Michael Eric Dyson Quotes
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We must continue to insist to our better off brothers and sisters that they are in the same racial boat as their less better off kin. Even elevated class status and superior financial standing cannot ward off the effects and consequences of racism.
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Light-skinned black people are seen to be closer to white people. The allegiance to lighter-skinned people has operated in a very destructive way that we have internalized ourselves inside black communities. You look at many of the prominent black people in this society who have been able to do well. Many have been lighter-skinned.
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Elvis Presley had a stepstool, if you will, to success because he came from the dominant culture. They identified with him. Michael Jackson had to come further and go deeper into the pit of possibility of American democracy and of cultural expression.
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Originality doesn't consist of saying it first, originality consists of saying it in a way that is specifically tailored to the moment in which you are addressing - and at the moment when the complications arise, challenging the logic of what you're doing.
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I don't worship the Bible, I worship the God who gave the Bible.
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I grew up on the West Side - the "near West Side," in Detroit, as they say - in what would be considered now the inner city.
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I'm not trying to say stop Donald Trump from being elected as his party's nominee. I'm saying that we have a responsibility to raise our voices, to say what he does as an American citizen is pretty destructive to the practice of goodhearted and conscientious politics.
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Michael Joseph Jackson's genius was the ability to be the raw article himself - the real article himself. He is part of the African American people who were marginalized.
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I was very struck when Min. Farrakhan said if Jesus and Muhammad were here today, they'd be embracing each other. That's a tremendous message that needs to be heard more broadly.
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Record labels collude with some of the radio stations, and the radio stations have their play lists, dependent upon what they call the, quote, 'hits.' What's commercially viable gets recycled, endlessly repeated, and as a result of that, the progressive music can't break in.
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I grew up in the church and began to recite set pieces at the age of four and five, like many of the other kids.
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We have to understand and explain to each other what blackness is.
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That is my job as an intellectual, as an extension of my vocation: to engage in a serious reckoning with the present manifestation of both white supremacy, white refusal to acknowledge culpability, and the attempts of black people to re-describe the harm and trauma we've endured, as well as to say afresh what it is that must be done if we are to be conscientious.
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The heartbeat of your originality is deep within a body of thought that continually wrestles with the contradictions and limitations that we're constantly trying to overcome, the curiosities and the ignorances of the people we seek to help.
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The consequences of whiteness are particularly lethal right now. And the ignorance about it, especially on the part of white people themselves, makes them unavoidably complicit in a system that has to be unmasked, unveiled, undressed in order to be reformed or destroyed.
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Black women must challenge black men to live up to their best in every arena of the culture - at job, at home, in school and in religious arenas.
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I have no interest in romanticizing poor black people, having been one of them myself in our beloved hometown of Detroit.
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There is not a history of black intellectuals being allied with dominant forces to hold white people in social and cultural subordination for a few centuries. Second, the "our" of black folk has always been far more inclusive that the "our" of white folk. For instance, there would have hardly been a need for "black" churches if "white" churches had meant their "our" for everybody - and not just white folk. But "our" black churches have always been open to all who would join. The same with white society at every level.
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There are many things that black women can continue to do to help black folk. First, black women have historically been among the most vocal advocates for equality in our community. We must take full advantage of such courage by continuing to combat the sexism in our communities. Black women, whether in church, or hip-hop, don't receive their just due. Second, when black women are in charge of child-rearing, they must make ever so sure to raise black children who respect both men and women, and who root out the malevolent beliefs about women that shatter our culture.
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The language of faith is crucial because it affords human beings the privilege of intimacy with the ultimate.
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There's a dark underside to philanthropy. People who give a bunch of money are deferred to, even when they are wrong. The emperor cannot be shown to have no clothes.
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There's a great book about John Kennedy and his relationship to civil rights called 'The Bystander.' The title alone suggests that he did as little as possible, any minimal critical effort, to really facilitate civil rights in the White House.
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We come from a proud tradition of people who have insisted that none of us can be truly successful until at least the barriers to such success and thriving are completely removed. I think the black narcissism that prevails, along with the stylish materialism and self-satisfied, smug attitudes among many of our upwardly mobile brothers and sisters should be identified and criticized.
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All of us should be much more humble and contrite when we point the finger at somebody else, because four more fingers are pointing back at us.