Sociology Film Analysis over Tim Wise White Like Me.

“White like Me” The film, “White Like me” is presented by author Tim Wise. I believe Tim’s main purpose for this film is to explain how white privilege damages people of color more than society is lead to believe. Also how damaging it can be to white people as well and how racial privilege shapes the lives and outcome of most colored Americans when it comes to institutions such as education, employment, housing, criminal justice, and healthcare. When it comes to prejudices, discrimination and segregation of minority’s and blacks in the U. S. , I believe the cause is racial profiling.
For example, Wise talks about how black and Latino males are three times more likely than white males to have their cars stopped and searched for drugs; even though white males are four and an half times more likely to actually have drugs on them when they are stopped by police officers. Wise also asked law enforcement officers “What’s the first thing you think when you see a young black or Latino male driving a nice car in your neighborhood? ” the officers responded, “drug dealer. ” Then Wise asks again, “What’s the first thing you think when you see a young white male driving the same type of car in the same neighborhood? and the officers responded, “Spoiled little rich kid, daddy probably bought him a car. ” The fact that these officers base their decisions on an individual’s race or ethnicity in whether to engage in enforcement is racial profiling. Wise continues to talk about The Fair Housing Act, which was passed in 1968; but the highest number of discrimination complaints based on race was in 2006, 38 years later. Wise brings up a point about how the media often reports individual hate crimes but rarely do they report on ‘systematic and institutionalized injustice,’ for example, between 1991 and 2000, there were almost one million black people in the U.
S. who died because of insufficient healthcare, but it never received any media coverage. When wise says “insufficient healthcare” he refers to colored people being moved to areas with bad incomes and living near harmful toxics and if they had only been white and living in a suburban area they would have not died. According to wise, the average white family in America has 12 times the accumulated net worth of the average African American family, and eight time the accumulated net worth of the average Latino family. I believe Tim Wise main idea for this film is to let America now that racism is still alive today and is not something of the past. It is an issue we should think about every day and not pretend that it doesn’t exist. Also that white denial is a very real term and whites are in fact in denial about being judgmental towards other races to a point where it can affect colored people’s lively hood. I personally thought the speech was very well-articulated and thought-provoking. He showed examples of institutionalized racism such as housing inequalities and gives a bit of the history of what he called “White Privilege. I found it interesting how he showed the housing discrimination that occurs among minorities. Walking away from this film I feel like I’ve learned the importance of racial awareness and try to remember that racism is in fact still around today. Reference page Wise, Tim. “Why whites think blacks have no problems. ” White Like Me. (2001): n. page. Web. 2 Apr. 2013. <https://docs. google. com/viewer? url=http://www. evangelicalsconcerned. org/connECtion2003/visuals/Diversity_Why%20Whites%20Think%20Blacks. doc>.