Flipping John Howard Griffin's classic Black Like Me, and extending Noel Ignatiev's How The Irish Became White into the present-day, Wise explores the meanings and consequences of "whiteness," and discusses the ways in which racial privilege can harm not just people of color, but also whites. Using stories instead of stale statistics, Wise weaves a narrative that is at once readable and yet scholarly; analytical and yet accessible.

Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S., and has been called the “foremost white anti-racist intellectual in the nation,” having spoken in 46 states, and on over 300 college campuses, including Harvard, Stanford, Cal Tech and the Law Schools at Yale, Columbia, Michigan, and Vanderbilt. From 1999 to 2003, Wise served as an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute. His anti-racism efforts have been termed “revolutionary” by NYU professor and award-winning author, Robin D.G. Kelley, and have also earned praise from such noted race scholars as Michael Eric Dyson, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Derrick Bell, Joe Feagin, Lani Guinier, and Richard Delgado.

Tim Wise is now the Director of the newly-formed Association for White Anti-Racist Education (AWARE) in Nashville, Tennessee. He lectures across the country about the need to combat institutional racism, gender bias, and the growing gap between rich and poor in the U.S. He is a featured columnist with the ZNet Commentary program: a web service that disseminates essays by prominent progressive and radical activists and educators. His writings are taught at hundreds of colleges and have appeared in dozens of popular and professional journals.

He has contributed to three recent anthologies— When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories (Chicago Review Press, Jan 2004); Should America Pay (HarperAmistad, 2003), a compilation of essays concerning slavery and its aftermath; and The Power of Non-Violence (Beacon Press, 2002).