Michael Eric Dyson - Debate 2016

I thank thank dr. bernd for that very gracious introduction and for this wonderful opportunity to come here to Hofstra and have this opportunity to chat with you about some important matters I'm going to thank miss Collins for her expert guidance through all of this and to to Dean Patrice for her wonderful presence and to all of the other people who are responsible for pulling together this August occasion and as dr. Byrne said we have been friends for quite a few years she's gotten younger and even more astonishing in her intellectual breadth and her impressive presence and I continue to admire her for her extraordinary capacity to be such a good teacher and to be such a remarkable counsellor to young people as well that is testimony to her great and wonderful gift and her sublime presence as a mentor to so many so much I'll give her another round anytime this microphone up the volume up so I'm honored to be here tonight because what I want to do is talk a bit about this theme of race religion and the American presidency of the presidential race of 2016 now any one of those subjects is enough on its own to warrant great fear and trepidation but to have the opportunity to chat about all three is especially inviting of our serious attention and regard when I think about race and religion and the presidential campaign I think about the fact that America has not done despite our efforts and our intentions a very good job of trying to grapple with the fundamental issue of race in America that despite the hundreds of years of consternation and controversy the bloodshed and violence we have not been able to overcome the legacy of brutality and we have not been able to honestly and openly finally confront some of the most damning issues of not only our day but of American history in general it has been said that slavery is America's original sin and from that sin we continue to suffer our inability to grapple with that past our desire not to delve too deeply into the past of race it gets real complicated it gets funky real quickly people get very nervous we say we want to have a conversation on race and yet we talk around it people think they can't be honest many white brothers and sisters think that if they tell the truth about what they feel they may be charged automatically with being racist people of color feel that if they tell the truth white folks feelings get hurt and don't want to continue the conversation and then in this nation we are discouraged from engaging and grappling with that truth because the fragile dimensions of our social compact remind us that we hang together on thin threads that's so much of what is going on in our country as a reflection of our inability to not only tell the truth but to engage in serious dialogue across many different differences and then when you add religion into that it gets even more complex because what do we mean by religion lagari to bind together the institutional framework within which identities of communities of faith take shape and what do we mean about religion are we speaking about the formal declaration the dogmas the very basis of faith the curriculum the teachings the discipline of what faith Christianity Islam are we speaking about Judaism are we talking about the religious impulse more broadly where we consider all faiths whether one is a Sikh or whether whether one is Hindu whether one is of a high whether one follows one's own path and how does that play out we say we respect all religions the Second Amendment the disestablishment clause I should say suggests to us that no one religion would be granted supremacy lest the tyranny we sought refuge from when we left British culture and I'm saying we in the Royal sense cuz wheeze Wedding up in there and when we left that particular predicament to become a nation seeking relief from the not only taxing situation of the economy but the inability to worship God as we sought didn't want the state to dictate to us what would occur and so we got grappled with a sense of religion in America that said no official religion would prevail and yet here we are in 2016 with a lot of people thinking basically this is a Christian nation it really ain't by any measure by our failure to live up to it but most especially by our failure to understand what the Founding Fathers meant by Christianity and religion ain't what you mean this is not your founding fathers religion they were part of what might be generally as described as mechanistic deists they they believed that God wound up the world and let it go on its own power there was no person allottee to intervene there was no superpower in terms of a personality imposing his or her will we can we say that God has no person yet we keep calling God him right so that conception of God is not what was necessarily the one that prevailed to be sure there were versions of that Jonathan Edwards and others who talked about an angry God and the personal determination of a deity to be mad at his or her children and to remonstrate morally against them there was enough of that hell that that that brimstone and Hellfire to be sure but the founding fathers had furious beliefs about religion and those of us who us attach ourselves to the founding fathers to show that we really have our bona fides that we are legitimate often miss the nuance and complication that would contradict their appropriation of the founding fathers religion into their own mainstream so raises complicated religion is complicated and the run for the presidency is show enough complicated and we live in a culture where it's important that our candidates prove that they got some connection with God on a speaking basis or highly every now and again or some are so arrogant they receive collect calls from God we demand whether or not it is true in their own personal lives in terms of their spiritual practice that our our presidents somehow exhibit a profound acknowledgement of a superior super above of the earth power and it's call some presidents just outright lie make up what they do and how often they go to church what it looks like and so it is the kind of extraordinary demand that our presidents exhibit this intimacy with the ultimate that leads us to judge them in a rather narrow sense if one of our presidential candidates said basically look I'm good with God and everything but you know basically I don't really go to church now hang out at the synagogue I'm not with the temple I just feel an internal pressure of conscience that motivates me to choose the right path and in good and decent common sense I embrace the moral alternative that seems more edifying in my own ethical vision not that's that that that may be the truth of the practice but that cannot be the declaration of the principle and so we demand a certain kind of religious fidelity on the part of our presidents because if you're the most powerful person in this nation and by extension as a result of America's place among the the family of Nations the most powerful man up to this point potentially woman soon then we want you to have we again being the rather general American public for whom I speak tonight we want you to possess some kind of intimacy with the Almighty we want to know that not only are you on speaking terms but that some of those values penetrate your own principles policies and practices race religion and the American presidential race how then do we speak about it we live in what Gorby dau called the United States of amnesia barbra streisand supplied the theme song I think what's too painful to remember we simply choose to forget thank God some of you know who Barbara Streisand is and got no Taylor Swift songs up in here tonight well yes maybe the religious figures wanted to shake it off players playing and so what's interesting about race is that we live in an era where whiteness itself I wanted to have a smoother transition but lo and behold whiteness claimed of my tongue and now out came whiteness it is difficult to speak about whiteness to white people because many white people do not know they are white now I'm that's white people are real smart I'm not in general notable exceptions black people are real smart notable exceptions Latinos Asian everybody but what's interesting is that whiteness becomes an environment a method of interpretation and ideal a goal it becomes a culture a race and ethnicity that has been unmasked and remade and many white brothers and sisters are not invited to think openly about their race when we think race we think black or brown or red or yellow we don't think white whiteness is a political identity but so was black and brown and red and yellow those are political identities none of us match the colors we claim to be right my color is not black more yellow and yet it's not about the epidermis fetish it's not about the skin it's it's about a political identity and in America whiteness has been a political identity that has been exempt from rigorous criticism and whiteness has launched many a criticism of other racial and ethnic identities you people are too sensitive why don't you stop talking about race why don't you just be American why don't you just behave in a certain way I saw a comment by a prominent Detroit businessman after this last killing of a black man with his hands up and threatening nobody he said on his Facebook look do what the cops tell you to do when you won't be dead another black man again disobeying and on and on he went the usual Shiva looks the usual arguments the usual cantankerous engagement with black people as children the paternalism that continues to dictate to us how we should behave when the reality is hands up we get chop hands down we get shot run we get shot don't run we get shot comply we get shot don't comply we get shot it is rather difficult to hear lectures from white brothers and sisters who are not similarly subject to the same kinds of practice and disproportionate numbers that we are and it's difficult to ask white brothers and sisters to think about that difficult to ask white folk to even think about whiteness not to get upset even as I say white does not to let your blood boil not to let you get angry not to let to let you get resentful or or somehow distracted or think that I'm being attacking you I'm not I want to ask a question about how we operate in in order to do that we have to be honest about how race is operated and we have to be willing to grapple with that and talk about privilege speaking about religion to whom much is given much is required my Bible says which means if you've got a bunch of stuff you got to be willing to examine your own knowledge conscience and consciousness if you've been given a lot you got to give a lot and if you in control in charge symbolically and collectively not necessarily individually you have to subject your position to scrutiny and it's hard and it's difficult race is a tough assignment whiteness is itself made and fashioned it's a fiction like any other racial assignment it's not rooted in your biology you're not born white the society in which you live a science value to your whiteness or blackness or being Latino or latina or whether you're red brown and yellow it is assigned to you by the culture in which you live these things are contingent and historical they don't have routing in biology the anthropologists tell us there's no such thing as race which means there's no such thing as white people I know you're here a failure or black people the brown or red or yellow people that we have made up our selves we have wasted our selves on our own fictional petard so we are creating novels in which we are the characters and so we invent rates as what we call a social construction that's what the fancy theorists call it raises a social construct tell that to the driver out there in the cab where you trying to get it please don't pass me by a mr. cab driver raises our social constructs mr. policeman don't shoot me you're shooting at a figment of your imagination a projection of your fear but the bullets keep killing my assets and so race is complicated enough whiteness is often not asked to think about itself as a race as black brown red and yellow are white people are not to think about races get upset if they do because they think they're American many white people think we're just human we're not we're not white we're we can't we all just get along can't we just be human stop the - ization stop the obsession and then on the other hand people of color say we want to stop the obsession we try to get out you keep pulling us back in we don't want to be reminded that we're black or brown or red or yellow but people keep doing it they call us names they treat us differently our schools don't open the same way we can't even vote you you you you love us so much you want to keep us from voting different practices differential treatment at the polls coming up with all if it went if it wasn't a problem under George Bush why would it be a problem under Barack Obama it's we asked the question not in terms of ideology maybe pigment maybe why is it that it's disturbed so many people that people actually get involved in the process of democracy and to pretend it's something different to pretend that a lot of the resistance Obama ain't got nothing to do with nothing else but that a brother in charge now we got all kind of fancy distinctions yes ideologically and politically we're opposed to him it has nothing to do with his race it has to do everything with if that's to get what the economy George Bush the the last one W might as well have been a Democrat in terms of all the money they spent according to what Democrats are supposed to act like right if you man it bad if you man it changes in the Constitution this is what the Tea Party said George Bush wanted to change that thing more than Barack Obama and if it's about the way in which the government is too much with the people spending so much that it obscures the process of true governance and that the government has swollen again mr. Bush could have been charged with that but the tea party did not emerge under him so there are some unconscious biases that flow out and the rise of Donald Trump who caught Obama R birther but the other day got religion now what's amazing to me like you can't be mad at Donald Trump what's amazing to me about Donald Trump is that Donald Trump thinks that his word makes a difference are you an actuarial table manager are you an insurance adjuster are you a genealogist why do we give a damn whether you think Obama was born in America as if you have skills to know a whiteness that is impressed with itself that believes it knows even other white people go that's pushing it too far and white Fogo if that's white I'm black George HW Bush announced today I'm voting for Hillary what in the hell and impressed with itself whiteness that believes the dispensation of knowledge from its heart will make a difference you're judging a man manifestly superior to you sir instant you tell us about your uncle at MIT so guilt by association what Obama actually went to Harvard and Columbia wife went to Princeton and Harvard they did it the way you said you won't Negroes to do it get your education they did speak well they do act right he is and what we didn't say oh that will scare the hell out of some people and make some people just downright mad if you ain't good enough then they upset if you're too good then they mad at you speak the King's English to the Queen's taste and if you don't dig Barack Obama ain't a brother been made you gonna really dig ain't no black man God can create that you're gonna love more than Obama he's nice he'll get upset he don't talk like me he doesn't challenge why people on their whiteness not explicitly he's too nice he says yes we can he looks at idiocy and lunacy and laughs at it every now and again he slips into black vernacular yeah keep popping off he walks down Air Force One like he's got 50 cent in the background I don't know what you heard about me but up can't get a dollar out of me many white brothers and sisters have other white brothers and sisters and you know what to Thanksgiving party you know the kind of stuff they say you too ashamed to repeat you know the kind of vitriol and hatefulness you hear that you are stunned by in your own family and even when they're being nice the metaphors that the analogy is the similes the stereotypes the hate the ignorance that is stunning that will be unmolested by enlightenment you know don't raise your hand I know you know and so when you think about your family members and the people that you know intimately think about the collection of millions of America that we have to deal with who believe the same thing who get mad who think that black people are taking your place where like we running stuff we're here like we get more than you where like we're like like we're really in charge the only place we in charge is in prison and we ain't in charge that we just got a bunch of people there question is how many presidents have there been who were black one I know black people say that therefore look brah if ain't nobody knew they was black they ain't black it don't count people and I love my people six people black blood in them we did not know in the words of the great philosopher Shawn Carter we don't believe you you need more people how many CEOs of major American corporations how many people run colleges how many people of color in college when you do the actual numbers the exaggeration and Pennock of white brothers and sisters is out of proportion to any real empirically verifiable challenge or threat and so whiteness has fed on amnesia been driven by Morrow panic and as ultimately undone itself undos itself undoes itself unhinges itself precisely because this is a kind of constructed whiteness that has become religion to some and principle to others and in the midst of that that whiteness has not served many working-class and middle-class white folk what do I mean by that whiteness that whiteness that is religion I mean the way in which regardless of the similarities between many and masses of many white brothers and sisters and black and brown people for instance that no matter the similarity the common interest the destiny we share on the same ship of fate that many people have sold a bill of goods that at least they're not black or brown the captains of industry those who continue to be corporate Titans and others who manufacture and produce goods and services that export them and reap billions of dollars of advantage from them do not have much in common with ordinary white people or ordinary people of color for that matter and yet the investment in whiteness as at least I'm not them I'm better than I'm different from those people kill each other those people are ignorant they are pathological you'll be surprised how similarly pathological we all are some of us get on TV and get dogged and some of us go under the radar was talking earlier with a student wondered him wondering about why 93% of black people who were murdered or murdered by black people yes that is distressing but 84 percent of white people who are murdered are murdered by white people people kill where they live if you want integrated killing you have to have integrated communities this was dr. King's dream I have a dream today that Americans will be able to kill each other in communities that are desegregated what not his dream the reality is my brothers and sisters is proximity murder it is neighbor to neighbor carnage they've done studies white brothers and sisters who struggle and who are poor do the same thing but they don't get talked about on television the same way oh they get dismissed as poor white trash the economic exigencies that they confront get read ascribed culturally and they are seen to perpetuate a legacy of shame and embarrassment before other well-meaning and well intending white folks so a good white folk and yet those millions of white Americans who are deemed as white trash don't see they get Moe in common with so many people of color than others because whiteness is held out as a possession that they should pursue as a compensating virtue yes you're not getting treated well yes you don't have access to good schools yes you will continue generation after generation to be poor but at least you ain't black that's not enough whiteness is a religion before which we bow and alter before which we worship must be challenged Jim Wallace talks about this in his book his latest book on American religion and the idolatry of whiteness as our American original sin and then those who who challenge that whiteness who think about it who appropriated who distance themselves from it whether they're white or whether there are other people of color pay a price for that and yet they're seen as outsiders they're seen as somehow interrupting the natural flow they're not seen as true Americans so when we see Colin Kaepernick the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers take a knee you're not American you're not legitimate as one of your bright students earlier today told me so many people in America pay money for you to make twenty million dollars a year and yet you are dishonouring those people who pay you and I simply asked her think about it as black people we pay taxes which means we supplement police departments which kill us a guy not standing up for the National Anthem seems to pale in comparison to the subsidization of your own oppression Tupac Shakur said just the other day I got lynched by some crooked cops and to this day them same cops on the beat getting major pay but when I get my check they take in tax out so we're paying the cops to knock the blacks out now we ain't mad at all police we walking around saying the police is evil ain't nobody call the police more than black people so so people on the Left have theories about the abolition of police black divine support net black people do be calling the police I'm calling the police on you right now mama we just want the police when they show up to know who the criminals are but if you have pre criminalized us any jerky her Kimo herky-jerky move makes you suspicious or just our breathing black man tells you up the road here in Staten Island I can't breathe how many languages does he have to say it in I can't breathe I can't breathe but if you don't see him as human the language he speaks will not compute you don't have to get deep with Thomas Kuhns notion of incommensurable vocabularies where people are speaking at odds against each other you just have to see you don't see that person is meaningful so his language doesn't translate even though it hits your eardrum you don't believe him you disrespect him you disavow his legitimacy and so colin kaepernick taking in the offends white americans really were you offended when in world war ii black soldiers went to the war and came back and get murdered because they dare wore a uniform were you upset in vietnam when black soldiers fought for america and came back and didn't enjoy the same privileges that their white brothers and sisters no no complaint no consternation on the part of white people saying you know what the rest of America is not patriotic it doesn't affect you you didn't see it you don't care it doesn't it doesn't fall within your purview and as long as the police treat you fine you don't get the problem because they don't treat your kids that way but if disproportionate numbers of white kids showed up in body bags if they from Hofstra went out partying as Hofstra students are capable of doing besides being intellectually brilliant radiant centers of academic pursuit they get they swerve on and if white Hofstra students kept coming back in body bags murdered they looked suspicious hair too long body tags too threatenings tattoos too bilious bodies too poisonous spirits too troubled presence too threatening and for no other reason they showed up as white they were killed suspected murdered I'm not saying white folk don't get treated like that but not to the degree and not in the proportion as african-american and Latino people so all I'm arguing is that we think about this seriously it doesn't make a difference because it doesn't affect us and so my brothers and sisters colin kaepernick taking a knee is rather heroic to many of us who believe that even if you're rich you ought to be able to have a conscience and speak for those if you've got a platform who don't have the platform and a lot of white brothers and sisters think it's a shame if even on 9/11 Jiminy Cricket we know on other days we can make exceptions but gosh darnit the hell are you talking about Oh 9/11 let's take that on what 9/11 show to us is that not many black people died on the police or the fire force because most of them couldn't get jobs in the same proportions hard but true beyond that I asked the young lady who asked me the question today what about if on 9/11 the police showed up and instead of protecting you they shot you who then would be the terrorist and if you think about what terror is they hate us because of who we are no matter what we do they keep trying to bomb us and shoot us and kill us and stab us and blow us up because they think we have offended their sense of propriety that somehow we have attacked them and assaulted them and now they are forever sworn to murder in and kill us terror no matter where we are at a place in Chelsea or over in New Jersey or in Paris and the Western world the fight is on imagine what it means to be a person of color under American terror where crosses were burned in loans where black people were lynched where postcards were sent out to have a picnic to celebrate it that's a history you say that's ancient history how about film of black people complying with the police and still dying and this sassiness a cat crying I stood the other day in front of Ben's Chili Bowl in Washington DC late at night about 3:30 4 o'clock in the morning I was out doing some research there is no end that I will go for you my people I'm a sociologist it's what I do and so I'm out looking at the rituals of you know engaged physicality on the dance floor and I'm out there and a young white man is going whole hog got the police cussing him out you yeah I can't even I'm just bleeping everything and my first instinct was oh my god they're gonna shoot that poor boy and then I said oh my god they're not young white man you know what the police said my son you're clearly inebriated you need to go home he's swinging on them they hold him back he's cussing they're listening to him can we just get that that's all we asking for the presumption that sometimes you do stupid stuff for stuff that's young or stuff that's adolescent that many white brothers and sisters would be so criminally insensitive that they would say you deserve to be killed because you ran or and the reason we run is because we know we stirred when we see police or we got something we shouldn't have and that doesn't mean we should die how many white people who go to parties and concerts and get drunk and blasted and waste it by that measure should be dead the blindness and the willful innocence and rage of that whiteness blocks out the possibility of thinking and therefore a person like Donald Trump becomes a walking human megaphone for all good white rage the right anxiety the white panic the white fear that they are losing that we are gaining on them that Amer as laws bring America back where did it go make America great again from what what ear are you gonna go back to to read ascribe greatness in America was it was it the 1950s when Negroes knew their plays was it when women couldn't vote what was America great like you think it was and it deserved to be when when you said at one of your rallies mr. Trump well you know back in the day they would just take them out in whip them sounds a little bit to slavery issue for me a little bit Jim Crow ish I hope you don't mind me saying and so with the sexism and the patriarchy in the xenophobia Donald Trump begins to amplify as a figure some of the the anxiety that America feels around the issue of race this man who is the nominee for the presidency spent years denying the legitimate birth of the sitting president now I'm not suggesting at all some white people think well you mean if you criticize Barack Obama you're racist no then I would be one of the biggest races around if you read my book I have criticism for the president you heard me love him tonight I give him love I always start with love always start with recognition but I got serious critique of the president so I don't believe anybody who criticizes Obama isn't racist I'm saying that so many people who criticize the him in the fashion and nature that they do are racist because they call them a simian an ape a monkey an orangutan a cipher you can criticize him but do you have to say some of the nasty stuff you say and some of the nastiness that pop up that bubbles up beneath the surface have nothing to do with race it has everything to do with it and yet we are intent upon denying it this makes it difficult then for us to grapple with some of the serious issues we confront as a nation so that race and religion and the presidency seem to converge precisely at the moment where we are incapable as a nation dealing with difference and then we see some of these narratives duplicated in these communities of color that began to absorb some of the resistance to difference a lot of black folk who were religious were mad at Obama when he came out in support of gay marriage and I'm like black people can't we really afford to be mad at anybody on marriage now that's just you ain't even got to have a patriarchal conception of the nuclear family you just how much togetherness however you constitute it and so black folk getting mad at gay marriage and I'm like I don't know if you realize or not but black people were frowned upon to for our marriages couldn't even get married in slavery had to jump a broom to show some official cognizance of togetherness and then if people of different races wanted to get married black folk and white folk were breaking the law to come together so how is it that we then turn around and get upset at gay marriage it's pretty funny and so when I go to black churches I just repeat I say you know I've never been to a black church that turns down gay tithes as I said earlier the only funny money they don't want to change black people go how dare they compare themselves to us you're not the same you can hide being gay I can't hide being black some of y'all do a pretty good job Clarence Thomas is faking it us out and he can't be missed why is it that some of the most obvious black people think nobody notices that they're black Simone biles out lovers she says I don't think about race but other people do and they see you and why can't you be both proud to be an American and also to represent black people who think it's great because we don't see many athletes doing what you do right it's some old manual the stereotype is black people can't swim okay I can't but but what I'm saying is that okay I'm sorry I'm a living stereotype forgive me what can I tell you and so and so what's interesting is that black people then who get upset that that they would dare compare themselves why don't you get flattered that somebody wants to take your movement and replicate it like you were so doped with what you did they want to do the same thing you ain't got no copyright on it how dare they take my movement when did you did you go to the license of your old life and like get the copyright send it to yourself in the mail civil rights movement mine the Martin Luther King jr. paid copyright and royalties to mahatma gandhi henry david thoreau my brothers and sisters when i think about black people who get upset i say you got to think more critically more insightfully you got to be more open-minded don't replicate the same kind of worship of your particular ideals don't make religion out of your racial identity in a way that you cannot fashion a complicated response to a particularly troubling and disturbing phenomenon mad at the president because he supported gay marriage turned the white house the rainbow colors when the decision came down now I did have a little Envy there I was looking for red black and green to pop up on that screen then the president come out Rafi kiwa khumba that ain't gonna happen I've been told maybe the last day we'll see last day Obama might come out what I've been faking for eight years I'm tired of this I'm a black man i'ma show you what I got I'm Superman I'm super Negro but alas that will not occur so black folks say well they chose to be gay really how do you choose that at what point do you how do you choose to be heterosexual if you choose to be gay you must choose to be heterosexual what do you do at 13 say hey MA I've looked at all the options and some of that stuff is just a pain in the ass thank you very kindly and I've chosen the straight path I'd like a car and a black book and at 16 I'd like you to support my habit of talking to females is that how it goes do you make a choice consciously or are you born in a culture that tells you what's right and wrong religious narratives that give you a sense of who you are that tell you what's legitimate and beautiful acceptable that God has blessed and not frowned on and those crowning's of God those blessings of God are deeply and profoundly shaped by the culture in which we live isn't it interesting why doesn't God break through some homophobic culture with an announcement that homophobia is wrong if God is independent of your culture community language why is it that that is the case and so so black folk who say well the word says the word the same word that said you were asleep obey your master the same word that was used to keep you in place I'm almost done and so it is apparent to me or as a Latino person and Hispanic American with cultures of machismo that we possess all of us as be people of color and the way in which we deal Aegina mais people who are gay is not really men or lesbian not really women and you're not really brown or black and then project onto our president the one now standing a kind of resentment because of his openness to them we have to ask ourselves what beliefs do we nurture what understanding of religion do we have and what faith informs what we think about the politics that should prevail because regardless of your particular religious identity there are public policies that should prevail that protect the ability of citizens to make choices not simply about race we could talk about gender and women's bodies as well and they do intersect and then we think about the fact that people who are gay or lesbian or transgendered or bisexual or queer are marginalized the beauty of the black lives matter movement is that they challenge that homophobia and they challenge the way in which we have bought a sense of amnesia to understanding our politics and speaking of religion and worship and whiteness as ideology and idolatry what about the variety that treats Barack Obama as secularly sacrosanct as a saint and an apostle of a certain kind of blackness that can't be interrogated can't be criticized black folk complain about white worship of Reagan and the inability to acknowledge that he could be human and we do the same thing with Obama now I realized that if you got 43 presidents on your side versus having one brother it's hard and then many white brothers and sisters remind us you know he's half US so we only got really half a brother so black folk oh I don't care I'm riding with him - the wheels fall off Obama can roll my mama over I'm gonna say mama you were wrong you saw that you saw that Saturday lives Saturday Night Live still with Kerry Washington others and they come auditive and they're critical journalists and so on and no no and then everything they do they they agree with Obama what about if you're you're a religious person right yes yes yes Obama proves to be an atheist okay would you still not vote for him no I'd still vote so there's something about that intangible charisma that Obama possesses that they bury in conception of charisma in terms of the authority He wills and yet we have not been able as black people in America because of our racial fidelity and loyalty to challenge Obama in terms of his treatment even of black people under Obama's 14 to 16 percent black unemployment had there been a white president we would have been out of order down now 28.1% American unemployment more generally is down to about four point nine percent Latino unemployment halfway between black and white unemployment and so we would have challenged Obama we would have challenged him when he said I'm not the president of black America what does that even mean that we think we were electing the president of the n-double a-c-p Obama has been disrespectful to black people in public to show white people that he could control the Negroes of whom he is a part hate to say it that blatantly but time has passed and I got to be straight in blunt so Obama proves his fidelity to a certain kind of race transcending conception of democracy by remonstrate by ethically reproving black people in public going to Morehouse College and speaking to those kids as if they were graduating from detention nobody he said will care whether or not you are black and racism has besieged you in a global economy you must be prepared and make no excuses they are graduating sir they have made none what you have not earned you will not get the only person who got an unearned degree that day sir was you he went to Columbia more specifically to Barnard did he give the same speech to young white women disproportionately no one will care about your Clark rise of sexism and a global economy you have not got what you have not earned no he did not say that he can't afford to tell white folk that kind of truth and so we as African American people have religiously associated a kind of secular sainthood with this apostle of greatness politically speaking which I agree with in terms of his greatness but not in terms of him being exempt from the rigorous criticism we ought to apply to every president and that inability to tell the truth about Obama because we fearful we are fearful that if we tell the truth about Obama in this contagiously toxic environment it will be used against him but guess what and people say you know if he speaks about race he gets assaulted he gets assaulted if he says the sky is blue he says up they say down he says what they say dry he says left they say right they don't like you and it took him too long to understand that to stand with people who do love you who do support you when Newtown went down Obama showed up once when Hurricane sandy showed up he showed up when Flint Michigan occurred it took him months Chicago where he is from he took his time this is ugly for us to face we will not face it we are collectively deluded as black people failing to comprehend that this beautiful powerful engaging figure has also been completely and interestingly flawed on specific issues but a kind of secular sainthood that attaches to him a religious belief that God has set him apart for time such as this has also exempt him from the rigorous criticism to which he should be routinely subjected and so as I in here we are left of course with Trump Obama and now of course Hillary Clinton a lot of people you know mad at Hill and I don't know about you but the sexism against her is pretty remarkable to me I'm not saying you can't be critical you just heard me say all this doesn't be critical to Hillary Clinton if you think she doesn't connect but not connecting has a lot to do with what's your perception of how women should connect anyhow if they in control they're the BI TC H oh you know so didn't you man oh my god if she speaks loudly she's a shrew what stop screaming okay Bernie Sanders anybody ever heard of him anybody ever heard of Donald Trump they're both screamers I promise you and we're gonna get it right Hillary Clinton shows up hello oh my god I can't take it I said at the table what a guy to try to explain to me how women's vibrations get to the eardrum physically I was like stop dude you kill you stop stop I don't want to throw my knife at you seriously stop I just don't I don't want to take my fork and stab you right now no spirit of OJ isn't me and I want to drop a drug on you the spirit of Bill Cosby's in me and the post and I'm sorry allegedly tried to tell me that the physical speech of women will somehow reaching a decibel like a dog I guess I mean look at this and and and if she acts what's a sir you know why did you tell us he had pneumonia well why do you think she didn't tell you cuz you already think she she's 69 she's about to Teeter over so women can't even afford tell truth yes I've had a bout of pneumonia I'd like to recover oh my god she's incapable and yet the mental distress that other candidates show from working so hard seems not to make them appear to be vulnerable at all so women have to be superhuman they have to multitask they have to do it in a way that doesn't insult men while being superior to the men women have been doing that from the very beginning out thinking out acting out behaving men and at the same time pacifying that collective fragile male ego she must believe in God to put up with that madness right I don't mean it Hillary Clinton is perfect she's got her imperfections we should examine them but at the end of the day the way in which she's spoken about race so clearly and passionately I think that she'll be a better president for people of color than Obama not because she knows more or could do more but because she's freer to do more right finally got a clap on the Obama stuff she's freer to do more because white privilege offers her the opportunity to behave black in a way Obama can't I get that right Bill Clinton could play a saxophone nobody thought about him as a stereotype if Obama comes out spitting yo I got a couple verses for you y'all been the holiday that be since I've been the president watch when I ain't no longer the resident i'ma kick your ass and talk about your president cuz it won't be me be I got bars like Drake I'll talk okay I'll meet Millia kill you do like the game and kill you again I pimp pages turn metaphors to better to serve sages like Socrates and Plato my name Obama I killed Osama I kill you too while Trump was laughing I was doing the gasps and I was not gonna mount while he was talking about it but anyway he can't do that so so she has permission to behave in a certain way but she also has the freedom to enact policies not feel good therapeutic interventions my brother's keeper but policy that makes a difference and to speak honestly as she has about asking white people to carry their burden when it comes to race Obama can't say that and he ain't inclined to say that I don't even know if he believes that and so as I end race religion and the presidency are complicated they intervene they interact they intersect our choice is to think critically about our lives and relationship to them what they say about us our choices what they echo and amplify what they reinforce and what they stifle and our choice is to choose not a messiah you know people say especially my friends on the Left oh my god I can't choose anybody dude then you choose in the status quo right we ain't trying to Malec the messiah here it's just the president and and in that sense if you really believe in social change don't reduce the complexity of politics to electoral politics keep working and so when those candidates come here in a week or so think about that as the backdrop to what they say and make your choices based upon your clear-eyed assessment and your a conscientious response to the best ideas of democracy that we have been able to put forth thank you thank you so much dr. Dyson we have time for about 15 minutes of questions first from students please and then we'll open it up a little bit more but students you are first up to ask dr. Dyson any questions please come to this microphone or that microphone students any questions please thank you yes sir how you doing dr. Dyson how you doing man two questions one what do you think of the mass incarceration of black people during the Clinton administration and - do you think Hillary is pandering to black people to get their vote thank you what do I think about mass incarceration under the Clinton administration do I think Hillary is pandering to black people to get their votes the old Clinton was president not Hillary I know a lot of people mad they see the super-predator stuff but I don't think she was in office I might be wrong I don't think she was in office then right now she was the first lady she said some stuff are we gonna hold Michelle Obama accountable for for Barack because she gave a great speech at the convention I'm just asking cuz we're gonna hold if that's gonna be the standard we got to go back and reread with Nancy Reagan said just say no does she create drug policy now she legitimated a certain kind of feeling I'm not denying that and she's a culturally significant figure and so Hillary Clinton is a culturally significant figure who reinforced what her husband believed and by the way a lot of the Congressional Black Caucus who signed onto that bill right now her use of super predators she's already admitted that was wrong look John Ditullio Princeton and Penn who came up with that it was madness when he came up with it it was a madness when the Clinton said it right so there's no doubt that that's problematic and again though as the first lady to judge Hillary according to public policy efficacy is efficacy f you see so what's it okay I'm trying to to avoid that so so the reality is is that I think that while she reinforced prevailing stereotypes that should be noted and she should be held accountable or as a public figure not as a political figure Bernie Sanders voted for that bill by the way right and Jesse Jackson gave a tremendous testimony before Congress and said it was gonna be messed up Jesse Jackson did a lot of y'all don't like and don't think about and don't want to know a lot of young black people don't even know his name what he did Americans he's one of the greatest Americans we produced in my mind top lists the black leaders Martin Luther King jr. Frederick Douglass Jesse Jackson that's how much work he put in that's what he did he'll be dead he'll be dead for ten years before you realize what he did so he spoke against it a lot of black people spoke for it Bill Clinton said black people told me that this crack cocaine is so deep and it's messing up so many communities that I want to outlaw it even more than powder cocaine because powder cocaine doesn't have the ability physically to be which black people and mess up the culture so deeply so let's not put it in a vacuum it's in a particular context right the political economy a crack is operating you know you got all these crack movies and New Jack city right never wesley snipes christopher Williams pretty rare right uh and we looking at those bags and Chris Rock was just rocked out look crazy this is the culture of the time this is the temper of the times as Eric Hoffer would say so we got to put that in context but but having said that I criticized him in my Malcolm X book I criticized in my Martin Luther King junior book because I thought what he did was destructive he signed a crime bill he signed welfare reform and what he did against Lonnie elder I mean Lani Guinier and joseline elder and sister souljah was a trifecta of demonology of black women right sister soldier he played her you know she didn't mean what she act like she messy what time are killing our white people she was doing a thought experiment like he took it to the extreme what she wants to kill all white people you know better than that you go to Jesse Jackson's place to diss him on his own home territory to show white suburbia I'm not gonna be controlled by the head Negro in charge and then Lani Guinier is your friend from school you don't even stand by her side stand by your appointee I don't even get that do you stand by your man this generation what's wrong with you Google the song so and then with joseline elders he fired her from being what Surgeon General because she would talked about masturbation dude had you listened to her when the bend no blue ain't judgin no generation says don't judge me ain't judging you but had you listened to her and taking things into your own hand no extra charge for any of these jokes I'm just telling you so Bill Clinton did some funky things also did great things with the economy also had Moe black people in his cabinet and then then then Barack Obama so and what's interesting why is it the Obama took so long to act with his executive power on all these commutations and stuff it's not just press Bill Clinton's has to do there now I mean you've done the 80-100 that means it's like I don't know 20 50 60 80 100 million left you know I'm exaggerating but it's a lot more that left you thousands and thousands of people left you know what about your policies what about what what about your sensitivity to this issue again afraid to talk and touch blackness because he would then be read as somehow hooking his people I get it but if that's the case why did you want to be President that's why Hillary Clinton could do more for us it would have made more sense for us to vote Hillary in because she wouldn't have been radioactive she wouldn't been ashamed she wouldn't have been white privileged or you would have been lacking white privilege and she would have been she wouldn't you wouldn't have been lacking it but she you would have been liking it and she wouldn't have and so my point is we voted for you because you suppose we are about as president including ours but black people take that abuse I'm not the president of black America you are the president of black Americans we're citizens our needs or American needs too what about our unemployment what about our death what about our poisoning so I think it's very important to address that and what Bill Clinton did was problematic he's admitted himself by now but hindsight is critical although some people try to oppose it then hindsight has really been especially helpful in talking about the over incarceration of African American and Latino people in terms of pandering is about sometimes about something about time somebody pander to us the hell if what with what Trump is doing if that's called non patterning pander to me and as they might pronounce it in New York I'm a pander pander bet panda bear you know sir pander you know like like like like like like New Yorkers say I saw her what oh you saw I saw her so pander what does that mean how you gonna win if I ignore you that I'm doggin you if I speak to your issues that I'm pandering the hell now pandering could mean that you're not serious about it that you're only saying it to get a vote to manipulate it but I would ask you to go back and look at her history she's been on that path for a minute she's been on that path for a long time you might disagree with her but Hillary has been doing her work so she was in law school at Yale when she repented for being a Goldwater Republican and she changed right Hillary Clinton worked with the with the Children's Defense Fund she worked on behalf of poor black people in the Delta she worked on I mean she's been doing work for 35 years so I don't think there's an impending at that level I would challenge those who would suggest that and I would say what's what's the exact calculus here what's the metric by which we judge whether it's pander or attention I wish Obama would have pandered I wish I was Trump would pander right you're going to church one day with a shawl on that ain't pandering ray that dainty knit dog so so my point is I don't think she's pandering at all but for those I know Millennials are suspicious and skeptical and I'm saying at the end of the day I get it but what you gonna do what choices do we have vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson he don't he know where Aleppo is and this shows you that if you get a good liberal education you would have known Aleppo you would have read Othello excuse me Oh tell Oh soft you a word it before you go I have done the state some service and they know it and when you speak of me speak of one who low for wisely but not too well and say that in Aleppo once there it is there she is Aleppo Otello okay Shakespeare get your stuff together homie you could be libertarian but damn sure have a liberal education and understand what you're saying well that's my thought on that thank you sir guess how are you today sir how are you sir alright good back in my parents day or the black church was such a main part of our movements but today it doesn't seem to be like that so my question is what role would do these megachurches play in that in that absence yes a great point well let me tell you something what's the woman's name Stephanie I can't think their last name now historian who writes about the nostalgia of at Greenwood out in Olympia in Wisconsin somebody will google her Stephanie something or last name she writes about the American family Stephanie Coontz thank you thank you Jeanne map to Google as she knew it there it is so Stephanie Coontz is arguing that we have we have been nostalgic about what what happened and they really happened and we talk about the black church the black church resisted Martin Luther King jr. that's the black church right but the masses of them I'm talking about right I'm talking about JH Jackson in the National Baptist Convention so much so King had to go what a splinter movement out of the National Baptist Convention to the progressive National Baptist Convention round 62 63 so the black church was deeply and profoundly conservative from the get-go right it was only the small remnant the prophetic black church the black church prophetic tradition ain't never been dominant it's been visible the most famous preachers have Jesse Jackson Martin Luther King jr. William Gray crazy a hall you know a lot of progressive preachers but on the real for real most of them have been the pie in the sky and spiritual traditions and Dismas I ain't mad at the spiritual traditions and all that but you know hey why are you bringing those politics into the church my god that's not where we're here for so dr. King was already an outlier any and in fact the Ford Foundation sponsored a meeting of black preachers about a month or two before King died and King said summer y'all are more interested in the will based on yo automobile than the poverty of your congregation he might as well been talking right now but he was talking then cuz the church ain't change that much so yes we had the fans with King and after somebody gets killed we all celebrate him oh my god it was great when he was alive it was tough he was taking us in a different direction so you're raising an extremely important point but that prophetic remnant is here now Freddie Haynes is one of the great preachers who's continuing that tradition out in Dallas and we you know father Pfleger white man who's black on the southside of Chicago Jeremiah Wright god bless him so there are many traditions that many people who are carrying that tradition but it's hard it doesn't pay as well you don't had a big you know they got some big churches but the mega church you know when you're bringing in millions because you popping that you know feel good and do good and kumbaya and the prosperity gospel and so on and Lord wants you to get paid and your name peripheral dollar for real really that's what you are it becomes difficult so I think that we have to your right though we have to hold that church into account to account and we have to hold it in tension with the prophetic traditions that we promote and preach they have always been on the margin sure thank you sir thank you thank you yes ma'am my question is how do i and how do white people contribute to the conversation about racial equality and and the movement towards racial equality without coming across as as white saviors right right yes ma'am yeah very good question although again if Donald Trump is the other side I'm down with the savior's but what's interesting but you're right we don't want saviors right we want people who are allies as one I think it was Brittany Magna said even accomplices right and first of all and thank you for that question I think just by white folk having a measure of comfort about speaking about race right that's the first thing like let's talk about the elephant in the room pink or brown or white whatever it is let's at least honestly confront it so that's beautiful number one and then number two I think that engaging the racial hostility we see around us you know one thing Obama you would say a lot when he would say hey black people ain't making this up now because people just thank you at home making up just let me see what can I say to to make white people think the racism is still here oh yeah yeah they're killing us on the street okay he says that we're not making it up so if you could if we could reinforce the value of what people say that it's legitimate that they have a real concern I think that's extremely helpful thirdly to be as educated as you can be about these issues and you clearly are helping others to do the same thing let's get informed let's talk about white saviors let's talk about white fragility as Robyn D'Angelo speaks about it let's talk about how white people keep people from telling them the truth by saying you got to hurt my feelings don't do it stop or saying you're exaggerating microaggressions what the hell is that political correctness I think political now means that you can be a bigot like you used to be without being held accountable that's political correct you know that's what it is now I'm not saying because I believe in a raucous classroom as you might not be able to tell so I believe white students black everybody should be able to say what they got to say don't assume they're racists don't assume that they're Reax less let people talk it's a safe space in that sense but it doesn't mean I'm gonna protect you from your classmates who might think you crazy but I would say don't think they crazy let them talk and let's hash it out and then finally not finally build another thing I think is that if white brothers and sisters among yourselves right do you know as people say speak among yourselves and when I mentioned earlier at the Thanksgiving table I don't expect you to go hey granny it's kind of rough what you're rocking there right now you know because she's still paying your tuition so don't be crazy wait till you graduate to show that knowledge until such time sellout know what I'm saying is you know you got to get that degree first baby but you know you got the challenge way Footwear there is where they are where they exist when ain't nobody around when they have in real conversation because maybe why people don't speak in public you're one of the few brave thank you very much but a lot of white people don't necessarily talk in public cuz they don't want to be seen as races and if they make a mistake they don't wanna go like somebody jumped down their throat what the hell you talking about right they don't want to get jumped on and I understand that so they remain silent because they don't want to say the wrong thing so we have to work to create a safer place where people can tell the truth about what they believe but we also want to have a reasonable challenge to blindness and innocence and and belief that will work so one of the things that can happen is if that white people could speak in peers among peers to challenge some of the blind and some of the ignorance some of the hostility that occurs so you you know that they're gonna hear from you in a way they can't hear it from me you're gonna say it more eloquently you're younger you're hipper far better looking I'm sure more lucid and they're gonna hear it from you in a way they're not gonna hear it from me right and even though I'm a funny guy I'm lovable and irresistible all white people I know you'll be surprised don't think that I can tell by the letters they they call me dear you and go back home that's like it's not nice I mean mama stop writing those go that's not my mother okay that is sad so they calling me names they're demonizing me they're telling me I'm trying to corrupt their kids now that part is true cuz I'm trying to corrupt young white kids as much as I can corrupt them out of that incorruptible you know belief structure it's got to be corruptible at some point I want to challenge narrowness and bigotry and blindness and horizons that are closed I don't mind saying that yes I'm here to explode that stuff but not just among young white kids I do it among young people period and my you know this is what I do I'm a paid pest that's my job and so in that sense if you share with others educate yourself tell the truth as much as you can help other white people tell the truth about race understand that whiteness is a racial formation as well that needs to be talked about then it's not about Savior it's about a lie then when you become a full partner you can challenge even some other people of color just because you born black or brown don't mean you know black or brown and yes you have certain experiences but one of the most vicious effects of white supremacy is to convince people of color they don't have to study their own history stop there's stuff up I'm 57 years old stuff I'm just learning right now bubbling like wow really I ain't even know that so let's be a little bit more humble about that and then when we do so allies are not saviors but they become accomplices to help us challenge it and we'll talk a little bit after it down will exchange information we'll talk more thank you thank you so much yes ma'am so my question is kind of about like your observation of Millennials why not about women speaking to the microphones don't you like my question kind of initially when I'm Congressman John Lewis had voiced his support for Hillary Clinton I noticed a lot of people in my age group were very quick to say that he's a sellout for some reason and that you know Hillary Clinton is racist and like and then pledged their support for Bernie Sanders I don't but um where do you think that that like shift as far as my generation versus older black Americans kind of happened where we I just feel like there isn't as much knowledge maybe amongst my generation that they were very quick to call John Lewis of all people right so yeah where do you think that yes ma'am and what's your age group how are you 18 18 okay yes ma'am all right represent you're doing a good job got your cousin's back here see what's up yeah that's a very good point it's very sweet and it's very honest and it's very genuine you know look first of all it's hard to be young should be tasked with making big decisions leading movements like black lives matter 17 18 19 20 called into existence as a result of horrible catastrophic events 18 19 20 21 22 but then again when you think about it throughout history they've always been young all right John Lewis in them they were young too can you imagine when you grew up you know DeRay McKesson he's a sellout DeRay when to raise like 60 he's still tweeting Oh Twitter is so old they'll have something new that I can't even think about what it would be called Glitter global intelligence through twitter issuu and it doesn't mean you can't disagree as a young person with an older person but to so quickly resort to sellout from a guy who got his ass beat so that you could tweet right I know that rhymed I didn't mean it to but you know I'm gonna throw that it arrived he got his ass so you could tweet and now you defeat the very guy who said you could tweet so so the thing is is that John Lewis an American Hero an iconic figure doesn't mean he's doesn't mean he can't be criticized doesn't mean you can't say congressman Lewis I love you but I disagree but to call him so immediately a sellout why are we so quick to do that the judge and you said I've been called one but you know look sellout to what bought into would sell out Wow how you measuring it let's see I'm gonna snap back at you I'm a clap back cuz if you bring it to me be prepared to receive it I'm a quarterback and a receiver and I will punt it so not nastily but vigorously because I think young people should be respected and challenged respected because you're inheriting an impossible world with an impossible duty to change the world that your elders have screwed up and so I love and admire your vigilance so dismiss John Lewis is a bit harsh because he supports Hillary Clinton to dismiss Hillary Clinton to me is harsh now there's a huge as you know Gulf and abyss older black people I guess I'm joining their crowd now I'm young I am in my mind so older black people down with Hillary Clinton Millennials not so much a man I understand that and I hope we can overcome that gulf but i would hope the lintels would understand that given the available politics what it means to grow up and be an adult is you don't get everything you want it doesn't turn out that way even when you vote people screw up even people you like do the wrong things sometimes so to quickly dismiss a figure like John Lewis's it's tragic to me not because he can't be criticized he should be but it's because we don't have a sense of the history your point about knowledge Twitter Facebook people think they know everything just cause they read it on social media and then when I drop a 10,000 word piece oh my god it took me days what 10,000 words takes you days don't come to my class homie please cuz you got to read can develop those intellectual chops I know a lot of young people do that a lot older people don't but I'm saying social media has made us believe it's instantaneous it's right here right now what I love about social media what it used to take a lot of footwork and spade work no pun intended to do when you went to the library now you can archive a big ol article and look up stuff and PDFs of books and stuff it's amazing and I love it but another hand got dang it don't be intellectually lazy read people be asking me on Twitter what is your what is your conception of ontology and how do you respond to the epistemic crisis that has been generated as a result of the philosophies change from linguistic to post linguistic in four hundred forty characters that's what you want read read my book and then I come back with five books I done wrote have written done wrote hey man like what they I know that but I just wanna know what you know read it that's why I wrote it so you can read it I feel like Bill Cosby now so I could do it and the people so so I'm saying I encourage I challenge young people develop your skills think rationally and critically you're so brilliant you're so amazing you do things that such lightning speed but sometimes you got to slow down and live with something for a minute and I think when we do we get a bigger sense of history I don't want to be a you know stasis against change I think it's important for young people to challenge old people like me but I think it's important for young people to listen and to respect and understand that some people fought for you to be able for you to call me a sellout some people shed blood for you to be able to do what you do and there ought to be some acknowledgment of what their contribution especially guy like Jesse Jackson or John Lewis or Eleanor Holmes Norton these people are heroic still changing Jesse Jackson's working on Silicon Valley John Lewis is writing comic books and graphic novels to reach a young generation so they're trying the best they can and I think we should meet them halfway we people we should reach back and try to close that gulf okay I know I'm getting the sign here that I got to hurry up all right thank you so much so we don't take these Laster you know no no y'all can stay there at the bike but I'm gonna be very quick did you young lady did you have a question she's your support that's beautiful hey I don't have anybody up here with me speaking I need to do them they said I like that I like that all right y'all two real quick yes ma'am um so I've been social media sick and my new hashtag today I think was hashtag Terrance Crutcher and I just want to ask you how what you think blacks and Latinos can do to step out to step away from the phones and get away from the social media and to be more active in mobilizing or maybe unifying before these type of disasters happen no no it's perfect yeah you know what I think it's both and that's a great point you heard me now now was I was slapped snapping on it now I'm a defendant I was ready to snap now but defended because without social media civil rights leaders would not have known about or organized around Trayvon Martin right social media was critical put it out there challenge the peoples like yeah you write on it stuff dicen what you saying about Trayvon now sometimes you could use some help in your damn skills cuz if you come at me like that do you think do you want to be talked to that way just cuz you think I'm famous and I'm on and I'm trying to be nice do you have to talk to me like a piece of can you speak to me with decency and respect instead of saying what you gonna do now think about it you got bad digital breath I just came up with it I like that I like don't steal that yet okay bad digital breath so treat me like like ask me a question I look I got a bunch of followers but I take time to actually answer people's questions anybody I think I knows initials cuz I'll be answering all my stuff recently so what I'm saying is that treat people with respect and the social media realm encourages digital courage and nonsense and hate so the beauty of the digital space however is that it allows us to challenge and be challenged and to receive those challenges with respect indecency and to move forward and to think and I've been challenged several times I had to rethink and talk and grapple with and said you raid and let me go excuse me go back to the drawing board I think that's extremely important on the other hand just cuz you tweet you ain't done nothing major like you know I I tweeted today I feel my social agenda has been fulfilled but I discovered a lot of people who tweet also get out on the streets a lot of people who face book get out on the street a lot of people who tinder okay that's doing a lot of people who periscope right don't think that it's the spectacle itself yo I was on there and I was tweeting and I was you know drop okay but show up at the rally show up at the courthouse show up but a lot of people do it's a way of organized it's a megaphone in the same way that the mimeograph machine operated twitter does today so i don't want to demonize twitter at that level if it becomes a means toward an end and i think that but it is sometimes some of us get caught up in that digital space as if that's the be-all and end-all and we think when we've acted there we've acted no there's something beyond that that we need to do so I agree with you and and I want to answer this I didn't hear you ask this but I can feel the frustration in your voice I can feel the terror feel the pain you know sometimes when I look at it I wonder will white brothers and sisters ever Stan what we go through when we see yet another black man basically lynched shot always excuses for why it might occur it wears your soul out it is wearying it it is depressing what Weber called world weariness it sucks life from the body it leads to inordinate levels of frustration and hurt and pain and trauma and grief and so we must support and love and nurture each other in the belief that this democracy will one day be made whole if we continue to act even though we are tired and it is wearying to be sure but we must affirm the value and the beauty of that struggle in the face of such manifest evil and ask our white brothers and sisters and others to join us to put yourself in our positions to imagine the young lady who asked about white saviors show up with black lives matter shirts support Colin Kaepernick be willing to be courageous in white spaces where it might cost you Justin Timberlake is great as long as it doesn't cost him the moment it cost him it's like hey I'm not black I just played one on record right and gets defensive Marc Jacobs can appropriate candy colored dreadlocks but when he gets caught on it as a white liberal then it gets nasty hey what about white black women who who wear straight hair you ain't Caucasian ain't the only one who got straight hair homie right I'm just sayin so we're asking for white brothers and sisters to have a level of deep and profound political empathy so that they put themselves in our position so they know what it is we confront you didn't ask that but you allowed me to ask that because of the level of pain and frustration you may feel that I feel with you thank you thank you look file to the people and the final question is with women of color being such a targeted group in America today and I was having to wade through the women's suffrage movement and through the civil rights movement and modern-day thinking that you know we were fighting along our brothers in the black lives matter movement and then we have Sandra bland and corn Gaines and hundreds of woof there woman that I could do you see us having to wait again in this movement or do you see progress more so than with the past it well the fact that you asked that thank you personally given the fact that you asked that lets us know you ain't waiting so you might write the female version of dr. King why we cannot wait I'm gonna start it off for you why we cannot wait right and we have to say this both to the larger feminist movement and to the larger black freedom struggle movement now I think black lives matter has done a better job you can tell me better I think they have at least done a better job of trying to deal with gender and queer politics a lot better than we did right in my generation and then the generation ahead of me the civil rights generation where's that behind I can't be on so that generation when trying to hear you know wait wait till we get this civil rights thing worked out then you could deal with the feminist thing nothing go never happen this ain't gonna never get right so why women gotta wait and women are suffering simultaneously at the same time even worse right just a just as many black women are being kicked young black girls are being kicked out of school as black boys but we have appe you know my brother's keeper what about my sister's keeper they get they get an thinking dog too so no you cannot wait you cannot wait the time is now the time is always right to do the right thing and women are central to the definition of this issue hundreds of black women been victimized we don't talk about them to the same degree with the same impetus with the same energy with the same insight simultaneous to our situation as as black people it is defined in part by our reference to black women and to women of color so yes we must confront it and you must insist that your issues should be taken up not just by women but by the entire community is that a woman thing right black men should be concerned about what hurts black women black children ought to be on all of our agendas so no and I think I am encouraged I hope you are too but what by what I see among young people your generation far better but you got to continue to challenge hold their feet to the fire this is not a patriarchal movement this is not a parade for the male ego this is about the Equality of communities of color that include disproportionate numbers of women and their issues are our issues as well okay all right thank you

Channel: Hofstra University

Views: 43,889

Keywords: Hofstra, University, Michael Eric Dyson, Race, Religion, Politics, Debate 2016, Presidential Debate, Sociology

Id: r85vsCmNkS0

Length: 101min 5sec (6065 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 21 2016