
Today we speak with Dr. Michael Eric Dyson – academic, minister and author – about his new book Unequal: A Story About America, which he co-wrote with Marc Favreau. We discuss the lies around bootstrap politics and personal responsibility, and our culture’s hunger for all things history (except when it’s by or about Black people). We also examine how the white gaze shapes how Black history is taught.
The Stacks Book Club selection for June is White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue … and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation by Lauren Michele Jackson. We will discuss the book on June 29th with David Dennis Jr.
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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes. You can also find everything we talked about on Amazon.
- Unequal by Michael Eric Dyson and Marc Favreau
- Holler if You Hear Me by Michael Eric Dyson
- Jay-Z by Michael Eric Dyson
- Come Hell or High Water by Michael Eric Dyson
- Tucker Carlson
- The Miseducation of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson
- Abraham Joshua Heschel
- Ray Charles
- Aretha Franklin
- Toni Morrison
- Charlie Morrison
- Bill O’Reilly
- Gore Vidal
- Barbra Streisand
- Chris Harrison
- Tears We Cannot Stop by Michael Eric Dyson
- Clarence Thomas
- Joe Manchin
- Ron DeSantis
- Ol’ Dirty Bastard

- And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
- Ketanji Brown Jackson
- Nikole Hannah-Jones
- OK Magazine
- People Magazine
- TMZ
- The Shade Room
- Kanye West
- Kim Kardashian
- Pauli Murray
- Mary Church Terrell
- Thomas Fortune
- Michelle Alexander
- Ida B. Wells Barnett
- Phillis Wheatley
- Sally Hemings
- Luther Vandross
- Mustang Sally (Wilson Pickett, 1966)
- Lil Uzi Vert
- McCarthyism
- James Brown
- Thurgood Marshall
- Brown v. Board of Education
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- Mitch McConnell
- LeBron James
- Dwyane Wade
- Chris Bosh
- Snoop Dogg
- The Color Purple (Steven Spielberg, 1986)
- Vernors Ginger Ale
- Better Made BBQ Potato Chips
- Acqua Panna Water
- Fiji Water
- April 4, 1968 by Michael Eric Dyson
- Publishers Weekly
- I May Not Get There With You by Michael Eric Dyson
- Dorothy Cotton
- Beyoncé
- Formation music video
- Born to Use Mics by Michael Eric Dyson
- Why I Love Black Women by Michael Eric Dyson
- Kimberlé Crenshaw
- Angela Davis
- Assata Shakur
- Linklater Voice Progression
- CNN
- Vanderbilt University
- Henry David Thoreau
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Nas
- Robert Frost
- Thomas Arnold
- Matthew Arnold
- Ulysses by James Joyce
- Ibram X. Kendi
- The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
- Martin Luther King Jr.
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