Reckoning With Racism

( AP Photo/Ben Margot )
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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Michael Eric Dyson is back with us now, the Georgetown Sociology Professor and Baptist Minister, with a new book written as a collection of letters to victims of racial violence as if they had not been killed. There's a letter to George Floyd, a letter to Breonna Taylor, a letter to Ahmaud Arbery and Emmett Till, and Eric Garner. The book is called Long Time Coming: Reckoning With Race In America, and it includes parts in which professor Dyson speaks directly to white Americans, as well as all the other parts.
We will also get his take on some stories in the news, like he had an article on TheGrio on Tuesday that defends Joe Biden, at least so far, from criticism over the diversity of his cabinet picks. There's also breaking news on that just in the last few minutes, Biden his topped Susan Rice, to be his top domestic policy advisor, a position that does not need confirmation by the Senate. Professor Dyson, always great to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.
Michael Eric Dyson: Always great to be here, my friend, I've since moved on to Vanderbilt University, so I'm glad to join you from that great institution as well.
Brian: I apologize for missing that transition.
Professor Dyson: That's not your fault.
Brian: I think whoever Biden picks for his cabinet will pale by comparison in American history to the police killing of George Floyd this year. Do you want to start there? Why did you want to write a letter to George Floyd, and why a book of letters as an organizing principle?
Professor Dyson: Yes, the epistolary form, well-known saying fiction with the color purple, or in Sonic literature with Nas writing a letter to people in jail, in hip hop, I thought that I would appropriate this form to try to articulate the sense of both intellectual acuity around grappling with the historical genealogy of white supremacy in this culture, starting from the get-go, from slavery down to the present, and link that to the emotional outpouring, that inevitably is occasion when we talk about the relentless murder of Black people, either by white vigilantes or by police people who bear the badge, the gun, the taser, and the baton of the state, and the imprimatur as well.
We're caught between those two forces constantly and repeatedly. I wanted to think out loud about these issues. I didn't want to talk about these figures and further objectify them in a way. I wanted to speak to them, commune with them, talk to them, as you said, as if they were here, as if they could hear, to allow us as we visit grave sites to think about our lives. We literally know that those folk can't hear us, but we talk nonetheless, and I wanted to create that kind of intimacy and kinship with these figures. I write to Eric Garner and address George Floyd.
Brian: What did you write to George Floyd?
Professor Dyson: The letter is addressed to Eric Garner, and what I say to George Floyd in the book, I talk about George in the book, and I talk so much about the parallels between Eric Garner and what he suffered, what he endured there in Staten Island. The horror, the infamy of Daniel Pantaleo, the cop who took him down. Then I draw a parallel, and when he claimed to look at 11 or so times, "I can't breathe." Then to see George Floyd repeating the same thing in the sequel to that film.
I wanted to say to Mr. Garner and to George Floyd that the horrors of your death have inevitably led you to be conscripted into the war against white supremacy. Usually martyrs have intention to use their death, to court death as a means of their vocation to underscore ideals, noble aspirations for which they are willing to die and potentially sacrifice blood, body and limb for a higher goal and a deeper purpose. In this case, many of these figures were killed not knowing that their deaths would somehow highlight and elevate issues after their death that they couldn't get resolved during the time they lived.
How we make use of their deaths is a measure of their martyrdom. I wanted to talk to George Floyd about the horrors of his death, the lethal limits imposed by white supremacy and by policing that is out of order, that refuses to acknowledge the humanity of Black people and how that death, that signal sacrifice of life inspired an entire social movement, and certainly the greatest protests against racial injustice in terms of number that we've ever seen.
Brian: One victim of a police killing who's lesser known, who you draw attention to in the book, is Elijah McClain. Can you tell us some of what you write to Elijah McClain and introduce him to some of the listeners who may not have heard anyone say his name out loud before?
Professor Dyson: Yes. Elijah McClain is a young Black man, 23 years old, who died last year at the hands of the police in an especially tragic case. He was a young man, allegedly potentially on the spectrum, a young man who was highly sensitive. One of his coworkers said he walked as if a gold orb surrounded him at all times. He played his violin to the pigeons and birds to calm them. He was a sensitive, sweat soul, 23 years old with a ski mask on, walking home from a convenience store. He had anemia, and therefore he got a cold rather easily, and therefore had the mask on.
Somebody called the police thinking, "He's probably not a real problem, but just in case. "I wish white brothers and sisters who do that might think twice, not because they're intents are not good, their intention is not redeeming, but because the consequence so often for Black people is lethal, and in this case it was. Here was a man who weighed less than 150 pounds, accosted by police people, two or three of them. When they came, he said, "Please honor and respect the space that I'm speaking, the boundaries that I'm speaking."
He said, "I wouldn't have hurt a fly. I don't even eat meat. I think you're wonderful people. I know what you're doing is your job, but please," and he begged them. He literally begged them not to harm and hurt him, and yet, twice, in a choke hold, they have rendered him unconscious, and then when the EMT arrived, they gave him ketamine, and then he went into shock and then was in a coma for about a week and then died. One of the most tragic circumstances, right outside of Denver, Colorado in Aurora, Colorado about a year ago, but his case didn't really come to real light until the George Floyd killing and the subsequent social protests that were in the offing.
Brian: Are the personal feelings for you, or the political response for you, to each of these killings different or essentially the same as you write these different letters to different martyrs, the same with different details, or are there nuances to the political response and the emotional response?
Professor Dyson: I think inevitably there will be nuances, Breonna Taylor is a young, Black woman. We know that women are not often highlighted as a means of increasing social justice awareness or awareness of the contemptible treatment to which Black people are often routinely subject to be redundant. That element has a different nuance because there, in that chapter in writing to Breonna Taylor, I trace things back to white theft, the thievery of Black life in slavery, stealing Black times, stealing Black limbs, stealing Black wounds, stealing Black relationships, stealing husbands from wives, and children from parents.
There's also a kind of appropriation of Black culture, there is a kind of so-called gentler theft, which, in its impact, may be as curiously effective of reinforcing the fact that Black people don't own anything, don't even own their own bodies or their music, can't copyright their signature styles in life, and are constantly and routinely barraged by white curiosity and interest and appropriation that uses Black style and aesthetic expression for the enhancement of white culture, for the enhancement of white economy, to making white exploiters richer, while Black people, who are the origins and originators of styles, seem to go wanting.
I wanted to use that as a metaphor. So, that's different than Elijah McClain, or different from Eric Garner as well.
Brian: My guest, if you're just joining us, is Michael Eric Dyson, now teaching at Vanderbilt, and with his latest book just out Long Time Coming: Reckoning With Race In America. We have time for maybe a couple of phone calls for professor Dyson, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Here we are a little more than six months after the killing of George Floyd. A lot of white Americans and powerful institutions in America seem to pay attention and join in protests more than after the deaths of, say, Michael Brown or Eric Garner or Tamir Rice, or Trayvon Martin, or others earlier in the decade that originally inspired the Black Lives Matter movement. How much do you think something more systemic might actually change for the better as a result of the actions, the impact the- I'm sorry, the events of 2020?
Professor Dyson: We hope something will occur from that. We don't know yet. It's too early to tell. I'm hopeful that some change will occur. The reason I wrote this book is to remind us that we have to undertake that. The outpouring of white concern and white empathy and joining Black people in the streets among many others is an act of racial romance. When you begin any romance, it's gangbusters, it's ignited by passion and fire, fueled by desire and affection, but eventually that gives away, and then you got to do the ordinary stuff.
You got to figure out, don't lift the toilet seat, put the toothpaste back up, and figure out the interactions between us on a normal, unsexy day, where the real manifestation of love occurs, because it's about habit. It's about disposition. It's about attitude and outlook and treatment and behavior. I think now we're in a point where we've seen the subsiding of the passion, the white romance, the love that many white people express for Black people may still be there, but it takes a different form.
We have to say and remind our white brothers and sisters and all of us that the form that that love now takes is not joining us in a Black Lives Matter protest in the streets, but changing corporate practice, adjusting your attitude and disposition toward hiring new people at your job, what it looks like at the school and on campus and how you make your syllabus look and sound different, what books you read, what insight you draw from, what analogies you make.
This everyday systemic change, and not only individual and local change, but systemic in the sense of every word that ends in system needs or stands in need of a kind of introspection and examination that should be undertaken by those in charge and by those who participate. Public school system, criminal justice system, healthcare system, that's where systemic change occurs, what difference do we make in those places.
I just read, and I'm sure you saw this study maybe about a month, month and a half ago, that Black infants stand a better chance of survival if they are treated by Black doctors. Now, that doesn't mean the white doctors are callous racists who are indifferent to the outcome of certain medical intervention to protect infants. It means perhaps that Black doctors see those children as their own, see a kind of kinship established and may go beyond the call of duty. These systemic changes that are necessary to perpetuate a legacy of a quality must be examined.
Brian: Let's take phone call. Here's Marcus in Manhattan. Marcus, you're on WNYC with Michael Eric Dyson. Hi there.
Marcus: Thank you both for taking my call. Professor Dyson, I just wanted to say thank you because I feel like I've been listening to you for a while. You capture that lack of sensitivity, the indifference, when I feel like I've been stopped by the police. Even recently, they stopped me because someone said that I had a gun, so they stopped me, pulled me over. They searched me twice. They put me in the car. I just feel so sensitive towards Elijah McClain situation because of what he was saying. I'm not one of those, and I got very emotional when I saw his video, because I know exactly what he was talking about.
I feel that some white folks- there's this misconception that they have of Black males. When you're pulled over by the police, you feel so powerless, the way that they treat you as if you're not a valued member of society. I'm just very grateful that you, with your book and your history of talking about these issues, that you capture this. We do need white folks to stand with Black folks to really address these issues. I'm just so bothered by the lack of compassion, empathy that you experienced.
Even when you're in a holding facility, you want to make a phone call knows the way that you're spoken to. There is this thing that goes on in these police departments that I feel a lot of white folks just don't understand. They just don't see it. It's so deep, and it hurts so much of how you're treated. You just feel so powerless in this situation. I'm just so appreciative of the work, even for you, Brian, that you guys talk about these issues, because as a Black man, and I used to be homeless growing up in the street, I've experienced it, I've been spat in the face by a cop, I've been beaten.
One time a cop was beating me in an elevator. Because his partner had to say, "You know what?" I'm getting so emotional talking about this. He said, "Look, man, you got to stop. You got to stop." Some of them, it's as though they have no humanity, there's nothing there. I'm just so appreciative of the angle in which you're addressing these issues because it's deep, man. It's so deep.
It hurts so much just to see the lack of compassion out there sometimes, that these people think that, "Oh, you're not loved by people," or "you're not a valued member of society." The indifference is strong. I just wanted to call and say, thank you both just for creating this platform. Just thank you.
Brian: Wow.
Marcus: That's all I wanted to say. Thank you.
Brian: Marcus, thank you very much. Professor Dyson, I think you could transcribe Marcus's call and release it as your next book.
Professor Dyson: Yes, it's a pretty astonishing how eloquent, how beautiful, how vulnerable, how painful. He expresses a sentiment here that we barely capture on page. We hear the tone of the voice, the texture of the self-recognition, the desire to be treated as a human being, not to be seen as an animal, not to be relegated to the margins of a culture where our humanity is denied, where we don't get what other people get just by habit. We get routinely denied access to such sentiments, such passion and such recognition. Just don't kill us. Don't shoot us. Don't stab us. Don't tease us. Don't harm us. Don't beat us.
Just treat us like you would want to be treated, assume that we are not the worst of humanity, the dregs of society. As Elijah McClain begged, when he said, "I'm not one of them," why is it that even if you were "one of them," one of those Black people who act like so many white people act? We saw the other day on a tape, a video recording what a white guy stopped by the police with their guns drawn, with his gun, the white motorists next to him and the police telling him to get out of the car, he refuses to do so, he threatens to shoot them twice and then drives away unscathed.
That's the kind of difference that a recognition of humanity makes in the treatment of another human being, a deescalation, a recognition that I don't have to hurt this person now because there was no immediate threat, even though there's a threat being made. I can therefore compartmentalize my own anger and wrath and successfully arrest this person without killing him. Can Black people, can indigenous people, can people who are people of color get the same treatment? I thank the caller for his eloquent and noble expression of a deep desire that is often unmet, and a demand that is often unheard by so many people of color, especially Black people in this country.
Brian: Mr. Dyson, let me get you on a couple of news stories before we run out of time. There's news today, related, from Minneapolis, the city, of course, where George Floyd lived and died. The Washington Post version has the headline "Minneapolis City Council votes to cut millions from police budget amid record crime rates." It says "The vote came after days of contentious public hearings and deeply emotional debate among council members who have openly struggled to balance concern about historically high crime across Minneapolis against public calls to reform a police department that has long been accused of racism and excessive force, especially against residents of color," from The Washington Post article. What do you think about the Minneapolis move and the way to balance those concerns, including in the short term?
Professor Dyson: Yes, I think they're doing a great job. I think they're trying to figure out the best way to go. I think they're answering Barack Obama who's critique of using the word "defund the police," perhaps from the position of Pharaoh, that's understandable, but from the children of Israel in the street, let my people go. It's a different reality. Yes, even though one might acknowledge, politically speaking, a savvy move might be to use a different term, why be more outraged at the outrage that hurt people express than the very origin of the pain to begin with? What Minneapolis is trying to address is the origin of the pain. Though there may be rising rates of crime that need to be addressed, public safety is not exclusively addressed by police. Police don't spend most of their time addressing violent crime. It's getting kitties out of the tree, or doing a traffic stop that is usually nonviolent, except when innocuous interactions between the police and law enforcement and people of color occur, they often turn violent. It does no good to say, "Hey, the crime rate is rising. We still need the police."
The police are killing us, the police, in their chaos and cataclysm, are really denying us access to life. How do you balance that out? Let's get a police force that will be defunded, have their monies removed, police unions like the one in New York, which is a horrendous, racially charged and sometimes, of course, racially insensitive and, at some moments, maybe even racist itself, that refuses to be reformed, that fights tooth and nail, any sense of self-examination. What else is there to be done? I think Minneapolis says, "We can remove some of the funds," like LA did, by the way. $150 million was moved in LA as well.
Defunding really is about reimagining policing, looking at how public safety can occur. Yes, let's address rising rates of crime, and ordinary people want to be protected. Don't make them choose between "protect us from crime, but when we call upon you, you can't distinguish us from the criminal, and you treat us as such, and then you end up killing us." That's Sophie's Choice in the urban situation of so many people. We've got to address that. Thank God that at least the Minneapolis, the police, Council is trying to address a persistent structural inequality that must be addressed, not perfectly, not ideally, but at least it will start the ball, and at least move the needle.
Brian: In our last minute, so if you can do it real briefly, Joe Biden's cabinet here article on TheGrio on Tuesday, was headline "Criticism over cabinet diversity is not accurate or fair." Now it's Thursday, and in fact, maybe you heard we've got new developments just since this program went on this morning, Denis McDonough, who was Obama's Chief of Staff for Veterans Affairs, and Susan Rice, who is a political hot button name in Republican circles, now appointed by Biden to be his top domestic policy adviser, a position that does not need Senate confirmation. Your quick take on Biden's cabinet in diversity terms or anything else.
Professor Dyson: He ain't Trump. He's not a toddler. He doesn't promote a toddler accuracy. He's a grown-up. Vice President Elect, Harris, is a grown-up, they're making good decisions. I think they're making wise choices. I think he's living up to what he said when he accepted the presidency, when he was a finally acknowledged, as the winner, "Black people, you've had my back now, I have yours." It's not just symbolic. It's not just choices of a cabinet. It's about public policy as well, but we can't judge that until that occurs. We can put pressure, we can make demands, and we can express expectation.
I think he's doing a great job. Hooray for Joe Biden. Hooray for him not being Trump. Hooray for him positively doing things that are creative, and that address diversity, and most especially equity in the world in which we live.
Brian: After the first time that the word toddlerocracy has ever been used on this show, we say goodbye to Professor Michael Eric Dyson from Vanderbilt University and author of the new book Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America. Thanks so much.
Professor Dyson: Thanks for having me, my friend.
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