cover image Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity

Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity

Tim Wise, City Lights, $14.95 paper (160p) ISBN 9780872865082

In his follow-up to Between Barack and a Hard Place, Wise continues to explore his provocative contention that Obama’s commitment to transcending racism has made it “more difficult than ever to address ongoing racial bias” in America. By refusing to openly confront racism, Wise argues, the President has ceded the ground to conservatives, allowing them to “manipulate racial angers unmolested and unchecked.” While many progressives are disappointed that Obama has, in their view, capitulated to corporate interests and not forged his own New Deal, Wise makes the opposite charge. He believes that Obama is in fact too eager to follow FDR’s lead in subordinating racial issues to the fight against poverty. Obama’s endorsement of New Deal measures like social security, FHA home loan programs, and the G.I. Bill downplays the extent to which these programs were and continue to be “intensely racialized.” Wise also contends that the pervasiveness of racism has a subconscious effect on Americans that can only be altered by forcing the issue into the open. (July)