The Evil of Racism and Resistance in The Fire Next Time

We want to believe we are better than the generations before us. People want to believe that the society they live in is not racist. While we have made strides to ensure equality for all, through laws, organizations, and social reform, racism has not been fully eradicated from our world. Organizations like the Black Lives Matter Movement aim to spread awareness of the violence that black people and communities face. Tim Wise and bell hooks, who are both social advocate writers, write about their experiences with racism and how they have overcome the false narratives that society puts out about racism not being an issue. Both writers discuss the need for resistance when talking about true freedom and self-creation. Resistance can come in many shapes, like writing, protesting, or in pop culture. Since there is the idea that racism is no longer a huge issue, many tend to not understand the need for resistance. Tim Wise and bell hooks, through their writing, advocate for resistance, so that people can end the cycle of racism by conditioning themselves to look for it and correct it.

Racism has infected more of our society than we care to admit. Wise and hooks both talk about times when they encountered racism, and their response to it. Wise talks about being a part of a social justice group on his campus in senior year, and their efforts to push their college to cut ties with the companies who supported the South African government that was oppressing the black, colored, and Indian populations of South Africa. He goes on to talk about being asked what he has done to correct the racism in New Orleans to which he realizes “[he] had done nothing in answer to the de facto apartheid condition that existed in New Orleans” (Wise 123). When talking about race many turn to other countries and do not think about the racism that is present in our own country. Since racism has been made to be nothing more than a few small incidents a year, people do not see a need to go out and look for it to correct it. Instead we feel that other countries need assistance to correct their racism, which can also be problematic if white people act as white saviors when they hold prejudices of their own. James Baldwin, author of The Fire Next Time, also discusses this element of surprise when white people are reminded of the evil they are capable of. Baldwin talks about the second world war and the sheer horror that many white people had about the fate of the Jewish people in Europe. However, he says that black Americans were not shocked about the terror that Europeans could inflict on a group who were seen as different, because white Americans were doing it in their own country. White Americans are oblivious to the racism around us until something happens that they cannot deny is racially motivated or unless it is pointed out to them blatantly.