KENNESAW - Diversity scholar Tim Wise discussed themes in his latest book, "Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama," to hundreds of students and faculty members on Wednesday afternoon at Kennesaw State University.

The visit by Wise - a visiting scholar at Washburn University in Kansas whose work focuses on white privilege in the United States - was surrounded by minor controversy. A few parents of students at the university apparently complained about Wise's earlier work.

The author of several books on race relations addressed those complaints in his opening remarks to a diverse crowd of at least 500 people. He said he wasn't surprised, considering the concerns that conservative parents across the country had toward President Barack Obama's address to the nation's schoolchildren on Tuesday.

Wednesday's forum was sponsored by KSU's Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and Center for African and African Diaspora Studies.

"Today's lecture and many others that will follow are intended to help us all look at key issues from a variety of perspectives," KSU Provost Dr. Lendley Black said. "And to encourage healthy discussion and debate."

Wise, 40, rejected assertions that America is now a post-racial society because of the election of its first black president. Wise said many whites are in denial about the extent of racism that exists in the country.

"Social change is made by dedicated social practitioners on any side of a political subject," he said. "So if you want freedom, justice and opportunity you will have to fight for it, because rest assured there are others who are very active who want the opposite of that."

In the near future people of color will make up half of the U.S. population, Wise said.

"Historically, you cannot maintain a society that divided and make it functional," he said.

"This country will not survive, it will not remain even remotely functional," he said, "if we are a nation where people of color continue 20-, 30- or 40-years hence (to have a) poverty rate that is three times the rate of whites, two-and-a-half times the employment rates as whites, substantially worse healthcare outcomes and inadequate housing, because that affects everyone."

Wise, who is white, is the author of "White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son," and "Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male." He is a graduate of Tulane University in New Orleans.