The Michael Eric Dyson Reader [Hardcover]

Michael Eric Dyson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 6, 2004

Over the past ten years, the work of Michael Eric Dyson has become the first stop for readers, writers, and thinkers eager for uncommon wisdom on the racial and political dynamics of contemporary America. Whether writing on religion or sexuality or notions of whiteness, on Martin Luther King, Jr. or Tupac Shakur, Dyson's keen insight and rhetorical flair continue to surprise and challenge. This collection gathers the best of Dyson's growing body of work: his most incisive commentary, his most stirring passages, and his sharpest, most probing and broadminded critical analyses. From Michael Jordan to Derrida, Ralph Ellison to the diplomacy of Colin Powell, the mastery and ease with which Dyson tackles just about any subject is without parallel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this probing collection of essays, speeches and interviews, Dyson (Reflecting Black; Race Rules; Open Mike, etc.), an ex-welfare dad and auto-worker, ordained Baptist minister and University of Pennsylvania professor, demonstrates a rare combination of scholarly sophistication, civic gravitas and plain old life experience. The selections here, shifting easily in tone from a dense but readable academic style to fluent mass-market magazine articles, reflect these influences by applying both critical theory and personal insight to issues of popular concern, including the O. J. Simpson trial, gangsta rap, the problems educated black women face in finding marriageable black men, sexuality and the black church, and the advantages whites accrue from having their whiteness accepted not as a specific racial/cultural category but as the universal social norm. Dyson writes from a forthrightly left-of-center stance but avoids rigid dogma. He deplores the excesses of identity politics, but insists on the centrality of race in American society; embraces rap and the "ghetto aesthetic" of black cinema but sharply critiques their sexism, homophobia and limited conceptions of violent masculinity. On occasion, he drifts into hero worship, hymning Michael Jordan, for example, as "a black man of extraordinary genius on the court and before the cameras, who by virtue of his magical skills and godlike talents symbolizes the meaning of human possibility." But for the most part, his wide-ranging and shrewd analyses of the vexed and ever-changing meaning of race will give readers much food for thought.
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From Booklist

This fascinating collection highlights Dyson's dazzling ability to blend spirituality and intellectualism in analyzing complex issues, from racism to sexuality, religion, and politics. It begins with a section titled "Dysonography," composed of an essay, an interview, and a letter to his brother in prison, offering the personal background and thoughts of this intriguing man, who rose from a teenage welfare father to an ordained minister to a Princeton Ph.D. Other sections feature Dyson's contributions to critical race theory and a variety of race-centered topics, from affirmative action to multiculturalism to whiteness studies. On the pop-culture front, Dyson examines hip-hop music and black movies and the nuances of messages gleaned from artists who run the gamut from Spike Lee to Michael Jackson. The collection also includes Dyson's penetrating analyses of black icons Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Tupac Shakur. The collection ends with Dyson taking to task critics of black intellectuals (other black intellectuals included) and placing the current popularity of some intellectuals into social and historic perspective. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 576 pages
• Publisher: Basic Civitas Books; First Edition edition (January 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465017681
• ISBN-13: 978-0465017683
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,212,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rave from a nice, middle-class gent, January 19, 2009

By 

Steven Schwartz (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Michael Eric Dyson Reader (Paperback)

Dyson on BookTV impressed me to death, so I decided to pick up this book. It's not that I didn't know racism existed (I'd have had to have lived in a bubble), but it seems to me that Dyson gets to the center of things quickly and incisively. His experience, though by no means the same as mine (protected and downright cushy), nevertheless jived scarily closely to my observations. I particularly applaud his puncturing of the "bootstrap" mentality and his emphasis on the far more realistic view that we all depend on one another and that we have obligations not only to ourselves and to our family, but also to our society. These obligations are in the nature of debts for help we have received. This, of course, has been known ever since Dickens (and probably Jesus) at least. The Rugged Individualist is never completely alone. I've had the advantage of great schools and wonderful teachers, as well as people I've never met who've helped me. This is to me Dyson's best idea. Just of my own interests, I liked the arts essays best. To me, Dyson's is a mind I want to spend more time with.

19 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Speaking Power to Racism?, September 8, 2005

By 

Herbert L Calhoun "paulocal" (Falls Church, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Michael Eric Dyson Reader (Hardcover)

When all is said and done, living under the umbrella of a racist society takes a depressing toll on and is inevitably unsettling to us all. Judging by Michael Eric Dyson's Reader, it seems that the most psychic damage is done to the "so-called" black intellectual than to anyone else in our society.

It is a truism seldom expressed openly that since Freud, there are no more secrets: everything is transparent. Every hustler's hold card can now be peeked at.

Whites, hustling American society have no choice but to live out their lives retreating from the only thing that gives them a sense of meaning and identity, their only rallying cry to group solidarity: the long dark self-defining shadow of white supremacy. They have nowhere to hide; it defines them; it is the only (inner or outer) garment they have. It is who they are. It defines the parameters of their humanity.

They are condemned to defend its evils whether they want to or not: forever trying to innocently (and with great detachment and no sense of taint) explain why it happened; ever wishing and hoping that no one looks at all the tangible and intangible perks, advantages, prerogatives and privileges they still accrue from it. And pretending not to remember that this unmitigated evil of inhumanity remains the gravity that controls the American cultural universe.

From an early age, the indispensable life skill for whites (even today, as it was at the founding of this nation), is forgetting that everything meaningful they value and believe in has already been fatally compromised and corrupted by, or remains inextricably tied to a six hundred-year culture of racism.

Whites must learn at an early age to deny (or worse yet, how to be content living with) the fact that beyond racism, there is nothing else to "being white." Through racism, whites have raped their own humanity from the inside out: Nothing meaningful is left but excuses, bombast, false claims and the elevation and objectification of superiority by fiat. In the end, it is all so much smoke and mirrors. Racism has made American humanity a smoldering dessert. Only the outer shell of humane existence remains. Look at what happened in New Orleans with hurricane Katrina?

Why can't black intellectuals like Dyson and Cornel West come out and say this, straight up? Why are they always pussyfooting around the edges, teasing us; pretending that they want to be us; want to represent us. They want to be everything to us: They are all preachers, rappers, graduates of the "hood," etc. ad infinitum. [Freud would have a lot to say about all this internal confusion of our black intellectuals.]

I'll tell you why they cannot say it, because for blacks, the existential reality (and crisis) of living under the shadow of racism is even more complicated than for whites. We must, one and all, live out the duality W.E.B. du Bois warned us about; inevitably coming to realize and then eventually admitting to ourselves that we are both the "subjects" and "objects" of this "intentional man made American" evil.

The largest problem for blacks at all rungs of the class ladder (from Dyson's jailed brother to his own life in the ivory league towers) is coming to grips with the fact that being "in" America is not quite the same as being "of" America. And that quite frankly, there has yet to be worked out a formula for finally resolving this national existential dilemma.

Those at the bottom of that socio-economic ladder seem to have less of a problem accepting and then living with this reality. They know somehow through societal osmosis that most of America is a carefully orchestrated sham. There is no melting pot. America's puffed up and false claims about democracy, equality and freedom, etc. whether viewed in Dyson's terms of context, subtext, and pretext; or whether just intuited from everyday experiences on the streets are little more than expressions of white internal and personal weaknesses projected onto the larger national screen.

Poor blacks surrender to this racist reality because they accept the fact that they are just too weak to do otherwise. They don't get caught up in believing in any white nonsense or fantasizing about their own personal relationship to it; they just deal with it as best they can and go on trying to carve out a meaningful life.

However, for Black intellectuals and the black upper classes more generally, it is quite a more complicated matter. Even though they too must realize at some level that they will forever only be "in" and not "of" America, they are nevertheless desperately rehearsing for the day they will become full members in good standing in the great white hero system. This yearning is palpable and is a very ugly spectacle.

Pretending to forget that it cannot be done (at least not without the self-defeating result of advancing the causes of racism: look at Condoleeza Rice and Clarence Thomas for example). These intellectuals forge ahead nevertheless, reciting their bios and singing out their resumes and curriculum vitas as they go, so that whites can clearly distinguish them from "those other blacks."

They are ever engaging in pseudo and meaningless debates on abstract ideas of democracy and political theory; engaging in literary criticism and matters of letters and the arts; serving as high officials in and consultants to the government and industry; and otherwise acting as if they were "under" rather than "outside" the great white tent. They do this only to prove to whites and to themselves that they are worthy of being dubbed "honorary whites," if only during the day.

The deeper they find themselves trapped in the belly of this self-annihilating existential beast, the more denial is required of them.

Michael Eric Dyson follows to a tee the well-worn script of the well-paid black intellectual, in residence. Intellectually he is the real deal: He is bright articulate, well read and OVER-understands the America of which he speaks.

But he too is intellectually and culturally, conflicted (and need I say compromised; that is bought and paid for). The result is a confusing kind of self-censorship. Like his conflicted mentor and intellectual hero Cornel West, Dyson knows where the waters edge is and knows when and how to pull his punches. Although these essays are VERY GOOD they are nothing if not a study in "how to pull ones intellectual punches."

He doesn't want to "speak power to racism;" so much as to "go on tour with it." Like "three card monty," racism is the only real game in town and the name of the game if you are "the token" in the ivory towers of the university is to milk that cow man, milk it; don't unveil it; don't help destroy it; don't fight it; don't make the white power structure too uncomfortable with it; just milk it.

Say anything you like so long as you don't shake the money tree too hard. Don't say "white racism;" say racism. Admit that there was racism in the past but only progress today. Be politically correct: there is no difference between racism and all of the other "isms." Put them all into the same bag. Stay on the abstract plane, don't get to specific and everything will be all right. The black masses won't know the difference anyway --especially if you continue to preach, rap, swagger and praise Jesus and some black woman for all of your success. If you do this all will be right with the world.

And don't forget, if your rhetoric allows whites to sleep at night, to continue enjoying their ill-gotten gains with equanimity, you too might yet get your ticket punched and who knows, you might even end up permanently under the tent of the "Great White Hero System" yourself.

Five stars.

15 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Straight fire!, September 15, 2004

By 

failasuf (Monterey, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Michael Eric Dyson Reader (Hardcover)

Michael Eric Dyson comes with pure fire. He is a living legend. I have read numerous articles by him, heard and seen him on TV and radio programs, and perused a few books of his, such as Open Mike, Why I Love Black Women, Between God and Gangsta Rap, but until now, I had never owned a copy, just used my library card or sat at the bookstore, but I can say in all earnest: Dyson is certified. He does not care for props, is disinterested with intellectual pretensions, zealously combats elitism, sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. I don't even need to delineate what a raconteur he is, it goes without saying. What I love most about Dyson is how he is able to understand that be it a Kanye West track All Falls Down or Wittgenstein's close to Tractatus, the sheer religosity of a Prince performance, or B Cosby appeasing white people at the cost of others, at the expense of his own dignity and so-called humanism, or affirmative action, etc., that it all exists on the same plane, and he approaches each with due respect and consideration. I can't say more. This is a real nice compilation of his work, and a good intro to anyone into reading Dyson. His piece on El DeBarge is missing, or else I'd give it 5 stars. I give it 4.75 instead. From a young cat, university student, to quote Q-Tip, again: Michael Eric Dyson is "certified." Peace.