Tears We Cannot Stop

Starred review from December 15, 2016
The provocateur-scholar returns to the pulpit to deliver a hard-hitting sermon on the racial divide, directed specifically to a white congregation. Though Dyson (Sociology/Georgetown Univ.; The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America, 2016, etc.) may be best known for his writings on race and culture, he is also an ordained minister, and it is this role and voice he assumes in his latest manifesto. The book is structured as a religious service, and its cadences practically demand to be heard rather than read. Here is what he calls "a plea, a cry, a sermon, from my heart to yours," because "what I need to say can only be said as a sermon," one in which he preaches that "we must return to the moral and spiritual foundations of our country and grapple with the consequences of our original sin." Not that the faith Dyson espouses is specifically or narrowly Christian or directed solely to those of that religion. In his recasting, the original sin might be seen as white privilege and black subjugation, addressed throughout as a white problem that white people must take significant steps to confront--first, by accepting that "white history disguised as American history is a fantasy, as much a fantasy as white superiority and white purity. Those are all myths. They're intellectual rubbish, cultural garbage." The author demands that readers overcome their defensiveness and claims to innocence and recognize how much they've benefitted from that myth and how much black Americans have suffered from it--and continue to do so. Dyson personalizes the debates surrounding Black Lives Matter and the institutional subjugation of black citizens by police. He also proposes a form of reparations that is individual rather than institutional, that conscientious white people might set up "an I.R.A., an Individual Reparations Account" and commit themselves to the service of black children, black prisoners, black protestors, and black communities. The readership Dyson addresses may not fully be convinced, but it can hardly remain unmoved by his fiery prose.

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January 1, 2017
In his latest, commentator and writer Dyson (The Black Presidency, 2016) preaches a message that he admits will be hard for most white Americans to hear, let alone internalize and accept: white folks are complicit in societal attitudes toward African Americans, and our future progress as a nation is dependent on a new mindset. Dyson lays bare our conscience, then offers redemption through our potential to change. Dyson beseeches readers to fully and compassionately embrace the struggles of black Americanscitizens of a country rooted in the sin of slavery and poisoned by racism. He offers poignant, personal examples of injustices brought by a society suspicious of himself and others of color. He covers a wide range of topics, including policing tragedies, the lack of African Americans in mainstream American history, the willful ignorance of whites, patriotism versus nationalism, the power of language, and the future of race relations under President Trump. With a reading list to encourage further learning, Dyson offers an intellectual framework for everyone to adopt in order to understand and embrace each other's struggles to be united.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

November 1, 2016

"Whiteness is blindness. It is the wish not to see what it will not know." So wrote Dyson last summer in a New York Times editorial "Death in Black and White," which reverberated so powerfully in its rebuke to white American disinclination to acknowledge black grievance that comments had to be closed after they reached 2,500. University professor of sociology at Georgetown University, Dyson here expands on his theme.

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2017

A short but impassioned call to action against racism geared toward white readers in particular from Georgetown sociology professor and writer Dyson.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2017

Activist, critic, scholar, and ordained Baptist minister Dyson (sociology, Georgetown Univ.; The Black Presidency) religiously lays out an order of service in hope of inspiring repentance, redemption, and reparation in a racially troubled America. Opening with a call to worship and closing with a prayer, his nine-chapter work with a central six-part sermon pleads for America to find its moral and spiritual foundations. Dyson traces the historical invention and social inheritance of whiteness, and how it has led America to ignore, discount, and dismiss black grievances. In order to make racial progress, Dyson passionately urges all Americans to reject racial revisionism and face difficult truths in addressing the disorder he labels Chronic Historical Evasion and Trickery, or CHEAT. This work is both lucid in its logic and profound in its probing and wide-ranging cultural and social analysis. Dyson's homily resonates amid personal recollection and reflection as a call to action for Americans to reach a positive future by working to cultivate empathy, develop racial literacy, and live up to the demands of justice. VERDICT A must-read for Americans who hope for a brighter day to emerge from the anguished hopelessness created by white idolatry and willful ignorance.--Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2017

Activist, critic, scholar, and ordained Baptist minister Dyson (sociology, Georgetown Univ.; The Black Presidency) religiously lays out an order of service in hope of inspiring repentance, redemption, and reparation in a racially troubled America. Opening with a call to worship and closing with a prayer, his nine-chapter work with a central six-part sermon pleads for America to find its moral and spiritual foundations. Dyson traces the historical invention and social inheritance of whiteness, and how it has led America to ignore, discount, and dismiss black grievances. In order to make racial progress, Dyson passionately urges all Americans to reject racial revisionism and face difficult truths in addressing the disorder he labels Chronic Historical Evasion and Trickery, or CHEAT. This work is both lucid in its logic and profound in its probing and wide-ranging cultural and social analysis. Dyson's homily resonates amid personal recollection and reflection as a call to action for Americans to reach a positive future by working to cultivate empathy, develop racial literacy, and live up to the demands of justice. VERDICT A must-read for Americans who hope for a brighter day to emerge from the anguished hopelessness created by white idolatry and willful ignorance.--Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.