry for them,” Wise said.
The presentation was designed to be a free speech forum, where anyone could talk about anything related to the issue at hand. The issues of gender bias, health-care reform and the LGBT community were addressed.
“To be around so many people who are likeminded, who are learning and experiencing and feeling much of the same things — and then to hear it articulated in such a powerful way — it was good,” said Bhumika Patel, a second-year women’s studies student pursuing a master’s degree.
“Sometimes I feel like in women’s studies that nobody talks about issues of gender or race,” she said. “But then to have such a huge audience like that, it was gratifying.”