White Denial Tim Wise Summary

In the article, "(Proto)Typical White Denial: Reflections on Racism and Uncomfortable Realities", written by Tim Wise he informs his readers that the article is not his first about white denial. He also reminds his readers that when talking about white denial, someone is bound to get offended. Wise received an email from a man claiming that Wise's article was racist against whites and that Wise stating that whites are in denial would be like him making the broad generalization that all blacks are criminals. Wise informs his readers that a generalization based on stereotypes in racism and if the generalization is based on actual proven facts, it is not. Wise proves his point within his article by showing his readers the facts. He gives his readers the surveys and experience that either he has found on his own or that he has found in doing research on the subject. As Wise wraps up his article he explains that until whites that until whites can prove in these tests and surveys that they are not automatically putting blacks in one category and hispanics
In the story the woman at the counter assumed I was not going to steal and that my friend, who was of color would, she was holding whites to a higher standard when I had done nothing to prove or earn that assumption and neither had Codee. In the same study of Wise's mentioned earlier, most whites, "and even large numbers of participants of color" held whites up to a higher standard by assuming that the criminals were of color. In the same study another question asked reaffirmed white privilege, "if I ask people to envision an 'all-American boy or girl', or even worse, God, they invariably admit to envisioning white images"(Wise 96). At the gas station the clerk pictured a criminal being black and pictured a young girl of innocence as white. This is similar to what people automatically think when they think of the all-American boy or girl or Santa