Michael Eric Dyson

FROM AMAZON: In the wake of yet another set of police killings of Black men, Michael Eric Dyson wrote a tell-it-straight, no-holds-barred piece for the NYT on Sunday, July 7: "Death in Black and White" (it was updated within a day to acknowledge the killing of police officers in Dallas). The response has been overwhelming. Beyoncé and Isabel Wilkerson tweeted it; JJ Abrams, among many other prominent people, wrote him a long fan letter. The NYT closed the comments section after 2,500 responses, and Dyson has been on NPR, BBC, and CNN nonstop since then.

Fifty years ago Malcolm X told a White woman who asked what she could do for the cause, "Nothing." Dyson believes he was wrong. In Tears We Cannot Stop, he responds to that question. If we are to make real racial progress, we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how Black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted. As Dyson writes, "At birth you are given a pair of binoculars that see Black life from a distance, never with the texture of intimacy. Those binoculars are privilege; they are status, regardless of your class. In fact the greatest privilege that exists is for White folk to get stopped by a cop and not end up dead.... The problem is you do not want to know anything different from what you think you know.... You think we have been handed everything because we fought your selfish insistence that the world, all of it - all its resources, all its riches, all its bounty, all its grace - should be yours first and foremost, and if there's anything left, why then we can have some, but only if we ask politely and behave gratefully."

In the tradition of The Fire Next Time (Baldwin), short, emotional, literary, powerful, this is the book that all Americans who care about the current and long-burning crisis in race relations need to hear.… (més)

This book is part short story, but also part sermon in a sense. Each section is built around a church service with each essay on an aspect of that service similar to what Rachel Held Evans did in her latest book, but a single essay in each section rather than a series of essays.
Each essay tackles the issue of race from different angles- music, living and being, what happens when profiled, etc. I am so glad these types of books are starting to flood the market as they are so needed. The drawback is that there are lots of these types of books flooding the market, so some of the good ones will be lost. This quick and short read is one of the good ones and I hope people will read it when it comes out on January 17th.… (més)

Michael Eric Dyson is a wild olive tree…. That probably sounds a little insulting, but if you knew what I was referring to, it wouldn’t be clear WHO I was insulting, you know. (If you but knew the gift of God…. You would see that Goosecap is the greatest philosopher.)

I mean, it’s certainly a competent work of ethical philosophy, this proving that you don’t have to conform to white manners all the time, to work in ethical philosophy. (Although who knows if English white men really conform to norms of white manners, you know—what, All the Time? But I’m just talking to the help!)

Although certainly you SHOULD conform to the norms of all us inside-the-gates olive trees, you know. It certainly makes me feel better, much of the time. And making me feel better is an important task, for all philosophers. 🧐… (més)