A Conversation with Michael Eric Dyson | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

well first up he's a professor of sociology at georgetown university whose latest book is tears we cannot stop a sermon to white america michael eric dyson [Music] you've sat in this chair before when you were the newsmaker unfortunately this week i find i'm the newsmaker i wanted you to come by here because you know i want you to to to school me uh i did a bad thing yeah well that's a great place to begin bill very bad thing yeah um but look in the past you've been the person who has been on the front line saying that the left shouldn't apologize progressives should resist any sense of complicity with a culture that is too apologetic and yet you find yourself on the hot seat here tonight uh what led to that change of mind oh and i thought you were going to be easy on me uh and you shouldn't no that i mean that's true but you know honestly i've said both i mean i i have um i remember when mitt romney was running he had a book no apologies you know like america should never apologize and i said no apologies are sometimes appropriate there is a lot of apologizing in america and i am against that uh but you know we shouldn't apologize for slavery and japanese internment and abu ghraib and indian genocide and tuskegee right so when it's appropriate this was appropriate because i'll tell you why because for for black folks that word i don't care who you are right has caused pain i'm not here to do that right now the guy who was here it's not his fault i feel bad about him the senator um it's all on me but he said a weird thing the comic mind goes to a weird place sometimes but doesn't it doesn't matter that it wasn't said in malice it wasn't it if it brought back pain to people right well but then i and that's why i apologize freely and i reiterate it tonight well that's sincere right but look but you're used to those cheers that big of an ass all right well you use those chairs but you got to understand now you know i'm taking a lot of heat people saying you're a you're a sellout why would you dare go on uh the show with your guy who's your friend because they feel good they figure that i'm going to be complicit with you that i'm not going to challenge you that this is an easy pass but do you understand why people are skeptical in the pain and the suffering look when you made the point about the house in and then you you know black people were saying look it's not as if black people in the house were any better off than people in the field both of them were subject to slave dominance hegemony hatred rape and the like and as a result of that okay as a result of that people think that that's insensitive but surely you must know all that was not going on in my mind right well of course and as far as your question about you're gonna look i know we're friends right and that is not a greater bond than your bond with the black community i hope we're friends forever but anyone who knows you knows you're a straight shooter right uh i mean i feel like i got robert mueller here you know right i got so you know i what let me ask you this so one of the things that you know my book the book you mentioned is about white privilege i talk a lot about white privilege when i was here before i spoke about that and people believe that one of the things you did last week was an unconscious reflex nobody will describe to you any malicious intent but that's the point right that it grows out of a culture that reflexively identifies uh that particular word with some heinous acts in history and so they think it's a matter of privilege that it doesn't happen let me let me read you something that my son a well-known authority uh on this he's this is what he texted me he said i know white boys like that who get a pass who earn a pass from the work they put in but the coolest and most honorable white boys are the ones that choose not to act on that past because they understand the history pain and insensitivity behind the use of the n-word so do you do you truly understand the the need to name and to challenge that unconscious white privilege that exists and how it hurts black people even if unintentionally yeah but of course i i think i do i mean we're all evolving we're all who we are right by the way this happened once right a guy said a weird thing i made a bad joke right yes it was wrong and i own up to that right but i mean it's not like i've made a career of this right right you know it's not like i went out there last last friday and said oh i'm going to break some new ground tonight right right right it you know it happened and it was wrong and people make mistakes we're all sinners and we gotta yeah so but but i totally get that uh look i mean we we are all evolving right at the pace of day by day i grew up in an all-white town yeah in new jersey right not alabama right that's the country i this was i was born in 1956 i grew up in new jersey in the 50s and 60s and race wasn't even an issue it didn't exist right we were except my parents told me the right thing about it right and i've tried to by the way portray the right thing about it well there's no question about that i've said that's why i'm here that's why i'm here there's no question but here but here's the issue you just put your you just put your finger on an extremely important point so that those people over there right we think about in the age of trump we think about the nefarious uh resurgence of racism under jeff sessions and under steve bannon there's no question about that so that even if your intent is certainly not to to cause any kind of pain or horror you do know that the use of that word then triggered i think the not only the unconscious but the but the way in which black people feel on their hunches now because of the resurgence of racism that you but that the reason i'm here is because you have attacked that you you are the one who said denying racism is the new racism you're the one who called donald trump out on his racism and forced him to show his birth certificate but what's what's interesting and tricky here is that when i talk about white privilege in my book i talk about people who are consciously the allies of black people but who may also inadvertently unintentionally but nonetheless lethally participate in the culture that ends up hurting as you've acknowledged black people uh in a way that has to be grappled with that's why i think there was so much outrage and hurt and pain people don't think oh bill maher is a racist i don't think most people thought that what they thought was if even bill maher can at some level capitulate to a level of unconscious privilege then the rest of us are in a in a serious spot okay but but i'm not here to make excuses but first of all the word is omnipresent in the culture yeah so the fact that it was in my mind is you know also is there what part of what you're saying true absolutely as i said i'm just a product of the country like everybody else right but i just don't want to pretend this is more of a race thing than a comedian thing comedians are a special kind of monkey so to speak we are [Laughter] with me [Laughter] we are a trained thing that tries to get a laugh that's that's what we do that's all we are always thinking right and this is not the first time this has happened first time on this subject but not the first time i've gotten in trouble in private as well as in public because that's what comedians are somehow wired to do is like always go we want to make those people laugh right and sometimes we transgress a sensitivity point i mean my friend kathy griffin yeah who by the way owes me uh a fruit basket for getting her off the front pitch yeah no doubt about that but you know there's a there's a a similarity there because like what she did as much as i hate trump yeah that's wrong you don't do that to whoever the president is right but you know she was going for a laugh right and i understand that we sometimes do cross the line where i i you know where i want to just wanted to say to her is she said trump broke me no he shouldn't and my career is over no it's not right you make a mistake you don't have to go away right everyone makes mistakes no no question about that let me say this kathy griffin should not go away no no you know i talk in this book and i think you and i have talked about this offline uh that when i first heard said to me i was a seven-year-old child uh with my friends in the south i reread it this week i mean i felt even worse i mean look and it's real because that kind of crashing consciousness that i am different that i am forever consigned to a different box relegated to a different reality so that even with i think you're absolutely right in terms of the comedic line you know what people would respond to that by saying but look there are trigger points even in comedy that lines you should not cross as you said kathy should not do and when it comes to race you know that i mean it's not that i'm introducing a new concept to you you understand that but the reality is that there are so many people who are vulnerable out here who are black people brown people red and yellow people who are vulnerable who don't have the protection of a culture so that their comedians might make jokes think about it uh i i thought about larry larry to look you remember larry david um one of my favorite scenes from curb your enthusiasm is when a black man comes up to him and says hey you my and larry david wants to show affection so he wants to go you're my he says are you are you my caucasian so so what he understood what he understood was that's a lie he can't cross and because he understands he can't cross it even his comedy has to be disciplined by it now now as you've already said the reason i'm here wait a minute the reason i'm here is because i'm willing to take the heat for people because i think that the bill maher i know has been on the front line protecting standing up standing up for four people you made a mistake you've acknowledged that mistake and i think it's important for the nation not to rush past that but to understand that even as celebrated and as conscientious a figure as you if you can make a mistake that means the rest of us can so we have to grapple with how deeply rooted that is so for me look i know you're not a christian and you're an atheist and i'm a christian but i tell people often i'd rather work with you as an atheist because you ultimately believe in the principles of justice but my bible tells me to whom much is given much is required you've been given a great deal and as a result of the great deal that you've been given i want to see you continue to stand up and trumpet justice for those who are vulnerable to reinforce their standing in a culture where you've gone after the powerful and done it in such a powerful way that's why i text you often every week after the show and say bill you got in their faces again and in getting in their faces again that means standing with those who are vulnerable to those who are who are who are look i mean [Applause] every quarterback throws an interception no doubt no doubt and i try to squeeze him in yeah more than most yeah yeah you bart you're brett farving the game there yeah well i'm just saying you know what what bothered me about this is that i i i it's it cost me a lot of political capital you know i'll use that term even though i'm a comedian but i'm a comedian who's doing something a little different than most which is of course i'm trying to entertain and be popular that's my political capital right but at the same time i'm saying things that are sometimes unpopular even with my own liberal group yes which most people don't yeah so i'm always you know aware of like well i'm willing to do that i'm willing to spend political capital for a cause or a view that i think needs to be out there right this wasn't that this was just a mistake all right this was just a dumb interception you know right well no so you know but again i've been on 24 years right well there's no question and and but and the thing is it's not as i said as i said you know that this would be a teachable moment it is a teachable moment because you happen to be the kind of person whose conscience causes you to be reflective there's so many more millions of people who exercise white privilege without any sense of consciousness and who refuses to own up to that in a way and i think whether or not you intended that to be the case it at least opens up the possibility that we can have that conversation and i think that's a consequence you mentioned a few minutes ago the fact that i introduced that phrase into the language yes denying racism is the new racism yes i mean a vast majority of fox news viewers think racism doesn't exist right that we've made it up that we've made and that the real problem is reverse racism absolutely i mean there's a lot of work to do and your book talks about what let's get to what people can really do because you talk about reparations and you talk about reading right right just it's the time we have left tell us about those two things well i think they're important and you know when i talk about reparations i'm not saying that every white person should give their money to black people though after the show if anybody is willing to do that i certainly want to be available uh but i'm talking about practical things let me tell you what some people some white folk read my book and wrote me and said look i took you seriously i went out and bought some some computers that were that were tore up that were jacked up i got them fixed i took 20 computers over to the local school with african-american people and you should and they sent me the pictures of them and it was incredible so those are the kind of practical things practical wisdom practical justice that can be rendered in the name of that and then reading read look look all of us need to deepen our awareness of what's going on as you know bill i mean and you'll have that conversation later black people ourselves are at war with each other about whether we use the n word or not some people think we should some people think we shouldn't uh i'm not a racial loyalist in the sense of i believe we should be fundamentally aligned to a certain position that says if you believe this and you're legitimate you're black and if not you don't i don't believe in that i believe in the same kind of thing you believe in the kind of irreverence but having said that what i also understand is that reading and engaging the world around us you're learning something about the world before you so many people speak about race and they have racial amnesia they have they're they're caught in a fog of dismemory they want to see the world the way they want to see it they listen to fox all day long they believe that the president is the greatest man i'm talking about the present president uh in the history of the world and what they fail to understand is that this new age in which we live has certified and legitimated the resurgence of some of the most heinous expressions of anti-blackness that we've seen and we need you as an ally and i'm glad we got you brother doctor professor all right jason

Channel: Real Time with Bill Maher

Views: 1,039,373

Keywords: Michael Eric Dyson, Professor of Sociology, Georgetown University, author, Tears We Cannot Stop, A Sermon to White America, Ice Cube, rapper, actor, 1991 album, Death Certificate, David Gregory, CNN, Political Analyst, NBC, Meet the Press, Rep. David Jolly, Republican, Florida, Symone Sanders, Political Commentator, National Press Secretary, Senator Bernie Sanders

Id: cqKtRbEM2WM

Length: 15min 48sec (948 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2017