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- good evening. we have more chairs that are forthcoming so just bear with us but thank you so much for being here tonight. i'm kimberly moffitt. i wanna welcome you to umbc for those of you who are visiting. for those of you who this is home, i wanna say, glad to see you as always
and thank you for being here to support what is sure to be avery interesting evening. tonight, dr. michael ericdyson is really serving as the keynote to openup a much larger event. we have been planning for the last year, a conference that really is taking a look at what are the impactsor the potential impact of president barack obama'slegacy as a president and what has been the impact in general
on american national politics. and so back in 2008, wedid a conference called the obama effect and if you notice, this is being referencedas the obama effect 2.0 and in 2008, at theuniversity of minnesota, myself, dr. katherine squires, from the university of minnesota, and dr. heather harrisfrom stevenson university, co-organized a conferencethat was to look at,
what is the implications of his presence on american politics, evenbefore he entered office. even before we knew he would enter office. the conference was held twoweeks before the election in 2008. so we decided, here's an opportunity for the next two days to take a look at what has been the obama effect now that we are almost two full terms into
and at the end of his time in office. and so we'll take a look at anumber of issues surrounding president obama's educational policies. we'll also hear from areally interesting session, tomorrow afternoon frommillennials who will share with us what they believed was successful or even not so successfulabout president obama's time in office. we'll also hear and learnmore about his foreign policy
and even the perspectiveof conservative politicians and conservative pundits whowill offer their perspective about him. we hope you will consider joining us. at least for tonightwhat we hope you will do is to consider tweeting us. you should have a little piece of paper that is encouraging you touse the hashtag obamaeffect2 which we are livetweeting tonight.
so feel free to tweet to dr dyson at @michaeledyson. as well as one of our major co-sponsors who is making this event happen tonight which is our dresher center for humanities on campus. you can tweet them @umbchumanities. i want to just quickly, becausei know i'm not the person of the hour, and i recognize that.
and i'm okay with that. (laughing) 'cause i want to hearfrom dr. dyson as well but i do wanna makesure that i acknowledge a number of folks who havemade this event happen and actually wereinstrumental in getting you in this space today. so i can't but begin bystarting to acknowledge shante stocks. (clapping) she's my grad assistant butshe is also a phd student
in our language literacyand culture phd program. and after this event, shefinally gets to focus on what she's here for which iswriting that dissertation. and i will happily release her to do so. also, of course, i wannaagain thank my co-organizers, dr. heather harris fromstevenson university and katherine squires fromthe university of minnesota and of course, the dreshercenter for the humanities. our director dr. jessica burham.
my two departments that i belong to, american studies as wellas language, literacy and culture phd program, imust must must acknowledge them for their support andhelp in making this happen well over a year ago. as well as the dean'soffice for the college of arts humanities and social sciences. the provost office and ofcourse, the president's office. and a host of otherdepartments, great colleagues
on this campus who made surethat this event would happen and they range from africana studies, the department of english,our global studies program, the department of history,department of media and communication studies,department of political science, department of psychology,our school of public policy, our department of sociology, anthropology and health administration and policy. they are competing to the bethe longest title on campus.
student lives mosaic centerfor culture and diversity, the shriver center, thedivision of professional studies and of course, a host of others. at this time we willhear from dr. hrabowski to just offer a fewopening remarks for us, followed by tony hineswho is a graduate student in the language, literacyand culture phd program who has the honor ofintroducing dr. dyson. thank you.
(clapping) - would you give professor moffitt a hand for being the leader that she is? i was delighted to hear professor dyson said that he's just been using her book there at georgetown, we like that a lot. good evening, goodafternoon, good afternoon. i am delighted to welcome you here today and to thank the organizersof this conference
for giving us a chance to hearfrom one of americas major, one of the leading thoughtleaders in our country. he and i were just discussing the fact that we share alabama roots though he is a northerner, hismother's from alabama, we appreciate that. those are those rootsteaching you right now. but more important, we sharethis love of our country, of our race and of the truth of wanting
to understand what itmeans to be an american, an african american, ahuman being, quite frankly. and i am delighted whendr. moffitt asked me about having him here, i saidthat i could think of no one who could be moreprovocative and informative than this man, as he speaks the truth. as he struggles with the issues. i read a piece thissummer and i wanted to, it begins this way,
"we, black america, are a nationof nearly 40 million souls, "inside a nation of morethan 320 million people "and i fear now thatit is clearer than ever "that you, white america,will always struggle "to understand who we are. "like you, we don't all think the same, "feel the same, love, learn,love or even die the same." provocative words thatopen, i hope, our minds to think about issues ofrace, of differences among us.
we have people on thiscampus, from professor moffitt to professor musgrove,professor tyson king meadows and many others who talk aboutissues involving politics and race, we are havinga major program out of our humanities center funded by the national endowment of humanities, talk about baltimore stories. we are doing things, iwas just telling him, with the choice program.
working with children, over 500 children, who are first time offenders. mainly little boys ofcolor, mainly black boys. and supervising them 24 hours a day. why would i bring that upand all the other things we do? this is a campus, as wecelebrate our 50th anniversary, that understands that america is in the middle of an experiment.
as it tries to figure outhow we develop a culture that has people from allkinds of backgrounds. whether talking race orgender, lgbtq, all kinds of differences. how do we understandmore about each other? and how do we learn to speak the truth to each other without beginning to fight? but rather opening ourminds and our hearts and understanding theother's point of view.
so i am just delighted tohave someone i've admired for so many years here with us today. and then before i close,i have to announce, make an announcementthat is very difficult. just today, just a short period ago, our beloved professor bill royde passed. he had a heart attack on our campus and students were wonderfulfrom emergency services and supporting him and bringing him back.
and he'd had a wonderfulperiod in this past week when he had gotten out of the hospital and was doing muchbetter and unfortunately, the family had said i could say it, that he had another heartattack in the last few hours. and so, i am gonna askfor a moment of silence for professor bill royde. thank you very much. and again, welcome to michael dyson, yes.
- thank you dr. hrabowski. thank you all of you for beinghere this evening as well. dr. michael eric dyson is a professor at georgetown university. he is a new york times contributor. an msnbc political analystand a contributing editor for the new republic. he became an ordainedminister at the age of 19. and attained his phd in religionfrom princeton university.
he's the author of 17 best selling books including come hell orhigh water an assessment of the historical contextsurrounding hurricane katrina. his most recent book,the black presidency, evaluates barack obama'sposition and evolution on matters of race during his presidency. to quote douglas blackmon,the author of slavery by another name, "no one understands "the american dilemma of race.
"and barack obama's confoundingand wondrous grappling "with it better than michael eric dyson." we struggle with the racequestion in this country, we struggle with knowing what it is, how to deal with it, how to marginalize it and how to tear it down. this is why michael ericdyson is so important. he forces us to confront it,to bathe in it, to define it. dr. dyson has had manymeetings with the president
over the years. he has toured the countryand lent his voice to institutions seeking hisperspective on how race, our original sin, still shapes us. if he wanted to, dr. dysoncould have made his voice the only voice that mattered in his book. instead, he included the voice of his esteemed contemporaries,ta-nehisi coates, (mumbles), michellealexander and many more.
i believe he did thatbecause he knows he's not in this fight alone. he knows that his voice isnot the only one seeking to hold our countryaccountable for ensuring the values, codes and ethics we declare were so vital to the fabric of our nation. in the black presidency, dyson speaks of learning from jessiejackson and john lewis, two civil rights titans.
and it's clear today that dyson stands as a titan in his own right. today, i learn fromhim, we learn from him, so please join me in welcomingdr. michael eric dyson. - well thank our brother hymes for that very gracious introduction. and to the great president ofthis marvelous institution, dr. hrabowski. a legend and a great leaderof american education,
higher education. and in joining andinfusing the obligations of higher education tomeet the highest standards while also a kind of evangelical piety and fury in the best sense of the word, reaching out beneath andbeyond the beautiful community nestled in tree lined streets. to see that baltimore is aplace has to ministered to. and i use that word verydeliberately and strategically
so what an honor it is to behere with pastor hrabowski. (laughing) on his church. 'cause as good lookin'and as sharp as he is, and as brilliant as heis, he brings to mind the best of our traditionsof nurturing leadership. and that's a beautiful, beautiful thing in higher education. and what a wonderfulopportunity it is to come here
and to share with him here. and then to have this opportunity to come with dr. moffitt and dr.squire and dr. harris. i use their book in my class. they had to tell nobody they were up here. so i could have just appealed to them to come help me out but they did. it's a brilliant book, it'sa wonderful collection, growing out of the earlierconference that they had
and it is a very useful book. and so i'm sure speechaccepted, that they will produce yet again a tremendousvolume from this gathering that has real impact on people's lives. now i'm gonna asx ya'll,not ask, i'mma asx ya'll to forgive me 'cause i'man old school kind of dude, i see women standing and men sitting. i'm just saying, i know it'sfirst come, first serve. i don't wanna impose my waybut if some men wanna stand up
who are sitting to let theladies who are standing up sit, thank you gentlemen, what awonderful striking gentlemen you are. a few more gentlemen canvolunteer, thank you. let the ladies sit down, you know. got the kids coming. thank ya'll for that. dr. hrabowski, i don'twant you doing it doc, i need you here, doc. (laughing)
see, that's leadership though. that's leadership. he was giving up. (laughing) no doc, i need you right there. i need the bishop right there. there's some seats over here. we just old school wednesdaynight prayer meeting kind of thing. i know tyson king meadows is here.
my man, my man. gotta shout my man out, i didn'tsee you sitting over here. he taught me everything iknew at chapel hill when i was a professor there and so good to see one of the best and the brightest of the (mumbles) hills where the second greatest basketball player of all time went to school. kobe b. bryant, i'm sure ya'll know that.
who were you gonna say, sir? i thought ya'll taughtindependent though here? not group think, notdeferring and capitulating to the norms that have been articulated, be independent sir. but what an honor it is to be here today and i wanna thank dr. moffittagain and dr. harrison, dr. squires and dr. hrabowskifor this opportunity. i wanna reflect briefly on barack obama
and his presidency as it comes to an end and people either expressglee or great grief and at the very least,however, an appreciation for what it meant and what it has meant to have the first black man,the first african american, the first multi-racialfigure that we know of. you know a lot of brothers come up to me and say, hey that's aboutthe sixth black president. i said, bro, if nobodyknew, it don't really count.
'cause if they don't,and if we don't know, we don't know what treatmentyou will be subject to as a result of that knowledge. so the knowledge has to bepublic, widely desimentated and consumed by multiple constituencies in order to constitute an empirical weight on the verification of hisblackness as a president and also to measure asa calculus, as a metric, who and what he is.
so i wanna talk abouttoward a post-obama era. if i could line out myhymn and speech my sermon into existence, so to speak, to talk about toward a post-obama presidency, begins with the remarkablefact that he was indeed the president. now that seems obvious to us now. here in 2016. but during a period when he was running,
the first time, in 2007, 2008, where he contested bitterly with the woman who is now the stander bearerfor the democratic party, hillary rodham clinton, ina bitterly fought contest for the democratic nomination,it was not at all evident or obvious that barackhussein obama would prevail. and so when we talk aboutpost-obama, we gotta talk about obama, we've gotta acknowledge the fact that he waselected, not once, but twice.
and the second election mayhave been even more remarkable than the first. because in the first election, obama was an unknown quantity. we know the mathematicalgenius of your president and other faculty here buthe was an unknown quantity. he was an x. and we couldn't derive a value for that x, because we couldn't associatehim with known ambitions,
aside from what he articulated to us and so he was a fresh person, new on the scene relativelyspeaking, think about it. he came to his firstflush of fame, really, in 2004, where i sat with many others in boston when he gave that speech, "there's not a whiteamerica, nor black america, "there's the united states of america." how's that working for them now?
but it was beautifulbecause the teleology, the gold, as the greeks would have it, that attracts us, that magnetizes us, the ideals and theaspiration, setting standard that our attractive in their own right because they pull us forward in proleptic sense, inan anticipatory sense, toward a future by announcingit as if it already exists. so it wasn't mere delusion,it was the projection
of the jeremiads of our culture. jeremiad just a big wordderived from jeremiah, henry david thoreau,martin luther king jr, people who see within the perimeters and context of their own culture, the redemptive possibilitiesto be called upon in order to articulate anideal that will transform the culture. until obama stood there in 2004,
i sat there with hundredsof others, thousands, where he gave that keynote speech and then thrust into fame. before that, we shared a church bench in chicago, illinois andas members of that church, we derived inspiration,not only from her pastor, but from the many ministerswho came through articulating a black prophetic ideal. and that black propheticideal was the notion
that america had to be judged according to it's own standards. that the things they said are true, that america said is important,martin luther king jr, the night before he was murdered, said "america, all we're asking "is be truthful to whatyou said on paper." so that the document, the paparice, upon which those words are inscribed
are a gesture toward a profound experiment in democracy that continues to this day. and so the fact that obama was president, still is, but in this post-obama era, thinking about the factthat he was elected, coming to fame relativelyearly and then after that first blush offame, four years later, to be inducted, to beinaugurated as the president of the united states ofamerica, four years after
the world got to knowyou, after america got to know you, that wasa quick dating process. that's real fast. hey i dig you, i love you, what's up, let's have kids, let's gotogether and have children as married couples growing old in america. within four years. obama meets america, loves america, boy meets girl, girl meetsboy, nation meets nation,
boy meets boy, girl meets girl. people of like mind meet andso obama introduces himself as a figure, wiry,wily, definitely clever, deeply and profoundly analytical,suspiciously brilliant. in the context of american politics, need i say suspiciously even more now, in light of what we have now. (laughing) i ain't telling ya'll who to vote for. that's your choice.
i know black peoplelike to play card games but you ain't alwaysgotta be trump (mumbles). but what's interesting. i ain't telling younothin', i'm just saying. one of my favorite groupsis parliament funkadelic, does anybody know the founderof parliament funkadelic. who? what's his name? oh clinton, okay, yeah, yeah.
i'm just saying, i'mexpressing my personal desire in terms of music, that's all i'm doing. and so, here was a man, wiry, wily, clever, suspiciouslybrilliant, analytical, capable of a beautiful whimsy spirit, a powerful engagementwith the forces that exist and yet, not capitulatingto a deadening pessimism about the possibility of america. obama reminded us of the fact that this
is a great nation of merelyinfinitely possibility. whether that was true or notis irrelevant for right now. for a minute. it is the notion of this jeremiad, holding america to accountaccording to it's ideas, but also the articulation of the broad expansivepossibilities of what america is. a vista, a horizon opened up. if you study hans-george gadamer in terms
of say, dramatic concepts of hermeneutics, you'll understand whatit means to interpret and the horizon ofinterpretation and mean, but the reality is, obama tapped into the notion of america as an experiment in democracy, as apossibility, as a horizon of interpretation, he expressed that to america in a way thatit found compelling. why?
because it was part martin luther king jr, part abraham lincoln,part george washington, part hank williams. gotta study some country music. that blooms aesthetic, when it went black, it was the blues, when it went white, it was country music. the same agrarian culture that feeds the ethos of personalsensibilities derived
from the land. woody guthry could be thrown in there, the great bob dylan. nobel prize winning bob dylan. jay z is next. (laughing) "no all my teachers couldn't reach me, "and my mama couldn't beat me hard enough "to match the pain ofmy pops not seeing me. "so, with that disdain in my membrane.
"got on my pimp game, breakthe world, my defense came." we'll save that for thenobel prize committee. and so all of these various tributaries, all of the rivers flowinginto the vast ocean of his imagination, fed andfueled obama's conception of america as a dream, as a possibility, as a horizon of interpretation and yes, as a jeremiad, simultaneously. so therefore it would be contradictory
to a certain degree. both articulating the means by which, the instrument of, a kindof critical engagement with the nasty and vicious limits that are imposed on america, but also the infinite possibilitythat illumines from within. and so this young man made us believe, all the old heads in politics,people who didn't know his name, started learning his name.
and i must confess, when iwas one of the first people to endorse him and they said, "why you want barack obama?" i said, "nah, he gotsomething in him, that's why." there's something about him. black folks scared, "iain't voting for him, "they might shoot him." that's real. alright and right now, we just waiting.
'till january, what is it, 20th? please lord, the peoplestill on the precipice. white america needs to know that, brown and red and other yellowpeople who's experiences are the capacity to be vulnerable, we don't have to be reminded by the fact that we are in the streets every day and seeing unarmed blackpeople and brown people going to their deaths.
obama became the representativeof those vulnerable people and we became his proxy. can't get him? get us. and so that will tovulnerability of blackness that obama carries on his thin shoulders, simultaneously,concomitantly perhaps even, converges with this other possibility that blackness is redemptive and reissues
the possibility of theamerica dream constantly in it's hopefulness. and so this young man,that we were introduced to, i know young people say, "young, young?" you keep growing old. 55, he been president twice and he 55, double nickel, that's young. wait till ya'll growup, have your own kids, and we gonna laugh at ya'll.
and so this young man, withthe vigor of his vision, with the delirious delight of his dream, this young man shared with us a kind of ralph waldoemerson self rebidding, a constantly re-issuing possibility, tapped into the americandream that resonated with so many people. it was a positive,uplifting, hopeful gesture. and america responded.
put him in office and thehoneymoon was kind of over. that's how it is in any relationship, courting, it's beautiful. how are you? fine, how are you? (laughing) what do you like doing? anything you like. (laughing) what's the best thing you've seen? you. (laughing)
mirror, mirror. stop honey, it's you. it's all about you. after the wedding, what you doing? tooth paste back on the thing. tooth brush, left the toilet seat up. i might fall in, hun. the unavoidable erasability ofintimacy domestically begins to emerge.
and creeping into that relationship are the revelations ofone's own limited humanity. obama had a tremendousrelationship with the public because they saw himas unlike other negros. to put it bluntly. he wasn't like the rest. he didn't even come from the same place they came from. he was foreign, exotic blackness.
there's something attractive about that, when white brothers andsisters meet a black man or woman from america, there tends to be the automatic presumption,then perhaps the recognition of, a kind of intimate hostility from the rejected and neglectedhistory of slavery in the united states of america,that creates automatically, almost unavoidably, aconstruct where guilt or grief engulf the relationship,
even if you don't want to,even if you've got nothing else but doris day on your mind, it creeps into it. lincoln's beard, that her suit president, begins to impose it's follicular fidelity on your conversation. but with obama, bereft of that, as our brothers and sisters from africa and the caribbean don't have the same kind
of construct and so we like those kind of black people, they're different. they ain't coming at us,us being white america, with the kind of indictmentappointing finger, they're freer, they evenask other black people, "hey, how come you're doing better?" that is conducive to an ideologyof ostensible neutrality that says that it's all equal now and everybody just has topitch in and do your thing.
obama brought that kindof freshness of blackness but he still has some swag. every time he walks out of air force one, 50 cent seems to beplaying in the background. "i don't know what you heard about me." (mumbles) and the little tapes whitepeople send around video clips, meeting the then oklahomacity thunder before mr. durant decampt for greener pastures
and golden state, sorry ya'll. obama meets the coach, "hey how are you? "fine, how are you?" meets his assistant coach, meets kevin durant, "what's up bro?" he walks down air forceone with a little swag, a little bounce. go home to his wife,sure enough brilliant,
beautiful, blazingly amazing. michelle obama, undergraduate princeton, law school at harvard,doing it the way ya'll say ya'll wanted it to bedone, ya'll being america. i'm projecting here at avernacular intensity. (laughing) doing it the way you sayyou wanted it to be done, wife trained, smart. yeah, she's doing gardens and stuff but she got habeas corpus under lock.
and some other latin wordswe could throw in there. like hillary clinton who broke the mold because she said, i'm notgonna stand by your man. no disrespect to tammywynette, it's a great song. she's got this independentassertion of female autonomy. ain't just a connectionto a man, an independent, self-satisfying, autonomousagent of one's desire. and so the black family nevergot a better advertisement, than with barack obama, even though,
as the most famous black family ever to live in public housing. (laughing) now don't you put thaton your application. where you wanna live? 1600 pennsylvania, youain't getting that crib. it is not available to you. another person will soontake up residence there. and so obama represented both the power and the beauty, the potential of america,
yet after being elected,the difficulty began, the difficult road of knowing, an essential centrist democrat, who carried revolutionaryhopes into office, but who did amazing thingsdespite the lethal limits imposed upon him. we now know after reading several books that the republicans had it out for him the very night he was being inaugurated.
he's trying to get inauguratedand have a little dance to beyonce. not mad at you, pre-lemonade. (laughing) "sorry, nah, nah, i ain't sorry, nah." so there be inter-bursts likethis, so get ready for them. if you laugh, i'll move on,if you don't, i'll punish you. so (laughing). as he was preparing todo the best he could, looking across the aisle, how nice it was,
i wanna work with republicansin the post-partisan america. because as a black man, he understood that the greatest value in america comes from it's diversity. others who unrelentingly appeal to a kind of narrow framework thatsays, my party or bust, he didn't share that, heshared with his predecessor, bill clinton, in anattempt, some would say, viciously to triangulate, but let's take
it as it's best interpretation now, to reach across the aisle towork with others. (mumbles) and so, the problem is of course, is that obama underestimated the degree to which the intensity of the demonization of his blackness would shuttle him. i mean, we could dress itup, well there were problems that they disagreed withhim ideologically, true, but there were other ideological problems
with previous presidents. they never got the debtceiling automatically, which usually is raised, not to be raised. obama was subject to more death threats than any other president in the history of this country by far. the vicious antipathytoward him, the names that he was called. now all presidents aretreated in a foul fashion
by those who disagree withthem, but this was extra. and the extra had todo with that thin layer of epidermis. we don't like to talk about it, we live as, gore vidal said in the united states of amnesia, the theme song providedby barbara streisand. young people, do you not knowwho barbara streisand is? she's a real famous singer,who can actually sing.
that's critical, okay? that's a distinction. no disrespect to autotune. taylor swift is a greatsinger, well songwriter. she's been writing since she was 15, she's a prodigy, she's a genius. don't sleep on taylor. but the voice of barbara streisand was one for the ages and she sang the words
of paul williams, "what'stoo painful to remember, "we simply choose to forget." the willful denial, therefusal to acknowledge it because it's too painful. race is too painful, gender's too painful, sexual orientation's toopainful, a region is too painful. and so obama evoked and events some of the worst manifestations ofracial animus we have seen. he was a flash point along the trajectory
of racial dynamism andnow his presidency began to be identified with that. and these right-wing republicans,many of them white men, expressing venom for him. not saying, "let's worktogether where we can "because this is our nation together." not in a patriotic moment. it says, our country isbigger than our party. no, white men who arehardly held to account
for their invidious anti-patriotic fervor, mad at colin kaepernick for taking a knee when you've been giving us the finger. okay, it's a differentpart of the anatomy. the question is, how do wethen demonize colin kaepernick while we bury muhammad ali as a hero? what you doing? he was saying the samething that colin was saying except harder, except morelethally, intense and ferocious.
go back and look at some of those videos. on throwback thursday. (laughing) "vietcong never calledme a nigger," he said. he said, "white supremacy isdeep and profound in america." we don't even use the term now, we're polite with it, weshould be polite and civic in terms of our politic, but not denying the legitimacy of thehurt and pain we confront. obama was the hope of manypeople to have been done
there, been there and done black. finish with him, wethought we elected him, it's all over, it's dead. race relations will besolved, black people will be happy, america will be one again. obama was resisted by a group of white man and their whiteness is critical here. whiteness is neutral, whiteness is human, whiteness is the bestof what we represent,
whiteness is the default position, has to be called out becauseit's punishing white people much less america. nobody can live up to thatmythology of superiority, you know it ain't true. that's why sports are so tough. that's why colin is so tough. you already beating us on the field. don't beat us in ideologyand politics too.
we got to exercisecontrol over your bodies, over your mouths. as long as you titillateus our fantasy leagues and on the gridiron andthe (mumbles) floor, you are to be celebratedbut the moment you begin to speak up about thepeople to whom you belong, you are a threat. obama was fine as long as he was american, quote american.
should obama speak aboutrace it was a problem. boy meets girl, girl meetsboy, boy meets nation, nation loves him, white guyswho are on the other side of the aisle don't like him,they said our best ambition is to make him a one termpresident so he says, up they say down, he saysleft, they say right, he says wet, they say dry,he says yes, they say no. and then obama himself responds. by attempting to heat coals offire, as the good books says
on the heads of his enemies,by saying i'm gonna take your good ideas and work with them and the ones that are not, i'll cast aside. first two years, what did he do? bailed out the automobile industry. what did he do? put the economy back on an even keel which is hard, the worst it's been since the great depression.
gave us healthcare, nowit's tough right now, them rates is crazy, asbill clinton would say, and we know that the candidates have vowed in their own party to take another look. either to scrap it or to reassess it but the point is, millionsmore people who didn't have insurance have it now. remarkable things. bailing out that automobile industry.
and yet there was a lingering suspicion about the legitimacy ofbarack obama as a human being, much less as an american citizen. wasn't a problem whendonald trump was beating up on obama, you're notamerican, which means, you're not really real. which means your humanityis suspect because you're a liar, which means you're really not as smart as you say you are.
guess who's saying this? in terms of smartness. you may be a great business man but bruh, nuance ain't you' shtick. but notice america didn'thave much of a problem in the main when obamawas the exclusive subject of their antipathy. but when that man turned that antipathy on other white folks, it was a problem.
because who's bodies arestake makes a difference. thelma and louise and kill a couple guys in a movie and we go crazy. but in most movies withmen, they kill more woman than that in the first two seconds. first two minutes of many horror films and in many action/adventure films. the body was the mans. we're used to women dying,oh that's par for the course.
men, hey slow down now,jiminey cricket. (laughing) rape culture, are we reallyconcerned about women in america, rape culture? rape culture is the predicate of slavery. the unlimited accessto the erotic potential of black women. you mean to tell me thata president who raped a 14 year old girl and called it love? versus r. kelly?
i'm not defending r. kelly. i'm asking a question about what it means to be the body at stake. frankenstein is the name ofthe doctor, not the monster. certain forces in america,right-wing created donald trump. the poop in that diaper wasfrom the diet he was fed. to be articulately inelegant. but you get my point. donald trump is regurgitatingthe vicious antipathy
toward the other that is the basis of a certain kind of mentality in dominate white supremacist culture. but it didn't come to voice,who would have thought that that white supremacistlogic would have turned in on itself? who would have thoughtthe monster would kill the doctor? read the story, that'swhat it is, frankenstein.
and i say this about mr.trump as an amplification of desire, not in itself,we can argue about that. we're talking about, now the amplification of ideals and culture inamerica that demonizes the other. groping on women, having unlimited access to the erotic potential,scandalously assaulting other abled people. the demonization of mexicans.
that wasn't a problem for so many people but when he began todirect that animus toward other white brothers and sisters and those bodies came to play. then it became a huge problem. then the moral disapprobationof mr. trump became real. but in an obama era whereobama was arguing against all of the vicious narrowconsideration of the other, was himself the embodiment of the other,
bore what james baldwin calledthe burden of representation. but where he entered theprospects of america entered with him. and so there's a real, if you will, tear in the american fabric,there is a real fight in the american soul. as we move toward a post-obama era, what we're dealing with is the fact that the niceness of theman, the civic polity
of the man, the high intelligencethat we are going to miss. god knows. should one candidateprevail over another one. what we miss also isthe ability to believe that america can become one, (mumbles), amount of many one. what will also be missed,for some, but should not be, and what must be talkedabout is the degree to which obama was willing
to publicly assault black people as well. he goes to moorehouse college and he tells those young men that noone is willing to hear any excuses you're goingto make about racism. and getting what you did not earn. an unusual commencementaddress to be sure. are you speaking for a detention center? or for the most prominentblack male college in america? now don't get me wrong, i've been
an ordained baptist ministerfor more than 35 years, black people get it hard in church. the rhetorical lashes butit's a balanced attack. don't tell me about whatthe white man is saying, while i'm telling the white man, excuse me, rhetorically, as a gesture, to be held accountable. so in other words, martinluther king jr would hold black people accountable even
as he held america accountable. mr. obama was good on holdingblack people accountable, not so good about holdingamerica accountable. because he sought purchaseof an american acceptance. he knew that if he wanted to be seen in public lashing blackpeople rhetorically, it would gain points for white people in the swing vote states and on the fence, both about his candidacy but also about
the support of his presidency. unbeknownst to him perhaps orhe was willing to ignore it, is the fact that thosepeople who didn't believe in you will never believe inyou no matter what you do, sir. goes to the 50th anniversaryof the march on washington and blames black people. don't take my word forit, listen to the speech. for a stunning and astonishing paragraph, blames black people for thefailure of racial relations
and progress in america. he regurgitates a acidlyright-wing reactionary logic about black people who arecriminals and what they did with their poverty. i was sitting there, also sat at the congressional blackcaucus when he said to those black men and women who when he was knee high to atadpole, who were getting their skulls cracked, takeoff your marching shoes
and put on, or take offyour bedroom slippers and put on your marching shoes. slow down mace, you're killing 'em. that is presumptuous, thosepeople were being battered in birmingham, battered in southern states where it was impossible to be recognized as a human being. be a bit more gentle. be as courteous to themas you are to others.
obama understood thedemonization of blackness is a card that he could play because it would garner a kind of recognition for his public moralitythat was brave because it criticised his own. but if you are willingto criticize your own, you must also be willing to defend them. what did obama say? i am not the president of black america.
did anybody voting forobama actually believe they were voting for thepresident of black america? was he the president of the naacp? i think not. the point is, that was another shot at the collective psycheof african american people. again, reinforcing the belief that they are not sophisticatedpolitically to understand that you can simultaneouslyengage in the practice
and exercise of the art of politics while at the same time acknowledgingthe legitimate concerns of people who happen to look like you. this is something that blackpeople, you will understand, i loathe to address. black people don't love to address this because white folk have had 43 presidents, we ain't had but one. white people remind me all thetime, you know he's half us.
43 and a half presidents have been white, we've got half a brother. and we working with thebrother, the half we got, what up, what up barack,that's my bae, that's my boo. don't talk about him. the problem is thatthe bae-ing and boo-ing of barack obama underminesthe political utility of your vote and subverts the potential of the collective enterpriseof african american people
to be leveraged indefense of the interests we have and also the problems we suffer. and so the ability, the inabilityto acknowledge his faults and failures, his flaws, asgreat a man as he has been, a greater president, i wouldargue, that he has been. one of the best, perhaps top 10, 15. has been mitigated by thisinability of black people to hold their leaderaccountable, not as a black man, as an american presidentwho should respond
to the situation of black america. this is a balancing act many white people don't have to have. because many white people say, why does he have to be a black president and deal with your interests,can't he just be president? that's easy to say forpeople who've had 43 and a half presidentswho've addressed your issues without having to appeal to whiteness
because whiteness wassubsisting as invisible and existing as neutraland therefore american. whiteness was smuggledinto the political contract and as a result of that,the social compact rested upon an explicit denialand the reality of race and ethnicity. and so my friends, barackobama has not been held to account by many people of color. now some have gone off therails and been very nasty
and vicious to him, i'mnot speaking about that. i'm talking about principled critique in light of the values we hold. in the few minutes i have left, how then do we talk about a post-obama era and what are it's consequences? number one, we have torecuperate and redeem the legitimacy of race. isn't that interesting?
with the first blackpresident, that notion has been lost. that race is a legitimatesphere within which to concentrate both resources and energy but also, as a platform, to articulate legitimate social critique. under a black president,that has been destabilized. should hillary clintonget into office, i argue, through her policies, she would offer more
to african american peoplethan has barack obama. i stand by that, i'll argue with that, i'll break it down for you. because she doesn't havethe charisma of her husband. thank you. (laughing) clinton goes up into a black church, he knows the third verse oflift up your voice and sing. hey is that a verse? yeah, that's a verse.
stony the road we trek. come on, negros. (singing) where are you? bill, bill? he knew the hymns and the hymn lines. i'm sorry, i'm sorry. okay, that was cheap, that was cheap, that was not worthy but it was good,
it was good. obama, skin identification is easy, pride. what does hillary have to deal with the vicious and invidioussexism that prevails that patriarchal culture that disallows the sight of her to belegitimate and so she has to offer public policies, family leave, she has to talk about theways in which disproportioned numbers of black womenare hurt by the economy,
speaking about the asthmarates of young black kids, in other words, she has to articulate a policy of the vilmesticity of blackness to recuperate it as a legitimate moment of arguing about race. in a post-obama erathen, we've got to redeem the capacity of race tobe a legitimate sphere of both intellectual and social energy as well arguing aboutthe resource distribution
in america. and that's important. one of the greatinfluences on barack obama was william juliuswilson, philosophically. william julius wilson usedto believe that, like obama, you do race neutral stuff, you get the most people involvedand you hook 'em up. william julius wilson said,that ain't working no more. that really ain't working at all.
you got to be specific. or as the brothers say,you gotta be pacific. i'm not gonna waste myjokes if ya'll not into 'em. i'm just not gonna do it. it's extra charge for that,i just want you to know. and so william julius wilson said no, we've got to be specific and particular, in enunciating clearly apolicy that is predicated upon taking race into account.
obama moved this awayfrom that and i think that was a problematic gesture. number two, in a post-obamaera, what we have to grapple with, is the force and function of domestic terror. now, i know a lot ofpeople think, you know, terror is isis, and theyare, al-queda, they are. but i don't know if yourealize, i don't know if many white americansrealize that black people
think about the policelike you think about isis. i know you're thinking, ohmy god, how disrespectful is that? the hell? isis, really though, isis? c'mon. yeah. 'cause no matter what wedo, they keep killing us. no matter how good weact, how well we behave,
how articulate we are. hands up, you get shot,hands down, you get shot. run from the police, youget shot, don't run from the police, you get shot. can you imagine why brothers and sisters, what it might mean for your children to come home to you in body bags? because little ginny sassed the police? because little sally said,why are you arresting me?
do you think that's a legitimate reason to get shot but urban executioners? the president has done us no good thing, i believe, by forging a false equivalence between police and community. they are not equal. there's no such thingas reestablishing trust. these people are predatorsupon you, young lady. what is your relationship to your rapist?
can we have trust? how about justice? you can't trust in people. now listen to what i'msaying, i'm not saying that every police person in america, you know this is the lot, oh my god, most police are doing a great job. you know, if you go to your doctor and you say, look mostof your cells are great
but you got three or four of them that are cancerous. it'll kill you. those three or four cells will kill you. it is not a few cops here,that is not the problem, it is a culture ofdemonization of blackness, implicit bias, a refusal tosee our humanity and it's tough 'cause most white folkdon't have that experience, they don't even get it.
like when we hear, weare just deathly afraid. now you might say, wellwe are too but, you know. nah, nah it ain't the same. 'cause you don't fear that at the end of that encounter, you may be dead. you're wondering if youput your will together, just on any given day when you're waiting on your child in a parkinglot and you end up dead and your wife is on filmsaying, do not shoot him.
he has just taken his medicine. or when you see a blackman with his hands up, doing everything the copsaid and looked in his car and he's murdered. my friends, my brothers and sisters, 'cause i know most whitebrothers and sisters are reasonable figures. but do not hide behindthe cloak of ignorance or denial.
this police terror is viciousand real to many people of color. and it must be addressed,not with condescension, not with the sense, thepolice are on one side and the community on the other, how do we reestablish trust. from the very beginning,police people were set in african american communities,a, to get slaves back, the enslaved, those patrolswere not our friends,
this is why black people, idon't wanna be fussy here, this is why we're not too deep into the animal rights movement, we should be, but we're not. 'cause lassie wasn't our friend. rin-tin-tin did not cometo the march on washington. i'm just saying. last time we saw rin-tin-tina german shepard, they were biting us.
we got a little issue with you. hey, hey, i see you, i know your rights, you got a good alpo but you're killing us 'cause your masters are sicking you on us. from the slave plantationto recuperate what was lost. third verse of the star spangled banner celebrates, no place onearth, the hireling or slave will be able to run. that's why colin kaepernick takes a knee.
so my friends, my pointis, that the police from the very beginninghave been arrayed against the forces of african americanindividual, if you will, and collective flourishing. and then, police forces,in jim crow, joined the kkk to murder us. didn't warn martinluther king jr in the fbi against legitimate and credibledeath threats against him. i'm simply saying to you, do your history,
the police have always had a fractious, fractured, bitter relationshipto african american people. now i know many of you are saying, wait a minute, slow down. as rudy giuliani does, mostof you are killing each other. okay, 93 percent of black people who die are killed by black people. true. 84 percent of white people who are killed
are killed by white people. what you got? what we wanna do? a statistical analysis? right, do we have a notionof white on white crime? do we even hear that? oh my god, i'm so worriedabout white people because so many of themare being killed by others who are white.
it's a blight on thecommunity, i'm afraid. let's get miley cyrusto cut a psa. (laughing) let's twerk it away. twerk, twerk, twerk, miley. (laughing) most white people, thewhite people of america who commit crimes, commitmore heinous crimes against more vulnerable populations. do the numbers, it's just right there. but we don't have anideology and a politic
that suggests there is a problem with a suspicious charactercalled the white person. all i'm asking you, mybrothers and sisters, think about it, in a post-obama era, that has to be addressed. whether it's hillaryclinton or donald trump, okay or dr. stein or mr. johnson. he's gotta find out where aleppois first though, i'm sorry. you can tell the man neverlistened otello, did he?
a word or two before you go, i've done the states andservice and they know it and when you speak of me, speakof one who loved full wisely but not too well andsaw that an aleppo once. dude just read shakespeare,he'll tell you where aleppo is. listen to drake. he ain't talking aboutaleppo, he's just good. i got my eyes on you. so the point is, backto the lecture at hand,
that we have to talk aboutmediating conversations with false equivalencies that make a guy or a woman with a badgeand a gun and tazer and the bullets equivalentto unarmed citizens, they are not. we are in terror. i spoke to eric holder,hope i'm not speaking out of turn here, when hewas the attorney general and he didn't know what tell his son about
what to do when the police came. that's where we are. imagine it being your children. you wouldn't accept thatit's the price of business. oh that's what cops do. you wouldn't say that. you'd be mad, you'dfigure out a way to stop these people from killing our children. and then, it seems in a post-obama era,
we have to take and make alive, the notion of intersectionality. it's a good sexy term, what's it mean? 'cause there's somedangerous intersections too. like those, right? kimberly crenshaw, maurice (mumbles), it's the way in which we gotta think about it in 3d. we've been looking at movies flatscreen.
let's think about it in 3d. that's what intersectionalityis all about. so we can think about gender and race and class and cultureand religion and region and how they all play a role. and some of us, we justhave our little pet peeves. hey i deal with race sotherefore i can't see gender. i deal with sexism andfeminism, i don't see anything about race.
we can't live in that kind of world. we are living in a simultaneity. stuff be happening at the same time. i preach at blackchurches, i go down there and i know some of myblack brothers and sisters are deeply inscribed intoa right-wing conception of sexuality, so theytry to make god co-sign their bigotry against gay people. what?
where did that come from? i grew up in the church,we knew there was gay. in the choir, you knew. i ain't never been to a black church that turns down gay tithes. only funny money theydon't want is change. oh bring your gay dollar right up in here. we will make it straight. the demonization, not just black people,
we know that the dominantculture is homophobic as well but i'm saying, if we havebeen victims of that kind of vicious racism andoppression, perhaps we should be resistive and resistant tothe same kind of viciousness. maybe we should do that. we should lead that. (clapping) we should say that that's just not right. and so many of you have been blessed by gay people and didn't even know it.
what you gonna get,retroactively homophobic? oh my god, had i known you were gay i would have never taken that full ride that you gave me thatsaved me 150,000 dollars of scholarship money. no. now we know in the dominantwhite supremacist culture where pockets of patriarchy are real, that sexism and homophobic real too,
transphobia there as well. but the problem is that inthese minority communities, we got to acknowledge the degree to which we are complicit in the very forces of oppression that we oppose. as i take my seat, thatintersection is important. that's we gotta think aboutissues of women as well. barack obama was subjectto vicious forms of racism, hillary clinton is subjectto forms of oppression
that are linked to her gender that we don't even speak about. it doesn't even get mentioned. it's taken for granted. the culture is so fullof toxic masculinity. we just want you not to be on a tape with a guy named bush,interestingly enough, speaking about grabbing one. that's how low we've put the standard.
now you know if therewas a brother running for president and he saidsomething, you gone. (laughing) boy, bye. that would have been a beyonce candidacy. we know this. had michelle obama's daughter, you know, had she run for presidentthen michelle obama, barack obama had theydaughter, then pregnant twice. are you gonna tell me whatthe sarah palin effect
while you spouting thisright-wing ideology that is corrosive that you'renot even holding yourself to account in a patriarchal context? and so friends, in a post-obama era, that intersectionalitybecomes especially critical as we rethink where we are. and where we are as a nation is critical at this moment becausethere's so many others who's bodies are piling up against
the visions of an increasingly bitter but narrower concircles of white men who are straight, who areresisting the change. obama has opened that flood gate has made it possible for us to rethink it. and it is our challenge totake that forward, thank you so very much. (clapping) - so we're gonna take the time, we've got about 10 minutes to hear
from dr. dyson and see if there are folks in the room that wannaoffer just general comments to him or ask questions. so now is the time ifyou'd like to come up to this microphone. - so you're invitingpeople to okay, yeah, okay. - my name is elliot,i'm an american studies and political science double major. i have two questions for you.
the first one is can i get a hug? (laughing and clapping) second question, assuminghillary clinton wins the presidency, what do you think is the future of the democraticand republican parties? - that's a great question. thanks for the hug, thatwas good bruh. (laughing) nice sweater you got on there too. look, we're in a tough time, right?
lot of redefinition goingon, democratic party. it's clear that the republicanparty's undergoing tremendous and rapid transformation. like they don't even knowwho they are right now. like they go home at night and, are you with me, who are you? i don't know you. it's really a toss up, right? but democrats, you know,we have our own set
of problems as well. how much longer are we gonnatake black people for granted? black women's votes have really fueled this country for a long time and fed the democratic machinery. black people, more generallylatino people as well, women's voices collectivelybecoming so powerful. i think, should hillary clinton succeed, first of all, it'll bring just
a stabilizing intellectual force. you know i did a piece onhillary and hung out with her and went several places. ain't nobody smarter than her now though. i'ma tell you. maybe some people are just as smart but there's nobody smarter than her. period, end of story,that's the conversation. and that's reassuring to me.
and she's a lot funnier than people know. you know when i hear thesestories about hillary is so, like, she's really not. she's got a sense of humor, it's wicked, it's dry, it's funny. but you can tell i'm ajokester, so i dig that. and highly intelligent, highly thoughtful, very, i think, interestedin seeing the country do better so i think, forthat reason, she'll stabilize
the country first. she's gonna try to dothat obama reach across the aisle stuff, that's more, she's to the nature borns, to themanner born, so to speak with that, her husband did the same thing within triangulation butdick morris who just wrote a book against her, why trump could win, i'm very suspicious of that triangulation. 'cause who's body's getting sacrificed
in triangulation, people of color. so share people who are skeptical about the super predator stuff back in the day and the prison industrialcomplex, we gotta push her on that, but let'sget somebody we can push. you can't push donald trump. you cannot push a guy whois incapable, i think, my particular personal opinion,of listening profoundly. and look, i saw donald trump at 30 rock.
elevator opens up, he goes, you. i said, yes? that orange visage before me. he says, you've been very tough on me. i said, yeah. he says, but i love you. i was like, oh my god. he said, if i had yourpipes and your brains, i'd be president now.
i said, yeah but you don't. (laughing) i didn't say that to him to his face, i said it to myself. i ain't gonna be nasty,my mama taught me better. if you ain't got nothing niceto say, don't say nothing. he wants to take apicture and i treated him like you do some peoplein the corner when nobody can see us. don't hold my hand in public, girl.
i'm not with you. my real people might see me. let me introduce me, thisis michael eric dyson. charismatic as he can be. i mean, if you meetdonald trump one on one, i'm telling you, you might vote for him. it's that crazy. that's how charismatic that guy is. but that's how dangerous he is to me.
the danger is that thatcharisma is deployed for, i think, problematic purposes. i think hilary clinton willright the ship of state we have a person in officewho we can challenge to do the right thing andi think the possibility of high intelligence beingwedded to political experience will never have beenbetter than in her body. that's what i think. - [man] i have one quick question.
- sure, sure. - if you speak to lizwarren, can you tell her to challenge hillary (mumbles). - yeah, that's, you know, i said right in front of her, at the convention, liz, she's great, but you know, you gotta have people behind youto actually support you. it is one thing when you'recolin powell and you're thinking about running, it's anotherthing when you actually run.
liz warren really running,that's a little bit more complicated. yeah, yeah, maybe. and i think it becomes the fact that, what can you actually get done? 'cause politics at the end of the day is what you can actuallyget done in the circumstance without having the perfectbeing the enemy of the good. great points, sir.
yes sir? - i wanted you (mumbles) because i wanted the students to hear awell educated american, african american, who could be critical of someone who i know you respect. - yes sir, that's right. - i think it's veryimportant in our country, we come to understand thatthese are not easy questions. - that's right.
- and that it's soimportant to take the time to dissect the problem to get it from different perspectives. say things that areprovocative, get people to think about what wewant the next period to be. i was saying to one of ourprofessors of humanities, it's also clear that youare really into humanities, the social sciences,they've taught you well. you did it on behalf ofbeing a well educated.
i ask this question as thechair of the obama commission on educational excellence. here's my question. how do we have ourcountry, our universities, to prepare our citizens to analyze, assess where we are, thechallenges that we face and not to simply think right and wrong, against and for but rather to dig deeper and use our ability to think as we work
to help children and ourfamilies in this society and growing in equality? how do we and what advice do you have for educators as we workto help students focus on the real issues? - yes sir, yes sir. now that's tremendous. first of all, the factthat he has you doing that shows his intelligence and wisdom.
and i mean that seriouslyand i've always thought that. and thank you for underscoring the fact that this is not personalattack upon the president. i've shared some of thiswith him face to face in the white house andwhen we were members of the same church. i love him but my job and his job is two different things. and i've gotta exercise my job, he's gotta
do his job. his makes a lot more moneyand a lot more influence but at the same time, very quickly, we were in the white house one day and it was a heatedconversation about targeted versus universal. and tom joiner was there and he was like, i can't believe you're gonna write a book about the president.
the president is sitting like right where that water is and i'm right here and he says, i can'tbelieve you're gonna write a book about the president and it's gonna be critical of him, itmight cost us black votes and therefore his presidency. first of all, why you sayingthat with the man sitting right like, why you tryingcrack on me like that? but you know i'm not gonna be defeated.
so i said, really, isaid, are you nostradamus? because i haven't evenwritten my book yet. you know what i'm gonna say. tell me, how many books am i gonna sell 'cause i need to feed my kids. so we're joking and obama goes though, he says, yeah and he's comingto the white house eating my food. (laughing) oh but you know i'm better than that.
i said, paid for by mytax money. (laughing) i said and given how much i'm paying, i will be here next week. he laughed, i killed him. metaphorically, please. i'm from detroit baby, where's that. so i think that sir,that's a great question. the thing is, i thinkthat the obama policy, more broadly speaking, in termsof educational philosophy,
was a disappointment to some progressives because they thought thathe might have done something different in terms ofjust replicating the race to the top, is one thing, versus the race to the bottom and trying to prevent that. and then replicating the self-bigotry and low-expectations withno child left behind. your point was well taken,there's some good things out that you can take outof that, extract from that
and try to apply. i think three things are critical. first of all, to understandthe legitimacy of teachers. like again, teachers are under,you wanna talk about cops, teachers are under assault. like the way we protectcops, let's treat teachers that way, let's just do that. (clapping) teachers can't even get no law like that. they ain't makin no money, you know,
and then the few that makea little money on the side and take the stuff thenthey get all the bad press. the average person who's ateacher is spending money out of his or her pockettrying to help kids. and so, i think a culture of respect and it think obama has donethat to a certain degree. is to respect theteachers in the classroom. number one, but it needs tobe done more effectively. number two is to figure outa balance between autonomous,
local regions of schoolboards and the demand for a kind of, not onlyregional but national standard by which they will be judged. that's where it gets tough'cause people like, you know, yeah you gotta grade teacherlike they grading you. like i don't know, i'msure they do it here, every one of my classesi get assessed as well. right, students can grade me. now let's not pretend it's not the same.
right, my grades have moreof an impact than there's but they get a chance to weigh in, that's why i always bringpizza the last class. oh did i say that out loud? i was thinking that, i'm notsure i said that out loud. and good drinks, coca-colaand sprite if you're good. so the question is, how do we acknowledge the necessity for controlof communities over schools and institutions thateducation their children?
while also saying that we can't leave it nearly to the autonomy of the local when national standards have to prevail because you have tojustify using your time to teach these kidsbecause they're failing at the national level. which leads to my thirdpoint that i would say. can we, in any way, make a dent on the obsession with testing?
i mean, i don't mean now,i know you're a scientist so i will say this right, i'm not trying to throw testing out. i'm trying to throw theobsession with testing out. that's different. einstein wasn't gonnapass no math test at 12. i think he did pretty goodwith math, e equals mc2 might be the most famous equation ever. all of ya'll know that too, right?
you don't even know what it means, but you know what it is. i'm sure you do but i'm just saying. even if you don't know, right? that's how deep he was with his math. the reality is that we have obsessed over a culture of tests whetherpeople can take tests. not what knowledge they have. and so we've got to get a fine tuning
of the calculus and metricof testing to a judge what people empirically know. i'm not against that, i justthink we have to refine it. and i think by leading theargument about standards that are national, whenapplied to our testing, we find alternative measuresof that intelligence 'cause see, what a testcan't determine is, if you gonna keep your buttin that seat and study. tests can't do that.
some people who are cstudents become presidents, george bush. i'm just saying, alright. many of them. but your stick-to-it-evness,your perseverance, cannot be judged bythat so we gotta balance a way of having those standards, 'cause you knowdisproportionately they impact african american and latinokids and poor white kids
for that matter. and so we gotta find a way to acknowledge the legitimacy of the testing without the obsession with tests. those are just three things off the top of my head that i thinkare extremely important in terms of a cultureas well as a practice. - so dr. dyson, i want to,i'm gonna put some folks on the spot here, quickly.
and i think this is a perfect segway because you're talkingabout k-12 education in particular so we'vegot a group of boys here from baltimore collegic school for boys which is a charter school thati founded almost a year ago. - wow. - i want one of them tocome ask you a question because they've been studying you. oh, we've got two boyswho wanna ask questions.
they've been studying. - i'ma ask them some stuff too, yeah. who ya'll listening to, ineed to be listening to? okay. - they have been reading your work and listening to some ofyour interviews recently and have some thingsthey would like to say. - okay. - gentlemen.
- sharp, intelligent, handsome, young men. beautiful, good to see that. tell me your name too. - i'm tory holmes. - how old are you? - 13. - with all that bass in your voice? look at your man. yeah, i'm tory holmes, i'm 13.
what's up? okay, alright. - the question i would like to ask is, why is donald trumpbeing treated differently than bill cosby is forthe same accusations? - yeah, wow. i didn't know ya'll was gonna be real. i thought it was like a fakequestion, it was a set up. who are you listening to in rap right now?
how you gonna hit me with something that serious, dude? go and sit down man,you're messing up the game. that's a great question. now first, let me tell you my,now here's my first response would be. having met both of thesegentlemen, one more than the other. that donald trump'srevelations are pretty recent.
ms. finland just announcedtoday he groped her on the behind, i don'tknow if while ya'll were here, i was looking, iwas updating for you. so it's the 13th woman who's accused him. bill cosby's been accusedby 50, 60, 70 women and i'm not trying to have a hierarchy of pain or grief because if you're groping on a woman and she doesn't want you to grope on her, thatis wrong and that's part
of rape culture but ifyou're dropping drugs on a woman and actually knocking her out and drugging her, allegedly, then you gotta say, that's a lot different and it's a lot more devastating. and i'll tell you why elsehe's being treated differently, even though donald trumpis a moralist and so on, he's kind of a rascal. bill cosby went aroundsaying he was like better
than better, right, basically? he was like and the people with the jello and the pudding pops. (laughing) and he's beating up on young people and the reason i know, letme tell you what bill cosby did to me, i'm gonna tell you, i ain't gonna tell youwhat he did to nobody else, i'ma tell you what he did to me. what i say with my own eyes.
so i wrote a book on him,i can understand being mad 'cause it was a hell of a book. i mean, in a sense thatit was tight, my arguments were there, you'd be pissedtoo, i get it, i get it. so i saw bill cosbyone day, i saw his wife and some people i knew. spike lee had invited me toone of his film premieres. i'm looking through awindow of a restaurant and i see his wife, now i never met her,
but i figure she knowswho i am, let's me real. and i'm waving at the people i knew and then i said, if she'shere, where's bill cosby? then i saw him sitting right there, right in front of me, but he couldn't hear me. they told him i wasnamed michael eric dyson, he turns his face to theleft, doesn't look straight at me, with that proboscispronounced, sticking out, that's his nose, andhe gives me the finger.
now okay, bill, youknow, i get it, you mad. but you mad at young people,you say they're horrible, they got sagging pantsand all the stuff they do. i think the bible says, be careful about the grave you did for somebody else 'cause you might fall in it yourself. and i think bill cosbyhas been a public moralist who has been condescending,he has been relentless in his assault upon poor black people,
especially black women,he has been heartless in his assault upon themand i feel sorry for him but i feel sorrier for thewomen who have been subject to him allegedly and ithink that he has to, in one sense karma, somewould say justice has caught up with him and perhapsthe same with happen to donald trump, in the same way. so i think that's why bill cosby is being treated differentlythan donald trump.
donald trump stuff isnew, bill cosby's stuff is a lot older and the accusations are more deeply entrenched. it's a great question though,it's a great question. yes sir, you have one? what's your name? - my name is nathan (mumbles). i was wondering how oldwere you when you wrote your first book andwhat was the name of it?
- man, these great questions. man, ya'll are. i'ma come speak for yourschool, can i do that? alright, cool. let me see, i'm not as good as ya'll and dr. hrabowski's themathematical genius, let me see. 1993, i was born in 58, 68, 78, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93.
i was 34 years old. alright, let me tell you what happened. what had happened was, let me tell you. so i was a teen father,i didn't start school 'till i was 21, alright,so i didn't even go to college and then ittook me a few years, i graduated 26, 25,pastored some churches, cleaned some, worked in a factory. and my brother got put in prison in 1989,
so i started writing articles, essays, took over the column ofblack america for z magazine, blah, blah, blah. so i was doing all this stuff,so i end up writing my book before i got my dissertation done. so i said, i cannot havemy book published without my dissertation being done. so i went and gave my perspective. that's your outline for what you wanna do
when your dissertation,your phd, it's like you before four people who question you. are you good? are you sharp? what are you talking about? blah, blah, blah, for two hours. i did it, i went out, and when i came back and they said, congratulationsmr. dyson, you're now passed on to your perspectives, you can go on
for the next two years andwrite your dissertation. i went under the table,pulled out my dissertation and said here it is. okay, that was a risk, thatwas a risk, but i did it. so that was the first book basically. and then the other bookwas written right after. so i was 34 years old, itwas called reflecting black: african american culture criticism. that's what it was.
great question though, man. great question, my man. (clapping) - my question is. - what's your name? - my name is (mumbles) and my question is, if hillaryclinton becomes president, what will she do with obamacare? - oh, oh my god, that'sgreat, that's great. you know what, she'llprobably do what her husband
did with affirmative action,mend it, don't end it. i think she's got a,look you've gotten pull these costs into reasonable territory. in other words, it costsa lot of money right now for people who are tryingto get some healthcare and those, and it lookslike it's helping them because they don't workfor a particular job and they can still get the healthcare but they charge 'em a bunch of money
and it hurts the peoplewho can't afford it the most. so i think that, and here's the problem, had the congressmenwilling to work with obama, that stuff could've been worked out. i mean, the man wastrying the best he could to figure this out andhillary clinton tried it years ago, way before you were born. she tried her own versionof it and in one sense,
ironically enough, it mighthave been more progressive. but you can only do what you can do, so i think she's gonna try to fix it. she's gonna try to make it where people are not paying a whole bunch of money but they're still getting coverage in terms of their insurance. i think that's what she's gonna do. great questions, give it upfor the group. (clapping)
let me ask you, wait right here. are ya'll allowed tolisten, do ya'll listen to music and stuff like that? have ya'll heard (mumbles)? who should i be listening to? tell me who i should be listening to. that you like, i mean thatyou can tell me, i know, you know. if you can't tell me tilllater, let me know. (laughing)
if you don't wanna say it in front of the founder of your school. we listen to shirley temple. you gonna tell me later,alright, alright. (laughing) ya'll listen to big messa? big messa's killing it dude, i'm just, he killing the game right now. alright, i'll talk to ya'll later, give me the real stuff, okay.
you got one, okay, alright. - drake. - who? - dree? - drake? oh yeah, yeah, you listen to him? oh yeah, he's good, he's good. you know his birthday'sthe day after mine. go on, okay, yes.
- yes, i have one more question. - my name is (mumbles). so you're a pastor, correct? - well i'm a minister,i used to be a pastor. you can see why i'm nolonger one. (laughing) - so you are a ministerwho's going to talk about lgbt issues and is like not only telling people to like, love gay people and like (mumbles) yourchristianity as well.
so i'm wondering, i mean i know it's a very big issue in the black church but also other churches so i wonder how you think we should (mumbles)? - that's a great question, great question. yeah, look, i was 22,23 years old back in, i told you i'm not good at math, 82, 83, when i got called to a church in tennessee called thankful baptist church,god has a sense of humor.
they were not thankful. they put me out of theirchurch after a year. let me tell you what idid, no i wasn't taking no money, though on reflection maybe i should have scanted some of the funds. i went into the church, i said look, 1983, you know, we've beentalking about race a lot, let's talk about gender, ipromise you this is what i did. so i said, i want to ordainthree women as deacons.
you know, i heard them go, oh my god. in a baptist church tooin 1983 in the south? i was asking for it, wasn't i? i was crazy. you know what they said back in the south, you so green, put you inthe ground and you'll grow. so i was green but sometimesgreen people do stuff. they like save the greeneconomy but anyway. so it was fine with the people, first they
were grumbling like what, what? i start teaching the bible, i said women are the ones that saved jesus. if it wasn't for women,we wouldn't even know who jesus was 'causethey went out and told the truth, right? i told them all kinds ofstories from the bible from my interpretation of it and my fledgling feministconsciousness, you know.
and so it was all goodbut right when i was about to ordain the women, i saw a lot of people in church one day, i was like oh man, i must be pretty good. my preaching is better like,i might be the bomb.com, before there was a .com,that's how good i was. i invented the internet andthen i did the bomb.com. so, what's up al gore? he never said that right,al gore never said that.
so the thing is is that inoticed my key didn't work in the door that day andi was like, oh oh oh, oh they must be changingthe doors because we need a new door, i was like cool. then i went to my officeand the didn't work for the office. i was like oh my god,finally they're refurbishing my office, thank you jesus. praise the lord, pass the buttermilk.
i got up in church, ipreached, i did my thang, and all these people,i was like oh my god, got my chest puffed out. so god will disciplineyou with your arrogance. so i was like oh my god, i'm good. and then a deacon got up at the church and he said, pastor, there'sa problem in this church. i said, well let's deal with it. he said, the problem is you.
and i'm 23 years old dude,that was hurtful right there. then they proceeded to take a vote on me. and put me out of church that morning. now mind you, i alreadygot kicked out of school. carson newman college, asouthern baptist school, why did i get kicked out? you know, i had a 4.0in my philosophy major, i was killing that but i protested going to chapel every tuesday.
i said why do we only haveone black speaker a year? and he said, son, based upon your numbers, that's what you deserve. i said, well, damn damn. so i started protestingand then they kicked me out of school so i said, jesuswants me to be a pastor. clearly i didn't hear jesus right. so then i go to churchand they kick me out. i'm like, what's up jesus?
i got a little attitude now. you know how it is, if iwas had to write the bible, it would've been rough. just like, you know therewasn't no black woman when jesus went to the woman in the well. thou hast five husbands. you know that wasn't noblack woman, black woman said, you know when jesussaid where's your husband? she would've said, yeahyou tell me, you god,
i waiting on him. but anyway. (laughing) you supposed to be the creator everything. can't you create a black man? okay, so then i said,well maybe i heard wrong. and i had to go back tothe white folk who kicked me out of school becausethe black people headed to me, abused the gospel. that's why i can never be an either or
or demonize any group of people 'cause the white folks let me backin when the negros kicked me out and when white folk kicked me out, i thought the negros were taking me in, black people, african americans. so i determined then thatfor me the gospel was love. and if you're tryingto preach anything else and you trying to dress itup and trying to say god. you know, black peoplecome to me, you know,
that's different than raceman because that's a choice that gay people make. i said, let me ask you this question, when did you choose to be straight? if it's a choice. 'cause it can't just begay people making it, everybody gotta make it inorder for it to be fair. so what'd you go to your mom at nine, look, i'ma be hollering at these girls.
i've looked at all theoptions and that other one is a pain in the ass. (laughing) oh i'm sorry, i'm sorry, we supposed to be faking up in here, let calm it down. but that was good though, that was good, i gotta remember that. can't say it in church but i might. but here's my point, here we are obsessed with trying to demonize people by keeping
them out of the kingdom ofgod when jesus stretched open his arms to who so ever will. so for me sir, if you, idon't care what your religion is, what god you follow, if your religion is about reproducing oppressionand creating more victims, it is not a religion inwhich i am interesting. and it's not one that i can preach. and i think, and i'mwilling to stand against a lot of people and i getit, and i love the church.
you know, one person said, (mumbles) the church is likenoah's ark, if it wasn't for the storm on theoutside, you couldn't stand the stink on the inside. it's nasty in here butit's a storm out there too. there's a lot of viciousness out here. i think the gospelshould be used to enhance and love people. i think the gospel should beused to welcome all people.
and i don't think weshould demonize any people because of their sexualorientation or because of their class or because of their gender or because of their coloror race or religion. i just think that god is bigger than that and bigger than all of our nasty, narrow, preconceptions about who god is. to me god is love and ifyou're down with that, we're together.
i'd rather work with anatheist who claims not to know god than a christianwho swears we serve the same god and who's willing to hurt and harm other human beings. martin luther king jr said,looking at white folk, i don't know who your god is. 'cause you're going tothe pulpit and then you go out and lynch somebody and come back and pronounce benediction.
i don't know your god. and guess what, god is an atheist too. god don't believe inthe god you believe in. so god is literally anatheist against your god. i'm a preach that, i gotta,hold on, i gotta write that down, that's prettydamn good right there. why god is an atheist, i will be preaching that in two weeks. so for me, love is what it's about
and we have to embrace each other in love, that's what it is. - what a wonderful spotto stop the evening. i wanted to extend,again, a warm appreciation for so many people who camehere to hear dr. dyson tonight and to hear his perspectiveon something that shows us the level of complexity in what holding the presidency for barack obama is. this is exactly what we'll bedoing for the next two days
with the different panelsthat we are hosting at the obama effect 2.0 conference so we do hope to seemany of your can join us to do so and again thank you. dr. dyson will be signingbooks at the back of the room if you would like topurchase one of the books. otherwise, have a lovely evening and thank you so much for joining. - good deal.