The Michael Eric Dyson Reader

by Michael Eric Dyson

  At some point, the claim that the work of black public intellectuals is simply not rigorous enough, that its intellectual predicates are too thin, can be legitimately made about all public intellectuals. I know it’s true of some of my work. (Please, don’t ask what work I’m referring to; I might have to tell you which paragraph of an essay I wrote when I was twelve that I have in mind.) We all slip. And our critics should be there to catch us. But the genre of public intellectual work is not itself indictable on that charge, as some critics want us to believe. True enough, we can’t equate an op-ed piece on the unfairness of sending blacks to jail in disproportionate numbers with a dense description of the ways criminality has functioned to stigmatize black folk in America. The latter will, if well done, do much to reorient thinking among scholars who influence the perception of these matters in academic circles, and, by extension, beyond the academy. The former could pull the coat of some policy wonk or congressional flunky who might pass it on to her boss. Both sorts of work are worthwhile.

  What’s doubly intriguing about the debate over lack of rigor, especially among black intellectuals, is that, like the mourners at a funeral, those crying the loudest are the most guilty. I’ve seen, heard, and participated in too many discussions with self-styled rigorous black intellectuals (shall we call them the rigorighteous?) who took special pride in the complexity, nuance, and density of their thinking—while despising the lack of same in the work of other black intellectuals—who were then denied tenure by their white colleagues for lack of substantive work, and laughed at behind their backs by those they seek to please with their displays of rigorous wizardry. There’s a useful distinction to be made between rigor, which can be expressed in elegant prose or in complex theory, and wanton inaccessibility, which masquerades as cutting-edge intellectual craft when it’s little more than jargonbloated, obfuscated intellectual nonsense. Make no mistake. This is not a minibroadside against postmodernism, poststructuralism, or any of the influential pillars, like Derrida and Foucault, of those posts. At its best, theory should help us unmask the barbarous practices associated with some traditions of eloquent expression. But like a good sermon or a well-tailored suit, theory shouldn’t show its seams.

  Black scholars—though this is true for other scholars as well, just not with the same implications about presence or lack of intelligence—are often put in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” bind. On the one hand, we were told for years that our work was worthless, that it lacked the rigor and language by which serious scholarly work is known. We were subtly but insistently implored to employ the jargon of our disciplines, thereby showing our mastery of that plot of intellectual ground we were taught to plow. Then we were told that if our scholarly writings were too jargon-filled they were obtuse and meaningless. We were told that if we couldn’t write in ways that made sense to a broad public our work was of no use. This is good to remember now that critics are taking black public intellectuals to task for our work. Back when scholars like Oliver Cox and W.E.B. Du Bois were doing just what it is alleged we often don’t do—careful, serious, deeply thoughtful work—they were ignored or dismissed. Du Bois’s monumental study, Black Reconstruction, sold only 376 copies in its first year of publication in 1935. The book wasn’t even reviewed by the American Historical Review, the leading journal in the historical profession. That’s a sober reminder of how black intellectuals shouldn’t be too quick to surrender whatever visibility we’ve managed to secure in deference to a notion of scholarly propriety. We see where that got us.

  It’s also evident that the lure of the lights can corrupt black intellectuals by making us believe our own press. Or by making us addicted to praise and disdainful of serious criticism, which, by the way, every public intellectual lauds as a virtue, except when it’s directed his or her way. Nobody hates criticism like a critic. Still, many black public intellectuals have been victims of drive-by, gangsterstyle criticism. In this sort of attack, one can virtually hear the machinery of jealousy working overtime to crush another black intellectual’s work, to knock her reputation down a few notches to build up the critic’s own. No one but the critic benefits from such hateful exercises.

  Equally worrisome, too many black public intellectuals hog the ball and refuse to pass it to others on their team. Many times I’ve been invited on a television program, a prestigious panel, or a national radio program because a white critic or intellectual recommended me. Later I often discover that another prominent black public intellectual, when consulted, had conveniently forgotten to mention my name or that of other qualified black intellectuals. Ugly indeed.

  I guess this is a way of saying that, yes, a lot of black public intellectuals, despite what we say—maybe because we say we don’t—really do want to be HNIC, which, in light of the fierce and corrupting competition over the sweepstakes of visibility, also means Hottest Negro In The Country. If that’s the case, it’s a disgusting waste of a grand opportunity for a group of black intellectuals to make a significant impact on our nation’s debates about race and blackness. By doing that well, we might open up space for black thinkers to range freely over the entire field of American interests. Black public intellectuals have a great responsibility: to think clearly, to articulate eloquently, to criticize sharply, to behave humanely, and to raise America’s and black folks’ vision of what we might achieve if we do away with the self-destructive habit of racism and the vicious forces of black selfdefeat taking us down from within.

  Black public intellectuals are leaders of a particular kind. We stir up trouble in broad daylight so that the pieties by which we live and the principles for which we die, both as a people and a nation, are subject to critical conversation. Black public intellectuals are certainly not leaders in the sense as, say, Jesse Jackson or Louis Farrakhan, with an identifiable base in black communities from which we launch criticism or commentary that often, though not always, reflects our constituencies’ beliefs. Not that black public intellectuals don’t have what might be considered constituencies. There are many publics, and black public intellectuals move in and out of many of them, including the university. Sure the university is not, nor should it be, a civil rights organization, although some crotchety conservatives and miffed liberals would argue that multiculturalism, identity politics, and “PC” have made the differences between the two rather small. But the university is a public sphere, with a lot of rich people’s and poor people’s kids attending. And given the attention we’ve got, black public intellectuals have to try to help make the world smarter, safer, and saner for those, and all of America’s, youth. We don’t speak for The Race. We speak as representatives of the ideological strands of blackness, and for those kinships we possess outside of black communities, that we think are most healthy.

  But we ain’t messiahs. Nor should we have messiah complexes. We can’t afford to take our world’s problems lightly. But we certainly can’t afford to take ourselves too seriously. In that spirit, Gentle Reader, I offer you as a send-off—perhaps even a send-up—a summary of what I think about black public intellectuals and our critics. Since we’re not, for the most part, eligible for Oscars, Grammys, or Emmys, consider these the Envys, given to recipients of the First Annual Awards for Black Public Intellectuals and Their Critics.

  The Cheaper By the Dozen Award. This award is given to Adolf Reed and Eric Lott, two very smart, if mean-spirited, scholars who revel in ad hominem and ad feminem arguments. Reed wrote an essay about black public intellectuals in the Village Voice, heaping personal attacks on me and bell hooks (“little more than hustlers”), Cornel West (whom Reed in the past called “a thousand miles wide and about two inches deep”), Robin Kelley, and Skip Gates. Reed called me and West “running dogs” for Farrakhan in another Voice article (but we must not be too well heeled—we still didn’t get a chance to speak at the Million Man March!). Reed’s bitter commentary seems based more on a writer’s level of success with the public than on anyone’s actual ideas, since he is so damn ma
d at so many different thinkers!

  Lott, too, has taken to personal attacks, especially in the left journal Social Text, where he called West a sellout, and in the journal Transition, where he labeled my work “middlebrow imbecilism” (just to think, most people have to meet me twice to draw that conclusion). For both writers, we black public intellectuals just aren’t radical enough. But isn’t that argument worn out by now? At their worst, Reed and Lott prove that the left continues to do what it seems to do best: self-destruct! The left holds firing squads in a circle, while our real “enemies”—the radical right-wingers who detest every bone in our progressive heads (I’m sorry, I mean bodies)—get off scot-free!

  The Elijah Complex Award. This award is named after the biblical figure who cried, “I, even only I, am left,” proclaiming himself the only true prophet in town. It goes to the undeniably brilliant bell hooks for the numerous times she’s told us, in writing, in public, or in conversation, how she’s the only black intellectual to talk about class, or the only black on a panel to get the deeper dimensions of the topic of conversation, or one of the few black feminists who’s a serious intellectual. Somebody tell bell that God told Elijah, “Sorry, but there are 7,000 others like you still around.” Well, maybe there aren’t that many black feminists and serious intellectuals who talk about class, and about race, and gender and sex, too, but there are a whole lot more than bell seems to be aware of. Please, somebody give her a list!

  The Spike Lee/Terry Mcmillan Award for Shameless Self-Promotion. Okay, I’m the recipient of this award, for calling newspapers, television and radio stations, magazines, and other venues to tell them why they needed to review my book, or have me on to talk about my work. I can’t believe I’m telling this. After all, I wanted people to believe my name was so hot that folk just couldn’t stand to run special issues of journals, assemble conferences, or do shows on the matters that I address without me. And you thought the black public intellectual’s job was easy. Listen, if there are any publishers, magazine editors, or television producers reading, I’d like to tell you about my latest book . . .

  The Golda Meir “Humility Is My Strong Suit” Award. Meir once said, “Stop being humble, you’re not that great.” This goes to the very talented Cornel West, who genuinely is very humble, but who slipped—and don’t we all—and reminded us. (My pastor once said to me, aware of my pride in my humility, “The moment you announce you’re humble, you no longer are.”) This award is also in honor of West’s three-piece suit—a nod to W.E.B. Du Bois’s Victorian duds—the armor that West slips into every day to fight the good fight. Only problem is, he made a lot of people mad when he said that, generally speaking, black intellectuals these days dress so shabbily. Since most black intellectuals can’t pony up for nineteenth-century gear—or, for that matter, most twentieth-century high fashion—the only hope is for J.C. Penney to recruit West to design affordable clothes for private intellectuals. (Be careful, though, of all those low-paying sweatshops, they almost ruined TV personality Kathie Lee Gifford’s clothing empire.)

  The Moses “Who Me? I Can’t Talk” Award. This goes to Robin D.G. Kelley, a New York University historian and cultural critic. He is, without question, one of the most gifted scholars of any generation, of any discipline, of any school, writing today. Kelley is ridiculously well rounded: a gourmet cook, an excellent father, a devoted husband, a committed mentor to graduate students, and an indefatigable researcher and writer. But he won’t own up to his gift to clearly explain complex stuff in public. Given all the crap out here (uh, I wasn’t referring to my crap), we need Kelley’s passionately intelligent voice. To show you what a sacrificial—oops, I mean, helpful—public intellectual I can be, I once reluctantly accepted an assignment that was first offered to Kelley. The second time I appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show happened because Kelley turned them down and recommended me. Listen, if it had been anybody but Kelley (not me, mind you, I’m above the fray), the Oprah staff could have asked us to speak about birds, and we would have put on some Charlie Parker records, rented a few Tweetie and Sylvester tapes for inspiration, and become an ornithologist overnight. I’ve got the solution: let’s introduce Kelley to R&B sensation R. Kelly. The next time we see him, he’ll be known as “R.D.G., That’s Kelley you see,” and he’ll be saying, “I don’t see nothin’ wrong with a little pub in Time. ”

  The “I’m Not a Prophet, But I Play One on TV” Award. This goes to Christians like West, James Cone, and myself, and to those inspired by Buddhist spirituality, like bell hooks. We all use the term “prophet” in one way or another. Although you won’t catch us saying so, we sometimes mean it to apply to ourselves. Hold on. Let’s be honest here. This probably applies to all public intellectuals, who fancy themselves prophets of a sort. We mean well, but hey, I guess we’ve got to realize that real prophets—of whom there are precious few—lead much more dangerous, sacrificial lives. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve received our share of threats, nasty letters, vile communication, and hateful responses from unhappy readers, viewers, or listeners. And we are, well, deeply sacrificial, and, occasionally, prophetic. But when I think of a prophet like Martin Luther King Jr., we just don’t cut it. He spent his life paying the price for the title. Plus, King made something like $200,000 a year in speaking engagements and gave nearly every penny of it to the SCLC, keeping only $4,000 to supplement his $6,000 a year salary at his church. Black public intellectuals nowadays can make anywhere from $100,000 to over $1 million a year. We say critical things in public, a lot of people hate us for it, we often act brave. But we profit while we prophet.

  The Barbara Mandrell “I Was a Public Intellectual When Public Intellectuals Weren’t Cool” Award. Angela Davis wins this, hands down. A long time ago—when gangsta rappers had the bourgeois blues in their diapers while she was stepping to the revolution; when most celebrated intellectuals were eating their Wheaties, going to Jack and Jill, and courting in the front parlor while she was applying Marcuse to social misery; when more-radical-than-thou critics were enjoying the creature comforts that stoke their dizzy nostalgia for marginality while she was taking three squares in a cramped cell; and when most postfeminists were getting pedicures to put their best foot forward at the debutante while she wore jungle boots at the front line of class warfare—Angela Davis lived what we mean by black public intellectual. She continues to embody that. And she still fine!

  The “Excuse the Accents But I’m a Wanna-Beatles” Award. This goes to Paul Gilroy, a black British critic who, in his book, The Black Atlantic, has brilliantly forced Americans to think about black identity in an international context. So what’s the problem with this latest British invasion? Well, Gilroy just plain trashes most black American intellectuals, often calling us “wrong” for no compelling reason. And for a thinker who spends a lot of time talking about hybridity—meaning that black identity is complex and varied—he completely ignores black American intellectuals who talk about these issues with sophistication and skill. Plus, Gilroy pretty much disses any form of ethnic solidarity, failing to see how that solidarity has often been a means of black survival. After all, black folk weren’t oppressed as individuals; we were oppressed because of our group identity.

  It’s painful to see Gilroy rake black folk over the coals in public lectures. He just doesn’t get it. Part of the deference paid to him has to do with his ties to England, a place America still cowers before intellectually. White folk love to hear that colonial accent employed to dog black rappers, public intellectuals, and all the other Negroes who don’t measure up. Gilroy may have the black Atlantic down pat; it’s the black specific that he needs to bone up on.

  The “Hey, Don’t Compare Black Intellectuals to Jewish Intellectuals, Because They’re Not That Good” Award. This award goes to critics William Phillips and Leon Wieseltier. Phillips noted in Partisan Review how the New York intellectuals, a large number of whom were Jewish, didn’t stoop to the crass, pop cultural stuff that black intellectuals have gained notori
ety for. And unlike black intellectuals, Phillips says, Jewish intellectuals weren’t obsessed with (in fact, they didn’t even talk about) their Jewish ethnicity or about race. And he’s bragging about that?

  Wieseltier is painfully transparent. His vicious attack on Cornel West in the New Republic is a bitter piece of calumny, a screed motivated in large part by jealousy. But Wieseltier’s sledgehammer approach to West’s work seems to package an even uglier view of the black–Jewish conflict: by setting West up as the premier black intellectual, and then knocking him down, Wieseltier is knocking the black intellectual enterprise in general. He does so, in part, by arguing that West’s use of the Hebrew prophets is ill-fated and dim-witted; Wieseltier, in effect, is rescuing sacred Jewish texts and teachers from what he seems to think is West’s inferior intelligence.

  But those texts and teachers need to be rescued from Wieseltier’s nasty grip. After all, the best of Jewish sacred traditions counsels wise, balanced criticism, not the sort of wholesale bludgeoning Wieseltier practices. Although we often forget it, this critical juncture of head and heart is where blacks and Jews can still embrace.

  The “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” Award. This goes to talented Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, who wrote a critique of black public intellectuals in Dissent. Really, it was mostly about Cornel West; when he referred to me and bell hooks, it was as “another writer.” That little glitch, and Wilentz’s commentary, show several things. One, that white folk often choose one black to be the designated hitter, losing sight of other players, reinforcing what Zora Neale Hurston termed the “Pet Negro” system that they despise but help perpetuate. Two, by focusing on one black in what is at least a generational phenomenon, he slights the diversity of opinion, status, and style among black public intellectuals, which allows him to make generalizations that don’t hold up under closer investigation.