Michael Dyson is an academic, author, ordained minister, and radio host. Dyson has authored or edited more than twenty books dealing with subjects such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Marvin Gaye, Barack Obama, Illmatic (Nas's debut album), Bill Cosby, Tupac Shakur and Hurricane Katrina.
Long Time Coming grapples with the cultural and social forces that have shaped our nation in the brutal crucible of race. In five beautifully argued chapters―each addressed to a black martyr from Breonna Taylor to Rev. Clementa Pinckney―Dyson traces the genealogy of anti-blackness from the slave ship to the street corner where Floyd lost his life―and where America gained its will to confront the ugly truth of systemic racism. Ending with a poignant plea for hope, Dyson's exciting new book points the way to social redemption.
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
SPEAKER
Michael Eric Dyson
Author
Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America
MODERATOR
Anthony Scaramucci
Founder & Managing Partner
SkyBridge
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darsie: (00:07)
Hello everyone, and welcome back to SALT Talks. My name is John Darsie. I'm a managing director at SALT, which is a global thought leadership forum and networking platform at the intersection of finance, technology, and public policy. SALT Talks are a digital interview series with leading investors, creators, and thinkers. And our goal on these SALT Talks is the same as our goal in our SALT conferences, which is to provide a window into the mind of subject matter experts as well as provide a platform for what we think are big ideas that are shaping the future.
John Darsie: (00:39)
We're very excited today to welcome Michael Eric Dyson to SALT Talks. He's a well known author as well as a contributor to a lot of major publications and media outlets. But I'll read you his full bio now, and hopefully he doesn't blush, because he's accomplished a lot in his career already.
John Darsie: (00:57)
Michael Eric Dyson is a professor of sociology at Georgetown University. His 2019 New York Times bestselling nonfiction book, Jay-Z, Made In America, is the recipient of two starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly and the Library Journal. He speaks on Jay-Z's career and his role on making this nation what it is today. He's an author, a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, an MSNBC political analyst, a contributing editor at New Republic, the host of the Michael Eric Dyson Podcast, featuring Dr. Dan Ratner, an ordained Baptist minister for over 30 years, and received his PhD from Princeton University in 1993.
John Darsie: (01:37)
Dr. Dyson has authored nearly 20 books on subjects such as the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., in April 4th, 1968, Malcolm X, Nas's debut album, Illmatic, Tupac, Marvin Gaye, and Hurricane Katrina's devastating and long lasting effects. He won two NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Literary Work in Nonfiction, and the American Book Award in 2007 for Come Hell or High Water, Hurricane Katrina and the Color Of Disaster.
John Darsie: (02:08)
Essence named Michael Eric Dyson one of the 40 most inspiring African Americans, and Ebony listed him among the 100 most influential black Americans. He often speaks at universities and political conventions, and he's also known for speaking engagements at union halls, prisons, classrooms, and churches, and now on SALT Talks. Throughout his career, Dr. Dyson has had a profound impact on American culture and thinking. His book, What Truth Sounds Like, continues the conversation started in his 2017 bestseller, Tears We Cannot Stop, and was the winner of the 2018 Southern Books Prize for Nonfiction.
John Darsie: (02:44)
If you don't already, he's a fantastic follow on Twitter and Facebook as well, where he weighs in on current events in a very informed and insightful way. His most recent book I would recommend everybody pick up, especially given the times that we're living in today, is called A Long Time Coming. So we look forward to telling you a little bit more about that book today, and again we highly recommend you go out and read it. Very hard to read because of the raw nature of how he describes some of these really horrific incidents in American history as it relates to race relations and police brutality, but also very important book that you read if you're not exposed to these issues.
John Darsie: (03:24)
Hosting today's talk is Anthony Scaramucci, the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, a global alternative investment firm. Anthony's also the chairman of SALT. And with that, I'll turn it over to Anthony for the interview.
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:37)
Michael, he's still letting me host this thing, so I just want to thank John Darsie for allowing me to still be the host on this thing.
John Darsie: (03:47)
My slowly nudging you boomers out of the picture. [crosstalk 00:03:50]
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:50)
Slowly? It's not even slowly, Michael, it's like a shoving. It's not [crosstalk 00:03:53] But I want to hold up the book for a second for the audience. It is a brilliant book, and I will say this to you, that I was introduced to you in 2008, I purchased your book at a Barnes and Noble April 4th, 1968, 40th anniversary of course of Dr. King's assassination. I thought that was also a brilliant book. It's in my, on my bookshelf in my office, actually, at SkyBridge. But I want to get right into it related to this book. You're writing in the book brilliantly about a reckoning with race in America, 300, some can say 400 years of racism, racial tension. We're having a reckoning. Why is this time different, Professor Dyson?
Michael Eric Dyson: (04:47)
Well thank you, first of all, it's been a great Scaramucci for me over the last week or so. So I've had-
John Darsie: (04:55)
Now we're talking, now we're talking.
Anthony Scaramucci: (04:57)
Hold on, professor, it's 11 days a Scaramucci, okay?
Michael Eric Dyson: (04:59)
That's what I said, almost two weeks, almost two weeks.
Anthony Scaramucci: (05:03)
All right, so it's not just a week.
Michael Eric Dyson: (05:03)
Almost a fortnight, almost a fortnight.
Anthony Scaramucci: (05:04)
I told you, it's not a week. It's my only regret about my White House experience, I needed three more days. But that's all right.
Michael Eric Dyson: (05:12)
But you wouldn't have been able ... Then I would have said a fortnight. Now it's a Scaramucci because [crosstalk 00:05:17]
Anthony Scaramucci: (05:19)
Slightly less than a carton of milk lasting in your refrigerator, Mike. [crosstalk 00:05:24]
Michael Eric Dyson: (05:23)
It ain't buttermilk, son. It ain't buttermilk. So, I'm at Vanderbilt now. I just want to announce that to y'all. I'm a distinguished professor there hanging out at Vanderbilt. So look, thank you so much for even engaging me and having me on this incredible platform, needless to say I'm a huge fan, and appreciate your interventions in a conscientious fashion that have really provided an opportunity to see how people who are conservative can be self critical, people who have values and traditions nonetheless are willing to subject them to a serious scrutiny, and that I celebrate you for, my man. Look. I think that it's extremely important to talk about the suffering of these martyrs, why it is that these particular black people that died have occupied such an important place in the society and have catalyzed a reckoning.
Michael Eric Dyson: (06:19)
I think a reckoning is going on. People say, "Well what's different about this?" Well I'll tell you what I think is different about this, implicit in your question, is the fact that a lot of us were at home on our screens, like we are now. The pandemic forced us to have a remote intimacy. We were kvetching about it two weeks before the pandemic. "Oh my god, put those darn screens down," you tell your kids, "Put those phones down." Have more intimate connection with each other. Oh, now this is what we depend on for intimacy. Unfortunately, and even tragically, some people have to depend upon these surfaces and screens to say goodbye to their loved ones.
Michael Eric Dyson: (07:03)
The technology we were dissing a week before the pandemic, we have now come to rely on and depend on in a serious fashion. So a lot of people were at home, in their places of abode when they saw come across their screens, whether it's a computer, or an iPad, or a phone, or an Android, they saw George Floyd's death. And it was astonishing. Like, what? And we were watching far more acutely and attentively because we were forced to these screens. I think that made a huge difference.
Michael Eric Dyson: (07:40)
Secondly, I think all of the asterisks were removed. Usually some white brothers and sisters and others could say, "Well you must have been talking nasty to the cops. Oh, he's going, 'Hey, officer.'" On the ground while he's dying, he's being nice. He must have been running from the cops. No, he's lying prostrated on the ground. He must have been a dangerous black man. Kind of not, because you got three cops on him.
Michael Eric Dyson: (08:05)
In other words, every excuse that people go, "Well you must have, or you must have," removed. White people saw that. I'm generalizing, and went, "Oh hell no. No. That's nuts. We see with our own eyes what's going on here." And I think thousands upon thousands of white brothers and sisters said, "Enough is enough, we're in the streets with black people and brown people and other people who are protesting, this is not right." And I think it offers an opportunity to not only open up the portals of possible protest, but also to grapple with the systemic issues, and let's admit it, on television, where your second home there, Brother Scaramucci, the point is is that a lot of people were talking about systemic racism who hadn't spoken about it before, the language changed, the awareness developed, the meter of consciousness spiked. And people began to really talk about it.
Michael Eric Dyson: (09:05)
Now, it's died down seven months later, eight months later. But that's the natural give and flow. The ebb and take of social change. It's not going to last forever. People's awarenesses spiked. People's awarenesses fueled. But then it dies down. But I liken it to this. When you fall in love in the first time, you're what, you're in love, you got candies and chocolates and violin music and all that stuff. Then when you get married, what are you doing? Oy vey, what's going on? "Did you leave the toilet seat up again? I almost fell in and drowned. Did you squeeze the toothpaste from the top and not the bottom?"
Michael Eric Dyson: (09:45)
But, you get down to the unsexy everyday part, "Who's taking the kids? Who's going to deal with the food preparation? Are you going to share in the household chores?" That's where love is translated into stuff I do that's not big time, that's not sexy, but that makes a difference. And that's where we are racially speaking right now. How do we deal with the systemic issues that are the unsexy part of making a real change in America today.
Anthony Scaramucci: (10:13)
It's so well said, I got so many followup questions. I'm going to hit you with a few rapid fire.
Michael Eric Dyson: (10:19)
All right, [crosstalk 00:10:20]
Anthony Scaramucci: (10:19)
Yes or no questions, because I just want to get where you see things in terms of your pulse on America.
Michael Eric Dyson: (10:26)
Right.
Anthony Scaramucci: (10:26)
Most Americans are good people, yes or no.
Michael Eric Dyson: (10:30)
Yeah.
Anthony Scaramucci: (10:32)
The black community, this is a very big over-generalization, but we are generalizing for this.
Michael Eric Dyson: (10:37)
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Anthony Scaramucci: (10:38)
The black community loves America.
Michael Eric Dyson: (10:40)
Absolutely.
Anthony Scaramucci: (10:42)
I got to ask this followup question, because I've read this book, I've read the very painful book about the assassination of Dr. King.
Michael Eric Dyson: (10:48)
Right.
Anthony Scaramucci: (10:49)
I took a course at Tufts University in 1984 called Race Awareness. It was taught by a guy named James Vance who was in the American military, and he was a race awareness instructor in the United States Army, to break down the barriers and to explain literal institutional racism. I'm going to talk to you very honestly, professor. I grew up in a parochial family, patriarchal, Italian American family. We bordered on a black community and an Irish community. We were beating the living crap out of each others. Italians, blacks, and Irish. But for whatever reason we all got along because I guess we were comfortable with each other. It wasn't until I got to college and James Vance explained to me institutional racism. I'm 21 years old, I said he's right, we have institutional racism in the society. And yet, do we have a lot of people in denial about that in our country? Yes or no.
Michael Eric Dyson: (11:52)
Absolutely.
Anthony Scaramucci: (11:53)
Okay. So sir, tell me why we have denial, because you're a plain spoken person, you're an amazing writer. Why do we have so much denial? I can look you straight in the face and say there is institutional racism, and there are levels of white privilege. Now having said that, okay, that's not to say that whites have necessarily had the greatest deal ever either too. There's a lot of underprivileged white people in our society. So I'm not really trying to do that over-generalization. But why can't we acknowledge, and we can get black and white politicians on the right as an example, to acknowledge what you and I both know about our society?
Michael Eric Dyson: (12:34)
Yeah. No, it's well stated, and it's well put. And thank you for the compliments as well. Look. Gore Vidal, the late great writer, said we lived in the United States of Amnesia. And I would add very quickly that the theme song is sung by Barbra Streisand. Now we know Brother Darsie has no idea who Streisand is, so we're going to have to help him to who Barbra Streisand is. [crosstalk 00:12:58] It ain't Taylor Swift. It ain't Taylor Swift. But she was a great, great singer, and still is.
Michael Eric Dyson: (13:03)
Barbra Streisand sang a song by Marilyn and Alan Bergman, Memories. What's too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget. We're in denial. As the late Joseph Lowery said, we live in the 51st state, the state of denial. We keep denying. What we don't like, we just pretend it doesn't exist.
Michael Eric Dyson: (13:23)
So it's hard to deal with the issue of race, because it implicates us in a way that other issues don't. Because now it's more like, "Oh, are you calling me a racist? You calling my family a racist? Is it the tradition that nurtured me a racist?" And then it gets personal, and then it gets heated, and then it gets venomous, and then you figure what the hell are we doing?
Anthony Scaramucci: (13:41)
Yeah, professor, I get called a white supremacist on Twitter. I'm a white supremacist. I mean, look, we're throwing labels around at each other in a way that I think is absolutely ridiculous. I mean it's fine, people can call me whatever they want. I learned long ago from my grandmother, whatever you think of me is none of my business. But the institutional idea, am I wrong about this? If you have a problem, the first thing you have to do is recognize the problem. Let's say we were drug addicts. [crosstalk 00:14:08] Okay, we're drug addicts. We have to recover from drugs. The first step is admitting the problem.
Michael Eric Dyson: (14:15)
No doubt.
Anthony Scaramucci: (14:16)
And you're saying it's just too painful to admit the problem. So then how do we get people to feel less pain, or how do we get people to ignore the pain, or override the pain to admit the problem, and have it be more of a universal understanding?
Michael Eric Dyson: (14:35)
Yeah, it's a great point. You usually do that through analogy. How do we learn? We learn through ... You know, it's like this. One thing is like the other thing. So the stuff that you experience on this side, check it out on the other. For instance, and I know we're going to talk about this, but think about January 6th. When people go, "Look, if that had been a bunch of black people, it would have been a different outcome." And I have no doubt that that's true that's not just individual beliefs, that's what you're talking about in terms of institutional racism. That means ... And systemic racism.
Michael Eric Dyson: (15:05)
What does that mean? Everything that has institution or a system connected to it has the potential to perpetuate inequality. Health education, health system, education system, prison industrial complex, prison system. So on and so forth. And the institutions of American society bear the imprint of our beliefs.
Michael Eric Dyson: (15:24)
Now, let's take on what you're talking about in terms of white privilege, what it is and what it ain't. White privilege doesn't mean every white person is going to do well. White privilege doesn't mean that ever white person is going to be rich. Because think about it. Before black people could get into Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, or any major American institution of higher education, when it was only white, we know that there were gradations. Irish need not apply. Italians not seen as part of the Anglo-Saxon Protestant umbrella. The paddy wagon was called that because the Irish were being thought of as getting drunk on the weekends, so we're going to rename the wagon that takes you to the police station after an epithet for Irish people. So we know, Irish, Italian.
Michael Eric Dyson: (16:06)
But then we read the book, how the Irish became white. How Italian American identity got transformed in the crucible of race into whiteness. Even though we know that there are tremendous differences.
Michael Eric Dyson: (16:18)
My point is-
Anthony Scaramucci: (16:19)
And by the way, if you're southern Italian, if you want to talk about denial, most of us have African American-
Michael Eric Dyson: (16:24)
Come on, bruh. Come on, bruh.
Anthony Scaramucci: (16:25)
Descendants. [crosstalk 00:16:25]
Michael Eric Dyson: (16:25)
That's why there's bees, because there's such similarity. There's such-
Anthony Scaramucci: (16:32)
Now Darsie's smiling, because he's whiter than Wonder Bread. We'll talk about that in a second, okay. This guy has got ... He's so white that he's got like 12 essential vitamins. You know what I'm saying?
Michael Eric Dyson: (16:43)
Hey, hey, but white folk, but black folk eating barbecue love Wonder Bread, brother, so hang in there.
John Darsie: (16:49)
I'm with Dr. Dyson.
Anthony Scaramucci: (16:52)
He's actually way more aware, grew up in North Carolina.
John Darsie: (16:56)
I actually grew up in Durham, North Carolina, Dr. Dyson, with a proud history.
Michael Eric Dyson: (16:59)
I've lived there. And I've lived there. And I've lived there. But let me finish this point about white privilege. Here's the point though. The point of white privilege doesn't mean all white people will X, Y, and Z. It meant not all white people will be rich, but the people who will be rich tend to be white. It doesn't mean that all white people will go to Harvard, it meant that all the people going to Harvard were white.
Michael Eric Dyson: (17:19)
That kind of privilege means, or if you meet a cop, and you live to tell about it, you have a likelihood, regardless of your class status, that you have the possibility of engaging in conversation and interaction with the police forces of the nation and law enforcement in a way that might not hurt you, though we know that law enforcement has had horrible consequences on all peoples including white folks. So when we talk about white privilege, we don't mean some pie in the sky idealism that white people enjoy nirvana. It means that when we look at the distribution of resources here in America that race plays a significant part.
Anthony Scaramucci: (17:55)
Okay, so obviously, you can have an objective standard of this or you can be biased and sheltered in your own tribe, and you can pretend that it doesn't exist. But I have a question, and it's really based on reading your book. I want you to explain it to other people. I think you do a great job in the book. How has racism shaped our society in a way that may be invisible to white Americans?
Michael Eric Dyson: (18:20)
Right. No, that's a great point. Look. Great philosopher Beyonce Giselle Knowles said that, look, it has been said that racism is so American that if you challenge racism, it looks like you're challenging America. She's on to something there. Because a lot of white brothers and sisters have not been taught the language of race, not introduced to the notion, hey, even though you're white, that that whiteness is one among many racial identifiers. And that when many white people go, "Why don't you stop talking about race? Why don't you just talk about being an American." That's because you got the privilege of having your whiteness as the default position of America. That when you say the America, you're really talking about your own particular take on it.
Michael Eric Dyson: (19:06)
As a result of that, it's rendered invisible in the beautiful phrase you used. It's rendered like unintelligible to many white people. Because then they say, "Let's just be American, can't we?" What they mean, of course, is that they want to have an overcoming of difference, and an overcoming of barrier, institutional or personal, to become one, E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one. But what they don't often understand is their particular perception of what America is has been interestingly colored by a kind of whiteness that has been rendered invisible. It doesn't seem to be anything that comes into play.
Michael Eric Dyson: (19:45)
That's why, often, when we have conversations about race, it's like what about men? Men go, "Well let's have a conversation about gender." Dude, do you know as a man you have a gender too? It's not just women, it ain't just feminism, it's what you do as a man as well.
Michael Eric Dyson: (19:59)
When we talk to white people, brothers and sisters, we say, "Look. When we talk about race, we ain't just talking about black and brown and red. We're talking about white as well." And if we have that kind of advance in the conversation, I think we'd have a more fruitful discussion about the consequences of race in America, and how we talk about it in a way that is not defensive, but is helpful.
Anthony Scaramucci: (20:19)
And that's the reason why I wanted to invite you on. I wanted to make this as least offensive as possible, and just an open intellectual discussion.
Michael Eric Dyson: (20:27)
Right.
Anthony Scaramucci: (20:28)
I'm probably not going to pronounce his name right, so forgive me because I'm a Long Island Italian, and I could barely speak English as a result of that. But I believe his name is Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Michael Eric Dyson: (20:38)
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ta-Nehisi Coates, right.
Anthony Scaramucci: (20:41)
I've read several of his books. There was one quote, and I'm paraphrasing the quote, but it was a remarkable quote in terms of how honest it was in the denial category. What he said in one of his books is that in 1860, the largest market capitalization of property in the United States was black people. And it was three billion US dollars. So if you thought of all the capital equipment, the trains, the railroads, the buildings in the United States, it was eclipsed by the property value, again, forgive me for saying it that way, but I'm making his point.
Michael Eric Dyson: (21:24)
No, that's what it was, that's what it was, you're saying what it was.
Anthony Scaramucci: (21:26)
The property value of black people in the United States. So how on god's earth, professor, do we reconcile that? Now Italians will say to you, "Well, I wasn't there at the time, so you can't blame me." Okay, but yet we're all in the mosaic of the puzzle. We're all sitting in pieces of the puzzle, and we're living in the remnants and the aftermath of that. And you and I both know that the aftermath of that was mishandled very poorly. It took 100 years to get the vote. We spent the last 55 years basically taking the vote away. Just recently in 2020, people like Stacey Abrams are bringing the vote back. Tell me how we reconcile that, sir, that notion that, say his name Ta ...
Michael Eric Dyson: (22:21)
Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Anthony Scaramucci: (22:21)
Ta-Nehisi Coates brought up in his books.
Michael Eric Dyson: (22:25)
Yeah, and by the way, a lot of black people, because they see the H-I-S, they think, isn't that hee-see, not ha-see. So anyway, you ain't by yourself, sir. No, poetically phrased as you always do. Look. That reality that black people were property, and Coates talks about it as the plundering of the property, the plundering of black life. In his book on reparations, speaking about how the market capitalization of $3 billion and what black people counted, because they were three fifths human, counting in terms of the Constitution and the like. That when you have people as property, to see them as human beings is a hell of a leap for a lot of people.
Michael Eric Dyson: (23:05)
For a long time in this country, black people were seen as things. Look. Look at, what is it, 1857, Roger B. Taney, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, said that black people had no rights that white people were bound to respect. That's written into the law. That's not like some idea.
Anthony Scaramucci: (23:25)
It's interesting you're bringing that up, because I read your book, and I highlighted several theses of it, and I'm on page 103, where the chief justice who wrote the decision in the Dred Scott case, 1857, and this is a quote right out of your book. "It is too clear for dispute that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration." That declaration he's citing is of course the Declaration of Independence. He then goes on to say that the Constitution, there were no rights in the Constitution for black folk.
Michael Eric Dyson: (24:05)
Right, exactly. That's a fundamental look. That principle, just think about it, that's not just somebody's opinion, that's not some random dude's opinion. That's the chief justice of the Supreme Court laying out the law, laying down the law of the land, that set legal precedence in this country until 1954, with Brown v. Board of Education, where separate but equal was done away with.
Michael Eric Dyson: (24:31)
Here's my point though. That when you look at the legal infrastructure-
Anthony Scaramucci: (24:36)
But you're running over that, sir, and I got to stop you for a second because I want it to sink in to people. 1857, you're three fifths human being, you have no rights. 1863, we're going to emancipate the slaves. We're doing that for political purposes more than we're really doing that for constitutional purposes. We both know that. As much as we both admire Abraham Lincoln, we understand a lot of the decisions that he made were fraught with political expediency.
Michael Eric Dyson: (25:05)
No doubt about it.
Anthony Scaramucci: (25:05)
And now you fast forward, it's 97 years from the case to, the Dred Scott case to Brown v. Board of Education. The president of the United States does not want that decision to come down the way it is, Dwight Eisenhower. We both know that.
Michael Eric Dyson: (25:29)
Absolutely.
Anthony Scaramucci: (25:30)
Okay, so we're here, and while this cauldron of activity is happening, every time that there's black advancement, the two of us can prove empirically, that there is, to quote Van Jones, a "whitelash" to black advancement.
Michael Eric Dyson: (25:45)
Absolutely.
Anthony Scaramucci: (25:45)
I'm interrupting you, but I really want to frame it for people.
Michael Eric Dyson: (25:47)
No, you laid it out, I'm glad you did, right.
Anthony Scaramucci: (25:49)
You got to frame it for people, because we are in denial about this stuff, and we've got to get out of denial so that we can do anything that we can to heal it. I guess that's my question sir. Is it healable?
Michael Eric Dyson: (26:02)
Yes it is. But thank you so much for interrupting me to make that point clearly. And let me say this before I answer your healable part. When people say, "Hey, I wasn't here." I get it. You weren't even here when you were born. You just, oh, somebody created me. We weren't here when the Constitution was written. But we take advantage of it. We weren't here-
Anthony Scaramucci: (26:20)
By the way, Darsie does a lot of creating, by the way. He's breeding like rabbits in his ... Let you know that, okay? Keep going, professor.
Michael Eric Dyson: (26:27)
He's upholding the Biblical injunction to populate the earth.
Anthony Scaramucci: (26:30)
It's literally unbelievable. [crosstalk 00:26:32] Go ahead.
Michael Eric Dyson: (26:33)
Good man. The thing is a lot of us weren't here when stuff was initially put forth, but when you come here as a potentially white person, if you weren't white when you got here you were white when you came here. James Baldwin, 1963, talks about race as a political fiction. It ain't in your genes. It's in how we as a society assign worth and value.
Michael Eric Dyson: (26:56)
The point simply is, that along with what you said, and the fact is that even if you weren't here when the stuff went down initially, you got in on the gravy train, or you took advantage of opportunities that you didn't even decide were yours but that were given to you. Is it healable? Yes. But not without conscious intent and the design to make sure that things are different.
Michael Eric Dyson: (27:20)
If we could have folk like you, Brother Darsie, out here trying to say, "Look, we might have differences of ideological and political position, but we're trying to come to grips with a wretched history of racial oppression, that if we could be honest about, and we could talk about invading our institutions, we have a better chance of overcoming many of the barriers that prevent us from recognizing our common humanity."
Michael Eric Dyson: (27:48)
Let me give you one that a lot of people overlook. Now, I happen to be a progressive, and in terms of black culture, I'm on the margins in terms of my politics. The majority of black people are pretty much in the center. The majority of black people are far more conservative than what I would be. And that if Republicans could find a way not to insult black people, and not to hold fast to institutional matrices of white supremacy, there would be a bunch more black people who would be Republican in this culture, in this society, than are presently on the roles. That's just a fact.
Anthony Scaramucci: (28:28)
But that's 100%, because if you're not ... It's the same reason why I have to now disavow the Republican Party, because the higher order principle for me is the preservation of our democracy and the Constitution. So if the Republicans would shut up, what they're doing is they're clinging to white power, they're going to become a group of aging white people that buy catheters and My Pillows from Fox News commercial interruptions. But if they would just shut up and open up the tent and make the party look like the more beautiful mosaic of the American people and acknowledge the history in America that's happened, as opposed to clinging to this nonsense and this abject ignorance, we would have a more competitive system. That party's in the process of splintering.
Anthony Scaramucci: (29:19)
John Darsie is, I can tell by his facial expressions and his facial tics, he's dying to ask some questions. I've got one question for you, and it's more of a reaction. And again this is on page 179 of your book, and I want to hold it up again. It's a fantastic read, Long Time Coming. Great read, very powerful writing. You're quoting Tracee Ellis Ross on this page. And the quote is, "Our freedom keeps being dismantled and limited because of white comfort."
Michael Eric Dyson: (29:55)
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Anthony Scaramucci: (29:56)
I want you to react to that and tell us why you put that in the book, and what it means.
Michael Eric Dyson: (30:02)
Yeah. Yeah, that, and Tracee Ellis Ross, of course an incredible actress, also the daughter of Diana Ross. We remember Diana Ross, a major American figure, and then of course with the Supremes, and we say rest in peace to Mary Wilson, a friend of mine, and an incredible artist. Tracee Ellis Ross is saying that the preservation of white comfort, the comfort of not having to know about black culture, the comfort of not having to engage in a serious, introspective look at what America does, the rituals, the habits, the folk ways, all the stuff that makes us who we are. Without being uncomfortable, without being rendered uncomfortable, without being challenged in our ignorance or in our refusal to say, "Hey, let me learn something about some stuff that doesn't simply complement the nation, but begins to challenge my perspective," from people who are, say people of color, who've had a different experience.
Michael Eric Dyson: (31:05)
So the comfort of ignorance, the comfort of being disassociated from those traditions that I'm unfamiliar with and won't be challenged by, what she's saying, the maintenance and preservation of that comfort has led to a lot of hurt and pain, not only for black people in this country, but really for the country getting off of its basic pathway toward better democracy and more humane interactions between people. That's what she has in mind there, and that's why I put that there to try to talk about what we can do to overcome the obstacles, the impediments, and the barriers that prevent that kind of interaction from occurring.
Anthony Scaramucci: (31:47)
Okay, absolutely fantastic book, Michael, Professor Dyson. I'm going to turn it over to John for some questions that have built up in our email traffic, and from our audience.
Michael Eric Dyson: (31:59)
All right, beautiful.
John Darsie: (32:00)
Yeah, yeah. It's actually in my contract, Dr. Dyson, that I get at least one third of the air time, or else I can sue for an HR violation. So thank you Anthony for giving me my-
Anthony Scaramucci: (32:11)
But by the way, professor, you'll appreciate this. The head of HR at SkyBridge, that would be me. I just want to let everybody know that, okay, so there are some unanswered anonymous complaints in that complaint box.
John Darsie: (32:24)
That's why it's so dysfunctional, Dr. Dyson.
Anthony Scaramucci: (32:26)
All right, it's dysfunction, but it's my denial, okay? It's my denial about the dysfunction. Go ahead Darsie, go ahead.
John Darsie: (32:33)
Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about symbolism. I grew up in Durham, North Carolina, as I mentioned earlier. We actually just removed the ability for someone at the DMV to get the Confederate flag put on their license plate, which was shocking to me that that was still even a thing. In Mississippi they just replaced their state flag that had a Confederate flag taking up part of the flag, which was again not spending a lot of time in Mississippi shocking to me that their state flag still had the Confederate flag in it. In 2015, it took a domestic terrorist massacre at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, Clem Pinckney, who you write about in the book, for the Confederate flag to come off of the statehouse in South Carolina.
John Darsie: (33:18)
We've also had this battle being waged about statues that were basically placed across the country at various points throughout history to intimidate black people from thinking that they can become equal parts of society in certain parts of the country.
John Darsie: (33:32)
Other people on the other side of the ledger come out and say, "We shouldn't try to erase history or sanitize history by taking down these monuments or removing these flags, we should embrace our history and move forward." But why, just to communicate to people, in your view is it important that we start to remove some of these symbols and some of these artifacts of intimidation that existed as part of our stained history?
Michael Eric Dyson: (33:57)
Well, I can see why the eloquent Brother Scaramucci has the equally eloquent Brother Darsie, because you just laid it out there, even in your question. There is an intimidating factor. Look, I rarely pass by these statues where I see people standing around, "Let me tell you about history, young people, and let me tell you about the conflagration and consternation of American division that led ..." They ain't doing that. Those statues that dot the landscape of American society are the translated into concrete principles upon which this society rests. So who you honor is who you tell yourself you are.
Michael Eric Dyson: (34:43)
By having these statues out there, they're not ... Look, take them to a museum. Take them to someplace where people can actually talk about what Johnny Rebel was about, to talk about what Robert E. Lee was about. I think we should do that. I don't think we should erase it. I don't think we should evaporate it. I don't think we should destroy it. But we should put it in its proper context. And when you have it on public land, that means all of America is supporting this idea.
Michael Eric Dyson: (35:10)
The South may have lost the war, but they darn sure won the battle of interpretation. The ingenuity of the South was that they understood it was an interpretive warfare, and boy, they put their stakes into interpreting what they lost.
Michael Eric Dyson: (35:26)
For me, why it's important, and look, speaking of Durham, I spoke at Duke University in the chapel a couple of years ago, and when walking in, they were just about to remove the Robert E. Lee bust into the Duke chapel. I'm going like I didn't realize he wrote the Bible. Oh my god, I didn't realize this dude was involved in the papyrus upon which was inscribed Paulinian letters. Come on. Why do we have Robert E. Lee going up into the chapel? Why? Because they were being honest about the fact that this variety of whiteness was more important than, or at least as equally powerful as, their Christian identity.
Michael Eric Dyson: (36:11)
Often when you had white evangelical, white was more powerful than evangelical. So the reason to remove these statues is not to deny history, because we just spent a lot of time talking about the importance of engaging it, but to put it in its proper perspective, and let's be honest. A lot of these statues weren't erected back in the day. They were erected after the Civil Rights movement began to challenge white supremacy in the South, and this stuff is built in the '50s and '60s, and in some cases the early '70s. So when we do the real history about when this stuff came about, it was a conscious attempt to intimidate those people who were black in this culture, who were challenging the dominant perspective.
Michael Eric Dyson: (36:56)
Let me end by saying this. Look, I can deal with the fact, a lot of white people who are Confederate supporters say, "Look, this is about heritage, not hate." What about if your heritage is hate? What about if some of your heritage is some stuff you don't like, that you don't want to deal with? And it's not that we're trying to demonize human beings. I understand people who say, "My grandfathers and grandmothers, my great great grand people were involved in this war, they felt that it was about states' rights and not about enslavement." And then you go, "States' rights to do what? Oh. To own slaves, oh, okay." So we're getting back to the same point there, but let's study the history.
Michael Eric Dyson: (37:36)
So I'm down for studying history, I'm down for having history lessons. But let's not pretend that the things that grow out of the sacred space of American civic culture are not embodiments of the noble ideals that we nurture, and as a result of that, we have to take them seriously. Those flags, like you said, darn. Mississippi, what's going on in Durham, and I lived in Durham for like three years. The reality is, you got to not allow that to be perpetuated in the state symbols of a particular area where some people who are citizens are going to be intimidated by that stuff. Let's just be honest.
John Darsie: (38:11)
Right. Yeah, and sticking in North Carolina, we have our military bases are named after Confederate generals, which I wasn't fully aware of until this explosion of increased awareness about racial issues. I mean, take the racial side out of it, these are people that supported the perpetuation of slavery. But in the end they're losers. They lost a war, and somehow we've named our military bases after these men. It's shocking to me. And I'm happy that at least something's being done about it now.
Michael Eric Dyson: (38:39)
And let me add something very briefly. Not only losers, but here's the point. They were secessionists. They weren't even part of your nation.
John Darsie: (38:47)
They were completely un-American.
Michael Eric Dyson: (38:48)
I mean, dude. When you're taking-
John Darsie: (38:50)
When you put on that uniform, you're fighting for the country, and these people fought against the country.
Michael Eric Dyson: (38:53)
Come on, man. And when you take the Confederate flag through the Capitol, do you literally realize what you're doing there? You're celebrating the people who separated from the nation who said, "Nope, I'm going to fight against it," and now you're celebrating them as prototypical expressions of Americana. Come on. It's just ...
John Darsie: (39:11)
Yeah, the type of hypocrisy that you get during the insurrection in Washington where you had people holding up a Blue Lives Matter, Back The Blue poster, while at the same time stomping out members of the DC Capitol Police.
Michael Eric Dyson: (39:24)
Absolutely.
John Darsie: (39:25)
Because they didn't agree with the type of laws that they were breaking. They thought they should be entitled to break the law.
Michael Eric Dyson: (39:31)
Great point.
John Darsie: (39:33)
It's amazing the hypocrisy that exists.
Michael Eric Dyson: (39:34)
No no, that's absolutely right. Blue Lives Matter until my interpretation [crosstalk 00:39:39]
John Darsie: (39:39)
The blue lives come for you.
Michael Eric Dyson: (39:40)
Right, exactly.
John Darsie: (39:41)
Yeah, I want to talk about the cycle of poverty and this cycle of systemic racism that exists, and I want to start with police brutality. That's a big focus of your book, but it's only one element I think of systemic racism. And again, going back to my North Carolina roots, Vince Carter, who played basketball at the University of North Carolina, had a legendary NBA career. He said when his kids were young, he sat them down, and like a white parent, or any parent would have a conversation with their kids about the birds and the bees, he had a conversation with them about what it's like to be black and dealing with law enforcement. When you go out to your driveway to get your mail, don't look or act a certain way. When you get pulled over, don't look or act a certain way, keep your hands down.
John Darsie: (40:24)
What do we have to do within our policing system to just change the way things are done? Defunding the police is obviously a misunderstood buzzword that President Obama weighed in and thought we should characterize it in a different way. But how do we root that racism out of our police force to prevent black people from having to fear the people that are supposed to be protecting them?
Michael Eric Dyson: (40:49)
Yeah, it's a great point. And so true, that it's a small part of what we mean by systemic racism, but here's the problem. If you're not alive and not well, you don't have to worry about a system because you're dead. And so many of us fear death at the hands of the police. So that's the entry level form of brutal, institutional oppression we got to deal with because if you ain't here, you ain't got to worry about much else. And so many people of color, especially black people, again, the irony is, nobody calls the police more than black people. Stop. You go on some of these ride-alongs I've been on, like bruh, every other call. "Mama, you didn't cook them ... I'm calling the police on you." I'm being facetious, but you know what I'm saying.
Michael Eric Dyson: (41:38)
The black people just want the police when they show up to distinguish me as the citizen who called the police and the crime that I want to report, or the issue I want to highlight. And so often, America and its institutional expression of law enforcement have done a poor job of trying to respect the integrity and identity of black people and their humanity. And look, a large part of this is to look how you talk to people. Like wait a minute, do you work for the American public? Do you work for taxpayers? Then you're coming to me as if I'm a scourge to American society, and I'm telling you from my personal experience, I ain't talking about what somebody told me. This is not an anthropological investigation. I'm telling you what I've had personal encounters with the police. The condescension, the nastiness, the refusal to look me in the eye as a human being. Having had several guns pulled on my by the cops for, quote, "Stealing" my own car. And when I went into my wallet to show them my license and registration, called me the N word and said, "I will put a bullet in your head."
Michael Eric Dyson: (42:48)
I'm telling you, this is what I've experienced personally. So it is sad that we still have unconscious racism, unconscious bias, and a conscious disavowal of the humanity of the people we're dealing with. So I think part of what we got to do, and you're right, what people meant by defunding the police, they ain't trying to get rid of the police, they're trying to say police are not the only people who are concerned with public safety. There are other departments that are concerned with public safety. Can we fund some of those so that when people are having a psychotic break, we don't need Officer McGillicuddy over here coming in on the scene, beating somebody down. We need somebody with some mental health awareness to say, "This person is overreacting, but we got it under control."
Michael Eric Dyson: (43:37)
On the other hand, I was at a, maybe about five years ago, I was doing some anthropological research at 4:30 in the morning in clubs to determine the bacchanalia and the impulse toward partying of young people. Let me clean it up that way. So I'm out at 4:30 at Ben's Chili Bowl, and a white kid is giving the cops the what for. "You mother ... You son of a ..." I mean, cussing them out like you wouldn't believe. And I said to myself, oh my god. They're going to shoot this kid. And then I went, but no they're not, he's a young white kid.
Michael Eric Dyson: (44:09)
You know what I literally saw happen? And it should happen to everybody. The cop says, "Son, you're clearly inebriated." He called ... This is before all of the big time Ubers and stuff. He called a cab for the kid, put him in the cab, and sent him home. Thank god. I'm not mad at that.
John Darsie: (44:29)
Yeah, I mean it goes back to the insurrection. People say it, and there's a lot of whataboutism, but it's like what if those people that were invading the Capitol on the 6th were Muslim, what if they were black? That would have been a very different picture.
Michael Eric Dyson: (44:43)
Brother Darsie, that's exactly what I'm .... I looked at that and I said man, can we get some of that? So we don't hate law enforcement. In fact my friend is the chief of police in Durham right now. A black woman who is the chief of police there, who is now head of NOBLE, National Organization of Blacks In Law Enforcement. And Chief Davis, an extraordinary woman. So it is not that we are against law enforcement, we are against the mistreatment that brutally happens to us.
Michael Eric Dyson: (45:16)
I'll tell you, I'll end by saying this. We are afraid. What did Lebron James say? Lebron James is almost going to be a billionaire, almost as rich as Scaramucci. He is about to become a billionaire, and this guy says [crosstalk 00:45:28]
Anthony Scaramucci: (45:28)
I'm a billionaire in Zimbabwe, professor, okay. That's the only place that I'm a billionaire. But keep going.
Michael Eric Dyson: (45:35)
You're the man. You the man. So look.
Anthony Scaramucci: (45:35)
Keep going.
Michael Eric Dyson: (45:36)
Lebron is saying we are terrified. We are afraid for our lives when we come into contact with police because we don't know what's going to happen that day. We don't know if it's going to be Officer Friendly, or we don't know if, because of a left turn signal, like Walter Scott down in South Carolina, and then I think that, oh my god, I owe some money on my child support, and I run away, and you fill my back with seven pieces of lead.
Michael Eric Dyson: (45:59)
The point is that what we've got to do is not only have training and not only have racial awareness, we need all that stuff, but we got to have a change of law. The stand your ground laws that end up benefiting many white brothers and sisters, and the reason I say that, when black people do stand your ground laws, oh, they're not given the benefit of the doubt. They are thrown into jail. There have been some black people who have shot white people on their property or coming up to them. Mostly all of them have been arrested. Whereas white brothers and sisters, it might take two or three months, and a lot of outrage from the community in order for that to occur.
Michael Eric Dyson: (46:35)
Again, as you said, it's an index of the larger institutional inequality that prevails, but it's an important one, and until we grapple with that ... What did Obama, at least under Obama, the Justice Department had these consent decrees that tried to hold police departments to account. We know that Donald Trump got rid of all of them, and Bill Barr and all the other attorneys general before him, Jeff Sessions, did away with them immediately. If we had some of those interventions, we could at least begin to rethink what policing means in America today.
John Darsie: (47:10)
Right. Dr. Dyson, thanks so much for joining us. Anthony, I want to leave you the final word before we let Dr. Dyson go.
Anthony Scaramucci: (47:16)
well I want to hold up the book again. I think the book was phenomenal. Long Time Coming. And you've written many phenomenal books, but this really captured what is going on in this society right now. And let's do our best, doctor. I would love to have you at our SALT conferences live, and let's do our best to do everything we can to advance this discussion and open it up, end the denialism, and see if we can promote some more healing and a interactive, more peaceful society. So with all that, I thank you for your contributions, sir.
Michael Eric Dyson: (47:51)
Thank you my friends, thank y'all for having me. Lovely and wonderful conversation.
John Darsie: (47:54)
And people often ask us, "Where do we start in terms of educating ourselves?" If you picked up every book that Dr. Dyson has written, including A Long Time Coming, pick up every book that Ta-Nehisi Coates has written, and the two books by Isabel Wilkerson, most recently of which is Caste, which I think Anthony might have on his bookshelf back there, that's a great place to start to understand the systemic racism.
John Darsie: (48:18)
And thank you everybody for joining today's SALT Talk with Dr. Michael Eric Dyson. Just a reminder, if you missed any part of this talk or any of our previous SALT Talks, you can access our entire archive of SALT Talk episodes, as well as sign up for all future SALT Talks, at salt.org/talks. Please also follow us on social media. We're on Twitter, which is where we're most active. But we're also on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook as well. And please subscribe to our YouTube channel. We post all of our content for free on YouTube, @salttube is the name of our YouTube channel. So please subscribe to us there as well. And please spread the word about SALT Talks. This pandemic obviously has been a disheartening time for our country, but it's also given us an opportunity at SALT to pivot and to grow our audience by tapping into the digital media side of our operation that we have here in addition to our conferences. So please spread the word.
John Darsie: (49:10)
This is John Darsie, on behalf of the entire SALT team, signing off for today with Dr. Michael Eric Dyson. We hope to see you back here soon on SALT Talks.