Michael Eric Dyson Reader

From Publishers Weekly
In this probing collection of essays, speeches and interviews, Dyson (Reflecting Black; Race Rules; Open Mike, etc.), an ex-welfare dad and auto-worker, ordained Baptist minister and University of Pennsylvania professor, demonstrates a rare combination of scholarly sophistication, civic gravitas and plain old life experience. The selections here, shifting easily in tone from a dense but readable academic style to fluent mass-market magazine articles, reflect these influences by applying both critical theory and personal insight to issues of popular concern, including the O. J. Simpson trial, gangsta rap, the problems educated black women face in finding marriageable black men, sexuality and the black church, and the advantages whites accrue from having their whiteness accepted not as a specific racial/cultural category but as the universal social norm. Dyson writes from a forthrightly left-of-center stance but avoids rigid dogma. He deplores the excesses of identity politics, but insists on the centrality of race in American society; embraces rap and the "ghetto aesthetic" of black cinema but sharply critiques their sexism, homophobia and limited conceptions of violent masculinity. On occasion, he drifts into hero worship, hymning Michael Jordan, for example, as "a black man of extraordinary genius on the court and before the cameras, who by virtue of his magical skills and godlike talents symbolizes the meaning of human possibility." But for the most part, his wide-ranging and shrewd analyses of the vexed and ever-changing meaning of race will give readers much food for thought. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
This fascinating collection highlights Dyson's dazzling ability to blend spirituality and intellectualism in analyzing complex issues, from racism to sexuality, religion, and politics. It begins with a section titled "Dysonography," composed of an essay, an interview, and a letter to his brother in prison, offering the personal background and thoughts of this intriguing man, who rose from a teenage welfare father to an ordained minister to a Princeton Ph.D. Other sections feature Dyson's contributions to critical race theory and a variety of race-centered topics, from affirmative action to multiculturalism to whiteness studies. On the pop-culture front, Dyson examines hip-hop music and black movies and the nuances of messages gleaned from artists who run the gamut from Spike Lee to Michael Jackson. The collection also includes Dyson's penetrating analyses of black icons Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Tupac Shakur. The collection ends with Dyson taking to task critics of black intellectuals (other black intellectuals included) and placing the current popularity of some intellectuals into social and historic perspective. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


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Michael Eric Dyson is an ordained Baptist minister and Professor of African American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur, I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. , Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X, Between God and Gansta Rap, and Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line. He lives in Philadelphia, PA.


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