Justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public. Michael Eric Dyson More Quotes by Michael Eric Dyson More Quotes From Michael Eric Dyson There's a dark underside to philanthropy. People who give a bunch of money are deferred to, even when they are wrong. The emperor cannot be shown to have no clothes. Michael Eric Dyson clothes dark people I'm nervous about the prospects of an America that refuses to abide by its best conscience and its best lights and its best angels. Michael Eric Dyson angel light america America is capable at single moments of receiving the depth and the breadth of the homiletical vision of black America when a black preacher rises to his or her craft at the height of his or her ambition and the desire to tell America the truth. Michael Eric Dyson single-mom ambition america The parallels between Elvis and Michael Jackson as incredible artists is evident. But I think that where Michael Jackson even transcends Elvis Presley. Michael Eric Dyson incredibles artist thinking Michael [Jackson] reconstructed his face and deconstructed the African features into a spooky European geography of fleshly possibilities, and yet what we couldn't deny, that even as his face got whiter and whiter his music got Blacker and Blacker. His soul got more deeply rooted in the existential agony and the profound social grief that Black people are heir to. Michael Eric Dyson agony grief profound Light-skinned black people are seen to be closer to white people. The allegiance to lighter-skinned people has operated in a very destructive way that we have internalized ourselves inside black communities. You look at many of the prominent black people in this society who have been able to do well. Many have been lighter-skinned. Michael Eric Dyson light white people I went to see Chris Rock on Saturday night here in Atlanta, and he made a statement in his comedy. He said, look, when you're the big person, when you're the rich person, poor people can say stuff about you, but it's downright wrong and brutal for rich people to beat up on poor people. He said people who are larger can lampoon people who are skinnier, but not the opposite. Michael Eric Dyson comedy night people We began to connect literacy and learning and the lively effects of biblical knowledge and preaching pretty early. That was a tremendous impact. Michael Eric Dyson literacy impact biblical I had an exciting, interesting childhood, to be sure, with all of the challenges that ghetto life provides - but had loving parents. Michael Eric Dyson childhood ghetto interesting The demand for racial (and sexual) justice gets reduced to politics of identity - and excoriating the so-called perpetrators of the identity politics. Michael Eric Dyson identity-politics demand justice The issue of redistribution of resources and wealth needs to resolved systemically, but in the meantime but there are individual spots you can occupy. There are things that you can do on a daily basis that will make a difference in moving the needle in individual lives. When we look at the mentoring of young black kids, for instance, the number-one mentor group is white women. I think after that maybe it's black women, and then white men, and then black men. We can make all kinds of arguments about that. Michael Eric Dyson men kids moving What the left ends up missing is that politics have always been at the heart of American culture; it's been a white identity that's been rendered invisible and neutral because it's seen as objective and universal. As a result, we don't pay attention to how whiteness is one among many racial identities, and that identity politics have been here since the get-go. Michael Eric Dyson identity-politics white heart What are you for? It may be, to a degree, consoling that white brothers and sisters did not vote for [Donald] Trump, and do not participate in that brand of animus, that gas-bagging of enormous bigotry. Michael Eric Dyson degrees brother white The problem is we are left only with empathy - which is critical, if it can be developed - without substantive manifestations of that empathy. It's one thing to attain it intellectually, but it's another thing to do something about it. Michael Eric Dyson manifestation empathy problem I think sometimes younger people - not necessarily thinkers and intellectuals and the like, but people who are on social media and who are not as informed as journalists or professional thinkers - may get a bit, you know, impatient with the necessity of sustained thinking, sustained argumentation, sustained dialogue. Michael Eric Dyson media people thinking That kind of peer learning, that peer teaching, that peer evaluation, and then administration of insight. Michael Eric Dyson evaluation peers teaching I grew up on the West Side - the "near West Side," [in Detroit], as they say - in what would be considered now the inner city. Michael Eric Dyson west cities would-be I hope [white brothers and sisters] read this book [Tears we cannot stop] and engage with it, but other white people have a better chance of speaking more directly to the white folk they know, because they're less likely to be subject to ridicule. They're insiders, so to speak. Michael Eric Dyson brother white book If journalism is the first draft of history, then digital literacy is the first blush of the first page of history. Michael Eric Dyson digital pages firsts It's not enough to be against something. Michael Eric Dyson enough
