The Michael Eric Dyson Reader

by Michael Eric Dyson

  At the same time, I’m attempting to excel at the height of my profession and at the top of my game, like Michael Jordan. I have no bones about that. I want to represent on that level where people go, “DAMN, did you hear what that brother said?” ’Cause I want young people to say it ain’t just got to be about sport, it doesn’t just have to be about some athletic achievement—as great as that may be—or about Oprah or Bill Cosby, as great and ingenious as they are at what they do. I want young people to say the same thing about intellectual engagement. I want them to have a desire to deploy a variety of jargons, grammars, rhetorics, languages, and vocabularies to articulate views in defense of African American or marginalized identities, as I attempt to do. I want young people to say, as the folk in the ’60s and ’70s used to say, “Got to be mo’ careful,” in admiration of such linguistic and intellectual skill. Not for show, but for war, against ignorance, misery, and oppression. I want young folk to say, “I wish I could do that, I wish I could be like Mike!” I have no qualms in hoping for that, because I want to seduce young people unto excellence, since they’ve often been sabotaged by mediocrity. I have no reservations in seeking to inspire young people to do what I do, only better. So I constantly strive to deepen my vision, broaden my intellectual reach, and expand my repertoire of verbal skills. And at times, you feel the pleasures of the palpable responses you evoke in those who hear or read you.

  On the other hand, you’re always surprised by people who claim you have influenced them, because you can never accurately or adequately measure such a thing. We are prevented by circumstance and environment and context from knowing the true nature of our own influence, which is why we should really remain structurally humble. Not falsely modest, but structurally humble. For me that means if I am wielding influence, it is because I have tried to be faithful to the gifts God has given to me. Structural humility means that as a matter of principle, we remain cognizant of the need to check our arrogance and bridle our vanity. This recognition must be the very foundation, the very structure, of our public activity, to keep us from taking credit for what only God can give. To be sure, we never know the full extent of our influence, which is why we should also attempt to be vigilant in exercising our gifts. As the rapper Guru says, we never know when someone is watching or listening. I’ve had people around the country, folk who read my books, articles, and essays, or hear my sermons, lectures, or commentary on radio or television, tell me that something I’ve said or done has changed their lives. That’s a huge responsibility, and we’ve got to accept it as part of our duties as public intellectuals. And such responsibility doesn’t stop at our national borders. I just got a letter from Japan, and some intellectuals want me to come there because they think I’m doing important cultural criticism. And I’ve just fielded an invitation from London to speak on religion, and from Italy to speak on politics, and from Cuba to talk about African American culture and politics.

  In light of all of this, structural humility is surely in order. The best we can do is to represent the truth as honestly and clearly as we understand it, with all the skills at our disposal. Of course, nothing I’m saying means we can’t feel good about our achievements, or about the influence we might wield. From my perspective, if we truly believe that our vocations are manifestations of ultimate purpose, we’ll want to do our level best to stay at the top of our games as an acknowledgment of the gifts God has given us.

  One last thing that ties in is how you’ll be able to do that. I can see very clearly your intellectual path. But how are you going to be able to keep your hand on the pulse of the street, because by necessity . . . it doesn’t have anything to do with your commitment . . . but, like you said, Japan, Italy, universities, busy . . . How do you maintain that connection? I know that’s vital to you.

  It is vital. That’s one reason I still spend so much of my time on Sunday mornings preaching, and going into communities as a public intellectual and political activist.

  You ever just go walk through the neighborhoods?

  Lord yes. When I go to neighborhoods all over this country, I’m trying to find the barbecue shack. I’m trying to find where the Negroes hang out. I hang with the bloods. I want the local color, the local flavor, what Geertz calls local knowledge, because black folks are so diverse and profoundly complex, even if we have similarities that bind us together. Black folks fascinate me. I want to continue to learn about us: the different vernaculars we have in different regions; the different ideological and political subcultures we generate; the varied contexts that shape our cultural identities; the varied sexualities we express, especially beneath the radar of racial correctness or mainstream propriety; and the inflections of the black diaspora in our food, fashion, and faith. So, I’m constantly trying to learn more wherever I go. Of course, one of the critiques of intellectuals I often hear is that we’re out of touch with “the folk.” Well, when I preach, I’m reaching “the folk.” Those critics who say that intellectuals per se—not particular intellectuals, mind you, but intellectuals as a category—are out of touch, have often stereotyped “the folk.” Further, they feel free to speak for, and identify with, “the folk,” and they feel free to attack intellectuals in the name of “the folk.” But I’ve often discovered that “the folk”—these very souls whom critics seek to protect through claims of our irrelevance—are hungry for intellectual engagement.

  In the meantime, “the folk” are out-reading, out-thinking, and out-intellectualizing the very people who quite defensively and condescendingly argue in their name that they won’t get what we’re doing, won’t understand what we’re up to, or will be automatically suspicious of our aspirations. Now don’t get me wrong; there is more than enough warrant for the skepticism, perhaps even the cynicism, which some folk harbor toward intellectuals who’ve earned the titles Irrelevant, Pedantic, Didactic, or Condescending. On the other hand, when intellectuals prove that they’re serious about helping people think deeply and clearly about the problems they confront, their advice, insight, and analysis is more than welcomed by “the folk.” I think we have to stop essentializing the folk, as if it’s some mythic community. Well, I’m the folk. They’re the folk. So my preservation of connection is through the immediate context of preaching, teaching, and activist politics, as well as hanging out in the ’hood and going to the barber shop and the barbecue joint and hanging with “the niggas.” And not for ethnographic titillation or anthropological voyeurism, but as a legitimate participant in vibrant black folk culture, the kind from which I sprang and in which I feel most comfortable.

  I can’t tell you how many black folk I’ve met who’ve said, “Brother, we read your book, keep on writing,” or, “We saw you on TV, keep on speaking.” And these are ordinary, average people, the so-called folk from whom ostensible grassroots gatekeepers attempt to divide us, almost by ontological fiat, as if we’re a different species of people. These black folk say to me, “Man, you’re speaking to white folk, you’re speaking to black folk, you’re keeping it real on a level we often don’t see.” That makes me feel good, when black folk say I’m speaking brilliantly, insightfully, intelligently. But that doesn’t mean I can’t disagree with what the majority of black folk think, that I’m somehow locked into a rigid perspective because I am committed to their amelioration. I love black folk, which is why I ain’t afraid of them. I’m not afraid to disagree with mass black opinion, to call into question beliefs, habits, dispositions, traditions, and practices that I think need to be criticized. I seek to speak truth to power in love, as the Bible suggests. I seek to address the high and low, those on the inside and those locked out. That’s my obligation and lifelong objective.

  Interview by Lana Williams

  Durham, North Carolina, 1997

  Two

  LETTER TO MY BROTHER, EVERETT, IN PRISON

  Soon after I arrived in Chicago in 1989 to teach ethics, philosophy, and cultural criticism at the Chicago Theological Seminary, I learned that my younger brother Everett
was arrested and charged with murder. Of course, such a revelation deeply wounded my family. But we rallied to Everett’s defense as we concluded, after intense investigation, that he was innocent. As the only college-educated son among five brothers at the time— though still four years from my Ph.D.—it fell to me to generate money to aid in Everett’s expensive criminal defense. The process of securing legal counsel, as well as keeping up the family’s morale, was genuinely harrowing. In order to raise funds, I took to lecturing, preaching, and writing for a variety of scholarly and popular venues. These efforts lead in large part to the material collected for my first book in 1993, Reflecting Black. During my brother’s trial—he was eventually convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to twenty-five years to life in prison—the family dog in Detroit was killed and the family house was shot at, presumably in retaliation for my brother’s alleged crime. This prompted my mother to leave her job and house and live with me in Chicago for nearly two years before returning home. Everett has now been in prison for fifteen years. He has converted to the Moorish Temple Muslim faith, changing his name to Everett Dyson-Bey. I visit him regularly and continue to work for his release. This open letter to him, though painful to write, was both emotionally cathartic and morally clarifying, helping me to sort through critical domestic and social issues in both our lives.

  Dear Everett:

  How are you? I suppose since we’ve talked almost nonstop on the telephone over the last five years, I haven’t written too often. Perhaps that’s because with writing you have to confront yourself, stare down truths you would rather avoid altogether. When you’re freestyling in conversation, you can acrobatically dance around all those issues that demand deep reflection. After five years, I guess it’s time I got down to that kind of, well, hard work, at least emotionally and spiritually.

  I’ve been thinking about you a lot because I’ve been talking about black men quite a bit—in my books, in various lectures I give around the country, in sermons I preach, even on Oprah! Or is it the other way around, that I’ve been talking about black men because I’ve been thinking about you and your hellish confinement behind bars? I don’t need to tell you—but maybe I’ll repeat it to remind myself—of the miserable plight of black men in America.

  I am not suggesting that black women have it any better. They are not living in the lap of luxury while their fathers, husbands, brothers, boyfriends, uncles, grandfathers, nephews, and sons perish. Black women have it equally bad, and in some cases, even worse than black males. That’s one of the reasons I hesitate to refer to black males as an “endangered species,” as if black women are out of the woods of racial and gender agony and into the clearing, free to create and explore their complex identities. I don’t believe that for a moment.

  I just think black women have learned, more successfully than black men, to absorb the pain of their predicament and to keep stepping. They’ve learned to take the kind of mess that black men won’t take, or feel they can’t take, perhaps never will take, and to turn it into something useful, something productive, something toughly beautiful after all. It must be socialization—it certainly isn’t genetics or gender, at least in biological terms. I think brothers need to think about this more, to learn from black women about their politics of survival.

  I can already hear some wag or politician using my words to justify their attacks on black men, contending that our plight is our own fault. Or to criticize us for not being as strong as black women. But we both know that to compare the circumstances of black men with black women, particularly those who are working class and poor, is to compare our seats on a sinking ship. True, some of us are closer to the hub, temporarily protected from the fierce winds of social ruin. And some of us are directly exposed to the vicious waves of economic misery. But in the final analysis, we’re all going down together.

  Still, it’s undeniable that black men as a whole are in deplorable shape. The most tragic symbol of that condition, I suppose, is the black prisoner. There are so many brothers locked away in the “stone hotel,” literally hundreds of thousands of them, that it makes me sick to think of the talent they possess going to waste. I constantly get letters from such men, and their intelligence and determination is remarkable, even heartening.

  I realize that millions of Americans harbor an often unjustifiable fear toward prisoners whom they believe to be, to a man, unrepentant, hardened criminals. They certainly exist. But every prisoner is not a criminal, just as every criminal is not in prison. That’s not to say that I don’t believe that men in prison who have committed violent crimes can’t turn around. I believe they can see the harm of their past deeds and embrace a better life, through religious conversion, through redemptive social intervention, or by the sheer will to live right.

  The passion to protect ourselves from criminals, and the social policies which that passion gives rise to, often obscure a crucial point: thousands of black men are wrongfully imprisoned. Too many black men are jailed for no other reason than that they fit the profile of a thug, a vision developed in fear and paranoia. Or sometimes, black men get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Worse yet, some males are literally arrested at a stage of development where, if they had more time, more resources, more critical sympathy, they could learn to resist the temptations that beckon them to a life of self-destruction. Crime is only the most conspicuous sign of their surrender.

  I guess some, or all, of this happened to you. I still remember the phone call that came to me announcing that you had been arrested for murder. The disbelief settled on me heavily. The thought that you might have shot another man to death emotionally choked me. I instantly knew what E. B. White meant when he said that the death of his pig caused him to cry internally. The tears didn’t flow down his cheeks. Instead, he cried “deep hemorrhagic tears.” So did I.

  Even so, a cold instinct to suspend my disbelief arose, an instinct I could hardly suppress. I was willing, had to be willing, to entertain the possibility that the news was true. Otherwise I couldn’t offer you the kind of support you needed. After all, if you really had killed someone, I didn’t want to rush in to express sorrow at your being wrongly accused of a crime you didn’t commit. Such a gesture would not only be morally noxious; it would desecrate the memory of the man who had lost his life.

  If I wasn’t able to face the reality that you might be a murderer, then I would have to surrender important Christian beliefs I preach and try to practice. I believe that all human beings are capable of good and evil. And regarding the latter, wishing it wasn’t the case won’t make it so. Too often we deny that our loved ones have the capacity or even inclination for wrongdoing, blinding us to the harm they may inflict on themselves and others.

  I eventually became convinced that you were innocent. Not simply because you told me so. As one lawyer succinctly summarized it: “To hear prisoners tell it, there are no are guilty prisoners.” After discerning the controlled anger in your voice (an anger that often haunts the wrongly accused) and after learning that the police had discovered no weapon, motive, or even circumstantial evidence, I believed you were telling me the truth. Plus, you had been candid with me about your past wrongdoing. And in the wake of your confessions of guilt, you repeatedly bore the sting of my heated reproach. For these reasons, I believed you were not guilty.

  I realized then, as I do now, that these are a brother’s reasons. They are the fruit of an intimacy to which the public has no access and in which they place little trust. Many of the reasons that led me to proclaim your innocence are not reasons that convince judges or juries. Still, I felt the bare, brutal facts of the case worked in your favor. A young black man with whom you were formerly acquainted was tied up in a chair on the second floor of a sparsely furnished house. He had tape tightly wrapped around his eyes. He was beaten on the head. He was shot twice in the chest at extremely close range, producing “contact wounds.”

  After breaking free of his constraints, he stumbled down the flight of stairs
inside the house where he was shot. Once he made it down the stairs outside the house, he collapsed on the front lawn of the house next door. As he gasped for breath while bleeding profusely, he was asked, first by neighbors, then by relatives who had arrived on the scene, and later by a policeman, “Who did this to you?” Something sounding close enough to your name was uttered. The badly wounded man was pronounced dead a short time later after being rushed to an area hospital.

  In the absence of any evidence of your participation, except the dying man’s words, I thought you’d be set free. After all, he could be mistaken. Given the tragic conditions in which he lay dying, he might not have had full control of his faculties. Was his perception affected by his gunshots? Was his mind confused because of the large amounts of blood he had lost? Unfortunately, there was no way to be certain that he was right. There was no way to ask him if he was sure that you were one of the culprits (he said “they” a couple of times) who had so barbarically assaulted him. But without his ability to answer such questions, I believed there was no way you would be imprisoned. Surely, I thought, it took more than this to convict you, or anyone, of murder.

  I was wrong. The murdered man’s words, technically termed a “dying declaration,” were admitted into court testimony and proved, at least for the jury, to be evidence enough. I was stunned. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been. Detroiters were fed up with crime, including the ones who peopled the black jury that convicted you. How many times had this apparent scenario been repeated for them: black men killing other black men, then seeking pardon from blacks sitting on a jury in a mostly black city?