Tears We Cannot Stop
Book
Review by Kam Williams
Tears We Cannot Stop
A
Sermon to White America
by
Michael Eric Dyson
St.
Martin's Press
Hardcover,
$24.99
202
pages
ISBN:
978-1-250-13599-5
“America is in trouble,
and a lot of that trouble--perhaps most of it--has to do with race.
Everywhere we turn, there is discord, division, death and
destruction.
When we survey the land,
we see a country full of suffering that it cannot fully understand,
and a history that it can no longer deny. Slavery casts a long shadow
across our lives...
Black and white people...
seem to occupy different universes with worldviews that are fatally
opposed to one another... What, then, can we do?
What I need to say can
only be said as a sermon... I offer this sermon to you, my dear white
friends... I do so in the interest of healing our nation through
honest, often blunt, talk... Without white America wrestling with
these truths and confronting these realities, we may not survive.
To paraphrase the Bible,
to whom much is given, much is expected. And, you my friends, have
been given so much. And the Lord knows, what wasn't given, you simply
took, took, and took, and took.
But the time is here for
reckoning with the past... and moving together to redeem the nation
for the future.”
-- Excerpted from the
Chapter 1, "Call to Worship" (pages 3-7)
Michael
Eric Dyson teaches Sociology at Georgetown University, and is the
prolific author of 20 best-sellers and a popular face on the TV talk
show circuit. Many might forget that Professor Dyson got his
doctorate in Religion from Princeton University.
In
his new book, Tears We Cannot Stop, he reminds us that, "Although
I am a scholar, a cultural and political critic, and a social
activist, I am, before, and above anything else, an ordained Baptist
minister." That helps explain the profusion of captivating,
flowery rhetoric whenever the brother's been handed a microphone.
While
his previous works were aimed at a black audience, this is his first
intended to be read by whites. It is also written in a unique
literary style, namely, as a sermon designed to keep Caucasians
standing on their feet like an inspired congregation of holy
rollers.
The
chapters are even laid out like a church service, starting with the
"Call to Worship," followed by "Hymns of Praise,"
an "Invocation," and the "Scripture Reading"
leading to the "Sermon," and concluding with the
"Benediction." The meat of the message can be found in the
Sermon section which opens with the iconoclastic suggestion that
there is no such thing as a white race.
Professor
Dyson's point there is that whiteness is an arbitrary (as opposed to
a scientific) construct which affords one group advantages and
privileges at the expense of others. He argues that "whiteness
is made up, and that white history disguised as American history is a
fantasy, as much a fantasy as white superiority and white purity."
If
I were Dyson, I wouldn't be holding my breath for a positive
reception from his intended audience, given the ascension of Donald
Trump and the celebration of rednecks in the runaway best seller,
Hillbilly Elegy. He might be better off redirecting his sermon to the
African-American community and changing his incendiary opus' subtitle
to "Preaching to the Choir!"
Can
I get an "Amen!"
No comments:
Post a Comment