I think that Michael Jackson, just as an entertainer, as a figure who embodies the contradictions of Black identity, and the possibilities of R&B music in the '70s and '80s will continue to be one of the most recognized and formidable human beings that we've ever produced in our tradition.

Michael Eric Dyson

Categorized in : Thinking Identity Black

Charity is no substitute for justice. If we never challenge a social order that allows some to accumulate wealth--even if they decide to help the less fortunate--while others are short-changed, then even acts of kindness end up supporting unjust arrangements. We must never ignore the injustices that make charity necessary, or the inequalities that make it possible.

Michael Eric Dyson

kindness justice order

Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history, and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such topics.

Michael Eric Dyson

black-youth light race

Justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public.

Michael Eric Dyson

speak sound justice

We come from a proud tradition of people who have insisted that none of us can be truly successful until at least the barriers to such success and thriving are completely removed. I think the black narcissism that prevails, along with the stylish materialism and self-satisfied, smug attitudes among many of our upwardly mobile brothers and sisters should be identified and criticized.

Michael Eric Dyson

brother successful attitude

Black women must challenge black men to live up to their best in every arena of the culture -

Michael Eric Dyson

religious home school

All of us should be much more humble and contrite when we point the finger at somebody else, because four more fingers are pointing back at us.

Michael Eric Dyson

four should humble

My ambition didn't grow out of nowhere. It was planted in me by a community that nurtured me.

Michael Eric Dyson

grows community ambition

Blackness is not simply a reactionary title or identity; that is indeed the "negative" way of characterizing African American identity.

Michael Eric Dyson

african-american identity negative

My job is to explain stuff you don't know or already know and have to unlearn. My job is to teach you stuff you don't know that you need to know, stuff you should know. I'm going to take what you already know and re-describe it.

Michael Eric Dyson

stuff jobs needs

To challenge norms, presuppositions, practices in communities across this country - where the unconscious valorization and celebration of whiteness and conscious resistance to trying to grapple with black and brown and other peoples of color's ideas and identities - makes a huge difference.

Michael Eric Dyson

differences country ideas

I don't worship the Bible, I worship the God who gave the Bible.

Michael Eric Dyson

worship

I have written 5 books that address major figures in our culture: books on Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Tupac Shakur, Marvin Gaye and Bill Cosby. But even in the books that take up major figures, I hope to provoke conversation, insight and understanding about these personalities by providing new, fresh and vital information and analysis about them.

Michael Eric Dyson

understanding personality book

Donald Trump amplifies the worst instincts. And his nationalism is really a white racist supremacist nationalism.

Michael Eric Dyson

amplify racist white

We can't exempt ourselves from the same moral calculus that we are willing to apply to others.

Michael Eric Dyson

calculus willing moral

Gangsta rap often reaches higher than its ugliest, lowest common denominator, misogyny, violence, materialism and sexual transgression are not its exclusive domain. At its best, this music draws attention to complex dimensions of ghetto life ignored by most Americans. Indeed, gangsta rap's in-your-face style may do more to force America to confront crucial social problems than a million sermons or political speeches.

Michael Eric Dyson

gangsta ghetto rap

Bigotry is surely an exportable American commodity, especially when it comes to race.

Michael Eric Dyson

bigotry commodity

Social media itself is not protest. To tweet is not to protest physically. To do a Facebook post, and though it's critical and crucial, is not to show up and embody the anger you feel, to embody the righteous outrage you feel, to embody the concern you feel. This is about putting feet to pavement and to register in the consciousness of America that this is something that's problematic.

Michael Eric Dyson

media feet america

The writer's gift can make us see ourselves and our morals differently than our reality suggests.

Michael Eric Dyson

moral reality

I was very struck when Min. Farrakhan said if Jesus and Muhammad were here today, they'd be embracing each other. That's a tremendous message that needs to be heard more broadly.

Michael Eric Dyson

today needs jesus

The demonizing of black identity is much more of a global phenomenon than many would like to admit. I've traveled abroad extensively, and it's hard to ignore the subordination of darker peoples to lighter peoples the world around.

Michael Eric Dyson

black identity world