147 Quotes by Michael Eric Dyson

But I remain what I was when I started my vocation, my pilgrimage of self-discovery: a black preacher. It is for that reason that I don’t want to – really, I can’t afford to – give up on the possibility that white America can definitively, finally, hear from one black American preacher a plea, a cry, a sermon, from my heart to yours.

Jeremiah Wright is one of the greatest prophetic preachers that black America has produced. What I find striking is that many white brothers and sisters miss the fact that there would be no black church if the white church wasn’t political and racist in refusing to worship with us.

There’s a great book about John Kennedy and his relationship to civil rights called ‘The Bystander.’ The title alone suggests that he did as little as possible, any minimal critical effort, to really facilitate civil rights in the White House.

President Donald Trump chose “Make America Great Again” as his 2016 campaign slogan. It sounded the call to white America to return to simpler, better days. But the golden age of the past is a fiction, a projection of nostalgia that selects what is most comforting to remember. It summons a past that was not great for all; in fact, it is a past that was not great at all, not with racism and sexism clouding the culture.

America certainly has made extraordinary progress. The collective unconscious of the nation has certainly shifted as a result of the civil rights movement and the developments in the ’70s and ’80s. We have witnessed a great expansion of the black middle class.

American history hugs colorblindness. If you can’t see race you certainly can’t see racial responsibility. You can simply remain blind to your own advantages.

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.

Hip hop scholarship must strive to reflect the form it interrogates, offering the same features as the best hip hop: seductive rhythms, throbbing beats, intelligent lyrics, soulful samples, and a sense of joy that is never exhausted in one sitting.

Black bodies have been killed and progress has been stalled to provide white comfort.