147 Quotes by Michael Eric Dyson

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.

There are many Americans who regardless of the intelligence or the profound political persuasion of a figure will never vote for a black man. Not all of them are racists; some are skeptical, and some are suspicious.

I guess I’m a Luddite.

Institutional racism requires neither conscious effort nor individual intent.

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

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

President Lyndon Baines Johnson once argued, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.

If white and black and red and brown can come together to focus our energies on overcoming the racial malaise that persists, then this will have been a great moment.

And there is a paradox that many of you refuse to see: to get to a point where race won’t make a difference, we have to wrestle, first, with the difference that race makes.