AUTHOR CHAT: Michael Eric Dyson

This month we had the honor and privilege to sit down with best selling author and intellectual, Michael Eric Dyson. As part of our Author Chat series on YouTube, we discussed Michael Eric Dyson’s new book, “Entertaining Race“, an amazing collection of essays written on the impact of Black entertainment and politics on this country.  Michael Eric Dyson’s work digs deep into the past but also provides an interesting perspective of the current entertainment and political space.

As this was a special book for our book club, we counted on the opinion and rating of our five advanced readers.  They all loved the book (avg. member rating 4.6/5.0) and they had a host of important questions for our guest  author Michael Eric Dyson throughout our live conversation. ICYMI check out the video replay of the conversation between the author of “Entertaining Race” Michael Eric Dyson  and our very own Executive Director Demetrius Frazier on our YouTube channel. Enjoy!

Author Bio:

Michael Eric Dyson distinguished University Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies, College of Arts and Science, and of Ethics and Society, Divinity School, and Centennial Professor at Vanderbilt University – is one of America’s premier public intellectuals and author of seven NY Times bestsellers, Including Jay-Z, Tears We Cannot Stop, What Truth Sounds Like, and most recently Long Time Coming.  A contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, Dr. Dyson is a recipient of two NAACP Image Awards and the 2020 Langston Hughes Festival Medallion.  Former president Barack Obama has noted: “Everybody who speaks after Michael Eric Dyson pales in comparison.”

Book Synopsis (from Bookshop.org website):

Entertaining Race is a testament to Dyson’s consistent celebration of the outsized impact of African American culture and politics on this country. Black people were forced to entertain white people in slavery, have been forced to entertain the idea of race from the start, and must find entertaining ways to make race an object of national conversation. Dyson’s career embodies these and other ways of performing Blackness, and in these pages, ranging from 1991 to the present, he entertains race with his pen, voice and body, and occasionally, alongside luminaries like Cornel West, David Blight, Ibram X. Kendi, Master P, MC Lyte, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alicia Garza, John McWhorter, and Jordan Peterson.

Most of this work will be new to readers, a fresh light for many of his long-time fans and an inspiring introduction for newcomers. Entertaining Race offers a compelling vision from the mind and heart of one of America’s most important and enduring voices.