Dyson is the author of 16 books, including New York Times bestseller Mercy, Mercy Me: The Art, Loves and Demons of Marvin Gaye; Holler if You Hear Me; Is Bill Cosby Right?; and I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Jr. He also is well known for his diversification of college curriculum, teaching courses on hip-hop music artists Shawn Corey “Jay-Z†Carter and Tupac Shakur. Dyson was named one of the 100 Most Influential Black Americans for 2012 by Ebony magazine.
A sociology professor at Georgetown University, Dyson’s innovative scholarship and cultural criticism focuses on race, religion, popular culture, and contemporary issues in the African American community. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgetown, Dyson was the Avalon Foundation professor of humanities in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught at DePaul University, Chicago Theological Seminary, University of North Carolina, and Columbia and Brown universities.
He is host of the radio-syndicated “The Michael Eric Dyson Show,†which addresses social, cultural, and political issues in a contemporary vein. He has made appearances on The Today Show, Nightline, O’Reilly Factor, The Tavis Smiley Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, Rap City, Def Poetry Jam and The Colbert Report, among others.
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To Dyson, and to Barack Obama, I would say: equal opportunity does not guarantee equal outcome.
Our founding documents are sufficient to guarantee equal opportunity to all American citizens in America today. We have evolved and we continue to evolve where race is concerned and I do not see affirmative action as being beneficial to any race’s advancement, and thus, not being beneficial to the Country as a whole.
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Do you consider the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to comprise “our founding documents,” or do you include the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments in that category?
I believe I stated that we have “evolved”. The amendments you have listed I wholeheartedly agree with and it was our founding documents that provided the vehicle for those amendments.
Out of curiosity, would you support seeking an amendment in favor of affirmative action provisions for any race or gender?
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No, I don’t think such an amendment is needed. I support affirmative action because it remains necessary to promote equality in contemporary American culture. But I look at affirmative action as an incentive or initiative based on the spirit and intent of the existing Amendments I listed above.
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