Tim Wise is one cool white dude.

I know this essay has been circulating around for a few weeks. I've received it by email and via facebook several times already, but it really is worth posting. So here it is: Tim Wise's This is Your Nation on White Privilege.

I highly recommend reading this piece, as it is perhaps one of the most on point analyses out there.

On the point regarding the lower educational achievements of Palin and McCain (whose less than stellar educational achievements were not mentioned in Wise's piece):
Although no one can really confirm whether or not Palin flunked out of college without her permission because of privacy laws, as a one-time academic counselor I can attest that her college attendance pattern is a text book case of going to college, flunking out your first semester, and bouncing from community college to the next one to make up the credits to be accepted back into a four-year university/college. McCain graduated at the bottom of his class at Annapolis. I am by no means saying that a person's educational failings should hinder them from achieving in their futures. However, I do think that if the roles were reversed and Obama was a white man who had taken 6 years at 4 schools to graduate or he had graduated at the bottom of his class, the public discourse would have turned to say something like, "This Black man is unqualified, just look at his crappy school record." Obviously I have no proof, but as a woman of color I have to say that my lived experiences tell me this is true. As a person of color I have had to work much harder than white folks to prove myself worthy.

Anyway... props to Tim Wise!