Wise: ‘White Folks’ ‘Need To Step Back,’ ‘Appreciate’ Why Some Blacks Rioting

‘We need to step back from the anger and frustration a lot of white folks feel and we look and see what we consider to be irrational violence in the streets’

"As a white person it’s hard for me to counsel black folks on what to do, and I think it would be largely inappropriate when my own group, white folks, have so much blindness around racism in the system, as Charles said both historically but also contemporaneously. I think for us, we need to also step back from the anger and frustration that a lot of white folks feel and we look and see what we consider to be irrational violence in the streets and say, wait a minute, what's going on, what's behind this. For most white folks, we don’t really have a long understanding of the history of how law enforcement has been used in black and brown communities. And if you don’t have that appreciation, you don’t have that historical memory, things like this seem irrational to you.

They seem to be irrational to mistrust police. Because in our communities, the police are the folks who get the cat out of the tree, or come and help you, officer friendly, Barney Fife on Andy Griffith. That's not the experience in most black and brown communities. So number one, those of us who are white need to study and learn and learn to listen. It makes me physically ill to know, and I do know, that Charles Blow, who I know and his son, or one of his children I met a few years back, that he has to have a conversation with his son about how to dress, how to talk, how to walk, how to act in the world that I would never have to have with a son of mine. And he has to do that no matter who his daddy is, no matter the fact that his son went to one of the finest high schools and I assume now probably has graduated from there in the entire country. He still has to have that conversation.

And as long as that is true and as long as those of us who are white can walk through this world, walk through the streets, never fearing that we’re going to be the sum total of other people’s anxiety, there’s a problem in this country that we have to be honest about and have to confront."

Video files
Full
Compact
Audio files
Full
Compact