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Episode #1820
Michael
Eric Dyson
Holt: Deborah Holt, Host
Dyson: Michael
Eric Dyson, Author, Culture Critic
Holt:
He’s
one of America’s foremost black intellectuals. Meet
Michael Eric Dyson, and find out why people are listening
to what he has to say, next on Black Issues Forum.
Voiceover:
This program was made possible by contributions to UNC-TV
from viewers like you. Thank you.
[THEME
MUSIC]
Holt:
Good evening, and welcome to Black Issues Forum.
I’m Deborah Holt, the producer, in for Natalie Bullock
Brown and Mitchell Lewis, who both are out on assignment.
Tonight we bring you a very powerful and dynamic voice in
the world of black culture. His commentaries, very provocative
and insightful, have drawn critical acclaim and also sharp
criticism. He has commented on everything from race, religion,
politics, hip-hop culture, philosophy and more. And he is
a former University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor,
as well as the current Avalon Foundation Professor in the
Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s our
guest tonight. Please welcome Michael Eric Dyson.
Dyson:
Thank you, Ms. Holt.
Holt:
It’s a pleasure to have you on the program.
Dyson:
It’s great to be here.
Holt:
So tell me; why are people listening to what you have
to say?
Dyson:
Well, I hope I’m saying something, number one. I
hope I say it with style and flavor. Some people think in
American society that in order to be articulate and to be
vociferous in a certain way is to be numbingly, shockingly
boring. I think you can combine style and substance. You can
put the ball through your legs and put it around your head,
but you can still score two points. So, you can accumulate
45 points and still do it with flavor. So I hope the fusion
of style and substance is there, but also because the issues
that I address, I think, are so important to so many people.
Not because I’m so important, but the issues
themselves are important. How one thinks about one’s
self, identity, race, culture, philosophy, politics, society,
gender, homophobia… These are issues that are on the
critical edge of American consciousness, and I want to help
define that edge.
Holt:
And you’ve brought out some of your finer conversations
in your recent book, entitled Open Mic.
Dyson:
Thank you.
Holt:
You’ve actually authored seven books, or is it eight
books?
Dyson:
Eight books, yes, ma’am.
Holt:
Eight books, including Open Mic. What was your
purpose in bringing together the collection of conversations
in this piece?
Dyson:
I wanted to be able to have a different forum to articulate
my viewpoints and beliefs. I’ve written other books,
essays, monographs, where I follow a particular subject and
think about it critically, but in this book I wanted the spoken-voice
to emerge, most especially, and to make certain that that
spoken voice had an intellectual context within which I could
articulate some of the beliefs I have about a wide range of
subjects. I wanted to go into some depths in some of these
conversations. The other book I have of course deals more
popularly with a subject than the one I have out now, but
Open Mic attempts to deal—in a kind of deep-sea
diving way—with the golden nuggets one might pull from
the sea beds, so to speak, and try to examine them, think
about them critically and allow people to engage me as an
alive, alert mind trying to bring enlightenment and illumination
to the dark areas of American intellectual life.
Holt:
So who’s the book for?
Dyson:
Well, it’s for everybody who’s going to read it.
It’s for people who are interested in my other work,
but who want to say, “Let me get some deeper insight
into what Dyson is doing.” It’s for introducing
people to the wide range of issues about which I’m concerned,
and it’s for those people who want to take another look,
in a deeper more progressive fashion, at some of the issues
that are being bandied about in America now: affirmative action,
racial identity, identity politics, the issues of gay and
lesbian identity, and so on, and to deal with them. Class,
economic and social inequality… Racial oppression…
These things are foremost on my mind, and I wanted to share
them with the reader.
Holt:
One of the discussions that has erupted in a great deal
of controversy and discussion is your former book, entitled
I May Not Get There With You, The True Story of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. In this book I believe you’ve actually
compared the slain civil rights leader to the slain hip-hop
rap artist Tupac Shakur.
Dyson:
Oh, my god. Did I do that?
Holt:
You did that! [LAUGHTER] Now, aside from having both being
slain at an early age, what’s the comparison?
Dyson:
Well, let me give a bit of a background. The one chapter
in the book, “I May Not Get There With You,” I
talk about the relationship between Martin Luther King, Jr.
and some of the despised black youth in our society, and look
at the hip-hop figures like Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls and
others. Especially Shakur, because he was slain. First of
all, they both used old intellectual sources and gave them
a fresh context. That is, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tupac
Shakur. They had surprisingly, perhaps achingly, similar views
about women at certain points in their life. Three, they both
understood the necessity to confront oppression directly.
Four, they had a vision of what society was about, and tried
to argue for their views prevailing. Now, there were some
differences, of course. Tupac was an artist; Dr. King was
a civil rights leader, an orator and a preacher. So I won’t
conflate or in any way narrowly compare Martin Luther King,
Jr. to a guy who was an artist; Tupac Shakur. Tupac was not
Dr. King, but he doesn’t have to be Dr. King to be taken
seriously. My point was that if Dr. King had died at a certain
point in his life, at 25 like Tupac Shakur, he would’ve
been known as a regional leader who had some flaws. Now since
he was allowed to live until 39, we see the grandiose social
vision that he put forth; we see the incredibly eloquent words
with which he articulated that vision. So if Tupac had lived
until at least 39 years old, we would’ve seen a much
different figure, I think. I don’t want to give him
short shrift, and at the same time I want to celebrate his
genius, because apart from his artistry, the power of his
voice, the intelligence of his vision and the persuasiveness
of some of the arguments he made, bear worthy examination
in their own right.
Holt:
You’ve also compared Dr. King to other hip-hop artists,
such as Puff Daddy and Snoop Dogg.
Dyson:
Oh, my god. Did I do that? Well, I was talking about in terms
of some of the behavioral traits that young black people engage
in that older black people are dismissive of and intolerant
of, but when they occurred in Dr. King, they were not equally
dismissed. My point is, young people growing up before the
cameras do silly things. I was suggesting in the comparison
of Dr. King… I made the comment on one program about
Puff Daddy as a sampler. Puff Daddy sampled other people’s
music and gave it a fresh context. Dr. King sampled other
people’s words; some would say plagiarized; some would
say stole. I say he borrowed them; he _____ them; he sampled
them; he reconfigured them. He was an intellectual Puff Daddy
in that sense. Taking an old song from Diana Ross, I’m
Coming Out—reconfigure it, give it a new context
and give it a verbal coding, and you’ve got a different
animal. So I’m not making dismissive comparisons to
Dr. King that are intentionally irreverent. I’m trying
to edify the conversation by giving a context within we can
appreciate the genius of these young people, and understand
that Snoop, Puff Daddy, Tupac and Biggie had problems and
possibilities in the same way that Dr. King had problems that
people don’t want to discuss, and possibilities, which
are all we discuss.
Holt:
And some of these problems are considered weaknesses,
weaknesses that help make him more of a human and also more
respected by the new generation.
Dyson:
Sure, both of those are true. He’s certainly more
human, because he’s not God. If you’re born God,
and you do what Dr. King did, it’s great. But you expect
God to do that. But hold it! You mean, that’s a man?
He’s a human being like us; he has limitations, flaws,
foibles and frailties, and he still overcame those odds to
do what he did? You mean he had death threats every day of
his life and could still speak as eloquently and articulately
and intelligently as he did? You mean to say that everybody
in the United States government at a certain level was horrified
by Dr. King—everybody being dominant white leaders—and
still he showed them love and compassion? What a man! And
yes, did he engage in plagiarism and promiscuity? Absolutely
right. Why? Because he’s a human being. He’s a
man. Does that make him more human and more, in one sense,
attractive to young people who thought, “Oh. I made
some of those mistakes. Dr. King made some of those mistakes.”
It doesn’t bring Dr. King down; it lifts them up. “Maybe
I, too, can have a future where I can overcome being a teen
father, where I can overcome some of the flaws I’ve
had and become a respectful leader in my own right within
my own community.” Absolutely, I make no apologies for
doing that.
Holt:
So why do you suppose people aren’t really hearing
that message, and instead they’re hearing that you’re
actually glorifying and elevating something that’s negative,
trying to cast a dark light on a bright figure such as Dr.
King?
Dyson:
Well, mostly because they haven’t read the book. That
would be the number one reason. I had to come up with a Jesse
Jackson-ism when people would call in, black people, beating
down on me. I said, “If my book you do not read, do
not attempt to make me bleed.” Read the book first.
White people, brothers and sisters, go, “I’m not
going to listen to this at all. I’m leaving,”—like
a graduation speech you might give, and they don’t want
to hear you. Black people would be like, “I’m
not reading it.” So you try to tell them, “Did
you read it?” “No, no. I haven’t. Let me
tell you what’s wrong with that book, though. I haven’t
read it, but let me tell you what’s wrong with it. Boom.
I didn’t go see the film, but let me tell you why Barbershop
shouldn’t be seen.” So in my book, I make the
argument… I am not suggesting that Dr. King should be
dismissed. I’m suggesting that he’s a critical
figure. I call him the greatest American in the history of
the country. You can’t get deeper than that. So I’m
arguing that we have to engage Dr. King’s legacy in
ways that make people uncomfortable, and to talk about promiscuity
and plagiarism… Why did I do it? First of all, because
they existed. Number two, because I’m an intellectual
who has to be critical of the figure—not dismissive,
or dogging him, playa hatin’, but engaging him in ways
that look at all the sources and come up with him. I contend
that Martin Luther King, Jr. was the single greatest American
in the history of this nation. And what is wrong with telling
young people, “This was a man who made mistakes, but
who overcame them. And despite those flaws, he remains the
most powerful, intelligent, cogent expression of the American
ideal that we might conjure, greater than Jefferson, greater
than Franklin, greater than Patrick Henry.”
Holt:
Well, you know, something else that’s uncomfortable
to talk about is racism. One of the terms that you use in
some of your writings is the unconscious racist.
Dyson:
Yes, ma’am.
Holt:
What is that, and explain what you mean by that?
Dyson:
Dr. King spoke about it as well. He said at the end of his
life, “I’m sad to say, but most Americans are
unconscious racists.” [GASPS] Aghast! Is that right?
What he was suggesting is that people are not consciously
racist. They don’t intend to call you the n-word; they’re
not going around dogging you, begrudging you because you’re
black. But there could be other forms of bigotry. The DNA
of bigotry adapts itself to opposition. So like a rat eating
Decon—and I say this because I was born in the ghetto
of Detroit, so forgive those rather pedestrian metaphors—you
can give it to the first generation, and they get killed out.
The second generation wants more of the Decon because they
adapt. The infrastructure of bigotry is the same. It adapts
to your opposition and says, “Give me some more, because
I thrive on that,” because the DNA of bigotry changes
over space and time. What was going on in the ‘60s is
not happening now, but it’s in different forms. Retail
profiling: “Excuse me, Ms. Holt?” “Can I
help you?” “Can you really afford that?”
They’re letting the white person over here who may not
be able to afford half a ring, and you can afford full carats.
But they’re going to assume in retail profiling that
you don’t have the capacity economically to buy a particular
product. Or racial profiling… Tupac said, “Just
the other day I got lynched by some crooked cops, and to this
day those same cops are on the beat getting major pay. When
I get my check, they’re taking taxes out, so we’re
paying the cops to knock the blacks out.” So, subsidizing
your own oppression is another way in which unconscious racism…
You’re not conscious of it, but it comes out in stereotypes,
in beliefs about black people, who we are, what we can do,
what our intelligence is, presumptions about what we were
likely to do under certain circumstances… That’s
all unconscious racism that has quite a conscious effect on
the lives of African Americans.
Holt:
How about the idea of an unconscious victimization; the
feeling that there’s going to be racism and thereby
projecting racism onto those who may not be exacting racism
to you?
Dyson:
Oh, absolutely, I’m sure that exists. I’m
sure some people are paranoid, and some people are conspiratorial;
and some people exaggerate the case. But if it didn’t
exist, that could be easily dismissed. “Ah, you’re
trifling with a serious matter here. Of course we don’t
have it.” But you know what? The tragedy is that even
those people who exist—and I think there’s a very
small percentage—this notion of black people being victims
and playing the victim… First of all, if you’re
stepping on my nose; don’t complain about me when the
blood starts flowing. Malcolm X said, “Don’t cut
my legs off and then be mad at me for being handicapped.”
We call it “other-abled” now. The reality is,
there’s enough real bigotry and oppression that exists
to understand why people would certainly talk about their
victimization. But one of the ingenious strategies of dominant
culture to resist its own responsibility is to make the victim
the true perpetrator, so that the very person who calls attention
to the problem is the one who bears the liability. Those of
us who have been victims, those of us who’ve been victimized,
when we claim we have been victims and victimized… “There
you people go again.” “Well, get your foot off
the neck. Relieve people from the oppression and treat us
fairly and competently, and those who claim they’re
victims will obviously be banished because there will be no
substantial evidence for their claims.” Unfortunately,
there is more than enough evidence to substantiate the claims
of people who talk about being victims of racial oppression.
Holt:
How can one know if they’re an unconscious racist?
Dyson:
That’s an interesting question. It’s almost
like a trick question: if you’re unconscious, how do
you become conscious? The society in which you exist has to
help you understand. It’s awfully difficult for people
who have unconscious racism or unconscious privilege to name
it, to understand it. Many white Americans are not invited
to understand that they have a race. When we think “race,”
we think “black,” “brown,” “red,”
“yellow.” We don’t think “white.”
White is a socially constructed racial identity. But many
white brothers and sisters are not invited to think of themselves
as possessing a race, and therefore possessing some power.
One of the ways in which power is preserved is through invisibility
and unconscious. “I’m not conscious of it, and
if I’m not conscious of it, I don’t have to be
responsible. If I’m not responsible, then I don’t
have to apologize or say, ‘What can I do to change the
situation?’”
Holt:
Now is the term exclusive to white Americans?
Dyson:
No, no, no. I mean, unconscious bigotry is available to everybody.
Racism assumes that you have bigotry times power, power to
reinforce your viewpoint as the norm. So I would think that’s
a relatively smaller category of people. But I think it’s
important for all of us as human beings to put each other
in check, and to invite us… Some of the best people
who will point out white racism and unconscious racism happen
to be white Americans. Think about David Roediger and his
book, The Wages of Whiteness. Think about Peggy McIntosh,
who talks about white skin privilege, that white people walk
into a store and never feel the eyes of surveillance upon
them in the way that African American people have to presume
daily. So there are many ways in which unconscious white privilege
operates in American society, and sometimes only other white
people can pull the coat tail of their fellow white person
and say, “Look what you’re doing, and check this
out,” because they might be defensive if a brother like
me said it. That’s why Michael Moore can write a book
called Stupid White Men. Don’t say I don’t
know any, right? I know some stupid black men. But my point
is that that kind of book can only be written from within.
To be able to interrogate and criticize the practices of foolhardiness
that are being perpetuated by white men is something that
another white man can investigate.
Holt:
And being within sort of brings up the topic of that sacred
word, the n-word, that people don’t understand why “you
all are able to use the word, and we can’t use the word.”
Dyson:
Right.
Holt:
What do you think about permissions in terms of the n-word?
Dyson:
You can’t grant a copyright to brothers and sisters
outside the race. Chris Rock was joking, and said, “You
know, you’ve got white corporate executives who feel,
“If I could just use that word, my life would be fulfilled.
I could just use the n-word.’” He’s trying
to make a joke out of it, and his point is, “Look. There
are certain borders and boundaries.” And I believe there
are certain borders and boundaries, and I’m sure many
white Americans look on it as hypocrisy. “Why can African
Americans use that term, and I can’t?” One reality—and
I’m of course being deliberately exaggerated here, I
can do an exaggerated homeboy, too—what I’m suggesting
here, is that there are boundaries and borders. First of all,
that word was put in play by dominant white America. Black
people attempted to absorb the poison from it and re-circulate
it within our communities as a term of endearment. There are
some things we can say… You know how it is. I can talk
about my momma; you can’t talk about her. I can talk
about my brother; you can’t talk about him. Black people
feel that the n-word, the circulation of it—for those
who believe it can be circulated—believe that that word
is ours, because we’ve now taken it from those who would
intend to use it against us in negative ways, and who still
use it in negative ways. Us using it has several functions.
First of all, we out the people by making you know that we
know you’re using this word. So we’re going to
say it in front of you, because we know you’re saying
it, but we’re not going to allow you to say because
we want to restrict the negative imputations of that word.
Secondly, we circulate it because, “Now what you meant
for evil, we mean for good.” Thirdly, it’s a way
in which people forge solidarity among themselves. I know
a lot of black people don’t believe that; they’re
against that, and I respect that. But I happen to be from
a generation and a culture, a black ghetto in Detroit, where
we said those kinds of words because we forged a kind of consciousness
among ourselves that I think was healthy. But I understand
people who believe otherwise.
Holt:
That it could possibly be disempowering and a sign of
self-hatred?
Dyson:
That certainly is one. But to think that black people don’t
have enough complexity and creativity, that every time they
use that word it’s unavoidably negative, self-defeating
and self-hating, I think is a bit too precious for me. I think
black people have much more power than that, and they have
much more intelligence than that. It’s like gay and
lesbian people using the word queer. “Oh, you’re
going to call me queer? Good. You’re darn right I’m
a queer. You’re going to call me a fag? Guess what?
I’m really the fag that’s going to make you afraid.”
There are ways in which people can appropriate, expropriate,
re-appropriate, argue over terms… Terms are not static,
they’re flexible. Now, in a dominant white culture the
reason that word is off-limits, is because it’s still
connected to dominant white practices of violence that have
been directed against African American people. The history
of that violence is not only ancient, it’s contemporary.
So we have to make distinctions when we talk about who is
able to deploy that term, and for what purposes?
Holt:
Language is definitely very powerful, and you eluded a little
bit earlier about your commencement speech at UNC Chapel Hill,
the one at which a number of people were offended by your
use of profanity—
Dyson:
Mmm. Quoting a curse word. One.
Holt:
Quoting one curse word?
Dyson:
Yes, ma’am.
Holt:
…and people were nonetheless offended.
Dyson:
Absolutely.
Holt:
Your purpose was evidently to raise the content within
that particular lyric, that rap lyric, a social consciousness…
Dyson:
Sure.
Holt:
But it was overridden by the fact that this one word was
used, so did you really accomplish your goal?
Dyson:
Well, probably not. That’s absolutely a just critique,
and I can bear that. I think had I rethought it, I might not
have deployed that term, although I could have used that term
easily in New York at a graduation, and it never would’ve
caused a conflagration. So maybe the burden is on the buckle
of the Bible Belt, with its self-righteous Victorian prurience—or
sense of prurience—and its inability to tolerate diversity
and difference. But so taken, critique received. But secondly,
it got overshadowed because it wasn’t just about the
word; it’s about a brother standing up there spitting
venom, which is what they perceived, and they can’t
necessarily back me down because they thought I was intelligent
and articulate. And if you can’t find another reason
to beat the brother down, then go get the one curse word that
we’ve all heard that he quoted. And the whole point
of the song’s quotation, from Biggie Smalls, “Back
in the days, our parents used to take care of us/Look at them
now, they’re even f-ing scared of us/Calling the city
for help because they can’t maintain/Darn, things done
changed/If I wasn’t in the rap game, I’d probably
have a key knee-deep in the crack game/Because the streets
are a short stop/Either you’re slinging crack rock or
you’ve got to make your jump shot.” I was trying
to explain to them why they should listen to these young people
and their own young white people, and I talked mostly about
poor white culture, and listening to these poor white figures
who emerge within the context of pop culture to articulate
a vision that maybe some people would be embarrassed about.
So my point in that was of course to draw attention to that.
Was it a flawed methodology at that point? Of course. But
I think people were equally offended by me critiquing another
figure, Michael Jordan, in the context of my speech, by suggesting
that he had much more conscience about himself, and that we
expect black people who emerge from our communities to be
responsible. So I got much more hate mail about the Jordan
comment; the red herring about the f-word is ridiculous because
they could see Julia Roberts in any movie… Not her,
necessarily, but somebody else. All these white people who
feigned an incredible amount of indignity at the thought of
that word being articulated went to movies that night and
saw that, or went up to Bubba and heard him say it later on.
I understand it’s a public space. However, it should
be a sacred one for some people, and one always has to look
at the context within which one speaks to understand its effectiveness.
But I think it was effective to disagree. It provoked conversation
about some serious issues that many white Americans don’t
want to talk about, and we have to bring that front and center.
Holt:
Now when you use it in the context of a graduation ceremony,
it’s one thing, but I’ve heard that you use profanity
from the pulpit. You’re an ordained Baptist minister.
Dyson:
Who said that? I don’t believe it.
Holt:
Is that not true?
Dyson:
No. I don’t cuss in the pulpit. In a pulpit, on
a weekday, I probably said, “Calling women b–‘s
and h–‘s and skeezes and sluts…” Now
if that’s cursing, then of course, I said the b-word,
saying, “This is what people call women.” But
no, I don’t go in the pulpit and cuss; I’ve got
more sense than that. At the same time, I’m a ______,
so my role is to provoke people, not unnecessarily, not to
be controversial, but to think about it. I’m in a pulpit
in a black church, where 75% of the church, maybe 80%, consists
of black women like yourself, highly intelligent, profoundly
beautiful—maybe not as pretty eyes, all of them, and
luscious lips—but certainly women who have extraordinary
capability like you, highly intelligent, professional women
who don’t get a chance to run the church. They can cook;
they can clean; they can sow, but they cannot be the head
of the church they numerically dominate. And my point is,
“You may not be calling a woman a b–, but you’re
certainly treating her like one by restricting her opportunities.
That was my consideration.
Holt:
We’re going to move on, because I’d like to
get your commentary on your other book, Why I Love Black
Women.
Dyson:
Yes, ma’am.
Holt:
Why did you feel that our libraries or shelves needed
a book on this topic?
Dyson:
Well, I think that, again, black women have been dissed
in the culture, not only within hip-hop culture, where they’ve
been denigrated, dismissed, degraded and profoundly insulted.
I think in the larger community of American society, women
have been seen as carping Jezebels, sapphires, mammies. And
I wanted to assault that; I wanted to resist that. I wanted
to say, “No, that’s not true!” And when
I talked to these young black rappers, they say, “Well,
you know, I’m not talking about all women, just the
women I know.” “Well brother, you need to know
some more women.” And in this book I celebrate the ingenuity,
the intelligence, and, yes, the beauty—I don’t
want to be inappropriate in celebrating the beauty, of course—but
it is certainly true that I talk about it…
Holt:
[INAUDIBLE]
Dyson:
[LAUGHS] I don’t want you pimp-slapping me. [LAUGHTER]
I talk about every range of beauty in black communities, from
the high-yellow, red-boned woman to the deep, dark diva and
chocolate sister who’s charming. I talk about the bronzed
beauty, I talk about the caramel cuteness. I talk about every
range. I talk about body parts… Not in isolation from
talking about women, I don’t want to objectify women,
but I want to celebrate them in a way. They’ve been
eroticized and fetishized in America, but they haven’t
been elevated with appropriate respect for their incredible
diversity of beauty. Only a narrow notion of what is beautiful
prevails in this culture. I also wanted to talk about some
of the political measures that black women—
Holt:
The narrow notion of beauty?-
Dyson:
The narrow notion of beauty. That is, if you’re
not blond and blue-eyed, then you are not beautiful. Now,
I’m not saying that is not beautiful, but that isn’t
the only beauty. You know, if you have short, kinky hair,
that’s not beautiful. If you have large lips—it’s
all right on Julia Roberts, but not all right on Cicely Tyson.
If you have a big, shall we say, gluteus maximus… Now
J-Lo’s got it, but I know a whole lot of sisters before
J-Lo had tremendous premise of promise. So the reality is
this: yes, that narrow notion of beauty has prevailed, in
a way, to punish black women because they have bigger hips,
bigger lips, bigger thighs, and so on. And I wanted to celebrate
the entire range of beauty and intelligence in politics of
women in the society.
Holt:
Thank you so much, and I do believe we’re completely
out of time.
Dyson:
I am bum-fumbled and dumbfounded. I cannot believe that.
Holt:
It’s been a pleasure and a privilege having you
on the program. And we hope that you have learned something
new about all of these topics that we’ve been talking
about, and hopefully been inspired to go and dig a little
bit deeper, so that you can engage in more intellectual conversations.
If you’d like to get a transcript of tonight’s
program, please give us a call at 919-549-7167, or log onto
the UNC-TV website at www.unctv.org/bif.
For Black Issues Forum, I’m Deborah Holt. Thank
you for watching. Good night.
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