Space to engage: Michael Eric Dyson shares his ideas for discussing race

Scholar, author, and ordained Baptist minister Michael Eric Dyson has spent the past three decades penning political and social commentary centering on Black America. In his latest offering, “Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America,” the Vanderbilt University professor discusses not only the rich history of a marginalized group but also the societal expectations placed on Black people. From being brought to America on slave ships against their will to having their culture usurped on a national stage, Black people have been fighting for their livelihoods for centuries. Dr. Dyson spoke with Monitor correspondent Candace McDuffie about his latest project and why everyone should be invested in having conversations about these subjects. 

Q: At this point in your career – 24 books in – you’ve written about everything from why you love Black women to the legacy of Jay-Z. Is it easy for you to find different ways to explore Blackness in your works? 

Blackness itself is endlessly fascinating. It has multitudes of dimensions – the magnitude of which can never be exhausted by a singular approach. I’m always astonished by new and valuable lessons that one can learn from studying Blackness, so I’ve always held out the possibility that something fresh will crease the horizon and capture your attention. I’m curious about the evolution of Blackness, the anatomy of Blackness, the structures and the spirit of Blackness, and how it continues to goad us on to think more sharply and critically about the different ways in which it manifests itself in our culture.

Q: Why do you think America has this undying obsession with Blackness and, as the title of your book states, performing it? It’s like Americans want to punish it but at the same time they want to emulate it. 

That’s a great point. You know, there’s both a revulsion and a repulsion to Blackness and an attraction to the appeal of Blackness because it has been central to the definition of what America means. From the very beginning of our sojourn on this soil, we have constantly helped to redefine what it means to be an American. Not just what it means to be Black, but what it means to be human, what it means to be a citizen of this nation. From Crispus Attucks to Louis Armstrong, from Toni Morrison to Beyoncé, the wide range and circumference of American identity expands along the borders of a questing African American identity, a questing Black identity. So for good reason, Americans are obsessed with Blackness: obsessed with containing it, controlling it, defining it, absorbing it, emulating it, and trying to put it in a box.

Q: One of the things you touch on in the book is the complex nature of colorism. How has it affected you personally and shaped the Black experience overall?

Colorism is a deep plague in our community – a profound plague in America itself – but certainly in our own communities. My father was blue Black and from Albany, Georgia. I saw the way he was mistreated. I saw the way people looked at him as a simian – as an animal – and that was from Black people, not just the larger white society, because we’ve internalized some of these vicious misrepresentations of Blackness in our own community. 

And as a result of that, we have had to learn to appreciate and to embrace the beauty of our Blackness. To remind ourselves that Black is beautiful. The reason that slogan became necessary and popular is because we were living in a culture that discouraged us from embracing our inherent beauty. To contradict the assertion that Blackness, no matter how uplifting, no matter how positive, still has these elements that might potentially undercut us and undermine us. 

When it comes to colorism, I think it’s important for us to constantly remind ourselves that we too have to be open-minded about the definition of Blackness.

Q: When race is discussed in America, a big concept to grasp that’s vital to the conversation is critical race theory. You spelled out the meaning of it in “Entertaining Race,” but can you talk about it in simpler terms for those who misunderstand it?

Look, when you think about critical race theory, think institution, not individual. Think system and structure not sentiment and passion. Racism involves all that other stuff, but the lesson of critical race theory is that there are systemic and social barriers that prevent the flourishing of Black people in this country. The right wing ingeniously turned critical race theory against its owners and the people that they all sensibly claim to represent. 

But critical race theory has done an exceptional job of having the identities of those who do such heinous things exposed and for us to think seriously about grappling with issues of inequity and going beyond what a person thinks or believes is allyship: “I didn’t say the N-word. I didn’t say anything horrible.” There are many more factors involved in being a progressive ally of Black people and understanding the tremendous tragedies and traumas we have endured.

Q: Something that struck me about this book is how you discuss the way Black comedians, like Richard Pryor, Martin Lawrence, and Mo’Nique, use their comedy to make sense of the world. As an advocate for the LGBTQ community, how do you contextualize Dave Chappelle’s latest performance in “The Closer” and the backlash he got for being perceived as transphobic?

I spoke out against homophobia before it was a thing. I’ve been challenging the Black church on transphobia and homophobia from the very beginning, so I have deep appreciation for and sensitivity about queer identities and especially trans identities. Trans identities challenge those of us who want to remain snookered by binaries in this country. 

However, I also think it’s extremely important not to censor or cancel people. If you listened to Dave Chappelle’s entire comedy routine, it’s far different than what people portrayed it as. He is in this comedic space yet he’s raising profound questions. 

When I went to see Dave Chappelle in Nashville nearly a couple of weeks ago, he asked: “What do you call a trans person who’s Black? The N-word,” is what he said. It echoed what Malcolm [X] said: “What do you call a Black man with a Ph.D.? The N-word.” Dave Chappelle, also on that special, suggested that white trans people could identify more readily with their whiteness as opposed to their trans identity. I think we have to take that into consideration. 

Even if we disagree, we’ve got to provide a space for people to engage – not punching down, not beating up – but to at least engage in an edifying and illuminating manner that allows real dialogue to take place.

Q: This is one of the quotes about the complexity of art that sticks with me from “Entertaining Race”: “Emotional Black performance frees Black folk from a culture that harshly judges Black feeling and perception.” Do you think that Black people will ever be free from the stereotypes that have haunted them since the inception of slavery?

It’s rough. I mean, we grab for a space and agency within these complicated configurations of choices we confront. So on one hand, we have to create the means of our own freedom, the liberation that we seek, the emancipation we desire. However, the total quality of our freedom, the ability to move without encumbrance or a hindrance is a far piece off still. So far as being totally free from them, no, but in terms of having progressive freedom and the realization of our freedom within some of these brutal barriers, I think, yes. This book is attempting to break barriers ... break down boundaries and borders and obstacles and impediments that prevent us from raising tough questions about sensitive subjects that have real consequences in the world. That’s what I try to pursue in most of my work. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.