Social Justice Series speaking event with Author Tim Wise: 'Challenging the Culture of Cruelty: Understanding and Defeating Race and Class Inequity in America.' Tim Wise examines the ways in which American politics and culture serve to rationalize inequalities on the basis of class and race. From the myth of 'rugged individualism' to the racialized attacks on the nation's poor, to the current opioid and mental health crisis, American ideology has long served to explain away inequity as a natural outcome of differential talent, effort or cultural attributes. But as Wise shows in this presentation, to believe that the poor and unemployed are to blame for their own plight, or that the rich deserve their positions and wealth is to believe in a pernicious and destructive lie that threatens the very heart of democracy and true equal opportunity. 4/18
