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Tears We Cannot Stop

By: Michael Eric Dyson
Narrated by: Michael Eric Dyson
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Summary

In the wake of yet another set of police killings of Black men, Michael Eric Dyson wrote a tell-it-straight, no-holds-barred piece for the NYT on Sunday, July 7: "Death in Black and White" (it was updated within a day to acknowledge the killing of police officers in Dallas). The response has been overwhelming. Beyoncé and Isabel Wilkerson tweeted it; JJ Abrams, among many other prominent people, wrote him a long fan letter. The NYT closed the comments section after 2,500 responses, and Dyson has been on NPR, BBC, and CNN nonstop since then.

Fifty years ago Malcolm X told a White woman who asked what she could do for the cause, "Nothing." Dyson believes he was wrong. In Tears We Cannot Stop, he responds to that question. If we are to make real racial progress, we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how Black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted. As Dyson writes, "At birth you are given a pair of binoculars that see Black life from a distance, never with the texture of intimacy. Those binoculars are privilege; they are status, regardless of your class. In fact the greatest privilege that exists is for White folk to get stopped by a cop and not end up dead.... The problem is you do not want to know anything different from what you think you know.... You think we have been handed everything because we fought your selfish insistence that the world, all of it - all its resources, all its riches, all its bounty, all its grace - should be yours first and foremost, and if there's anything left, why then we can have some, but only if we ask politely and behave gratefully."

In the tradition of The Fire Next Time (Baldwin), short, emotional, literary, powerful, this is the book that all Americans who care about the current and long-burning crisis in race relations need to hear.

©2017 Michael Eric Dyson (P)2017 Macmillan Audio
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    5 out of 5 stars

Its like someone has leaked my own thoughts

I am from the UK but this book was so accurate to my living that it was quite scary
THANK YOU!!!!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Gives an authentic understanding to racism

I throughly enjoyed it and just wanted to keep going. At times I wanted to say something myself!

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Brutal, shackles swapped for handcuffs

Michael Eric Dyson's deeply troubling and brutal sermon on brutality against African Americans is haunting and powerful. A highly detailed account of horrific racism that occurs​ outside of the vacuum. It is a must listen and read for contemporary society.

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