Quote

The culture will not be able to persist in light of the rigid systems of its own innocence.

Michael Eric Dyson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Michael Eric Dyson
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: October 23
Author
Biographer
Historian
Detroit
Michigan
Persist
Innocence
Systems
Culture
Light
Able
Rigid

More quotes by Michael Eric Dyson

Image
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
Image
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
Image
What he [Michael Jackson] did was he allowed us, through his voice and his instrument, to see a glimpse of the heaven that he himself was denied. That sacrifice was the ultimate source of redemption that he gave to us.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
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
Image
We must continue to insist to our better off brothers and sisters that they are in the same racial boat as their less better off kin. Even elevated class status and superior financial standing cannot ward off the effects and consequences of racism.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
I think there's no question that Michael Jackson was the foremost entertainer of his generation perhaps of all time, arguably, taking the skills of a Sammy Davis, Jr., bringing together the street dance of African American urban culture, joining them to the politics of dance, of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly on that sphere alone.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
I'm not trying to say stop Donald Trump from being elected as his party's nominee. I'm saying that we have a responsibility to raise our voices, to say what he does as an American citizen is pretty destructive to the practice of goodhearted and conscientious politics.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
When I was 12 years old, my pastor came to the church: Dr. Fredrick Samson. And that was revolutionary because he mentored me and I got a chance to see up close the impact of a rhetorical genius.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
The only way for white folks to reclaim the full arc of their humanity, the full trajectory of their ethical content, of their ethical identity, is to surrender the white innocence that prevents them from being fully mature.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
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.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
No other group has internalized its self-hatred as much as blacks have. It would be difficult to find other groups who behave similarly in that their most esteemed members berate its poorest members.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
I used to tell people when I preached at a church, 'If you want a great sermon, be a great audience.'
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
The language of faith is crucial because it affords human beings the privilege of intimacy with the ultimate.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
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
Image
Body piercing and baggy clothes express identity among black youth, and not just beginning with hip-hop culture. Moreover, young black entrepreneurs like Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs and Russell Simmons have made millions from their clothing lines.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
My empathy for poor people comes from having been one of them for so long, from knowing that their humanity is more complex and that the truths of their suffering have to be told honestly.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
I went to a segregated school I was born a Negro, not a black man.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
I've written a lot of other books and this book [Tears we cannot stop] was different. I couldn't just say what I wanted to say in the same style that I said it in those other books. I felt compelled to preach.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
Class certainly loomed large in Katrina's aftermath. Blacks of means escaped the tragedy blacks without them suffered and died. In reality, it is how race and class interact that made the situation for the poor so horrible on the Gulf Coast. The rigid caste system that punishes poor blacks and other minorities also targets poor whites.
Michael Eric Dyson
Image
I didn't get to college until my 20s, because I was a young father on welfare and had to take all kind of jobs to support my young son. There's what frames my view on the topics I discuss on my shows, and the average person relates to that. No matter how many degrees I have now, I lived that life, and that comes through to the people watching.
Michael Eric Dyson