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With Republican Nikki Haley set to become South Carolina’s first non-white (and first female) governor, conservative bloggers are citing her political rise, as well as the governorship of Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal as evidence of a post-racial tide in politics. With the election in 2008 of Barack Obama, post-racialism has become a convenient context in the national dialogue. It has also accelerated the on-going retreat from race-based programs created to right historical wrongs against people of color. Those pushing for a so-called “colorblind” approach to the problems of wealth, housing, education, and healthcare inequities argue that now is the time for class-based rather than race-based solutions. But, according to long-time anti-racist writer and analyst Tim Wise, a class-based approach can actually worsen racial injustices. He argues this in his new book just published by City Lights books called Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity. In his followup to Between Barack and a Hard Place, Wise continues to challenge the idea that Obama’s election is a harbinger of racial harmony, and introduces the notion of an “illuminated individualism” as a key to fairness and inequity.

GUEST: Tim Wise, one of the nation’s most prominent writers and educators on issues of racial injustice. His earlier books include White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son and Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama

Find out more at www.timwise.org.