““So what are you supposed to do? My friends, what I need you to do—just for starters—is not act. Not yet. Not first. First I need you to see. I need you to see the pains and possibilities of black life, its virtues and vices, its strengths and weaknesses, its yeses and nos. I need you to see how the cantankerous varieties of black identity have been distorted by seeing black folk collectively as the nigger. It is not a question of simply not saying nigger; you have to stop believing, no matter what, that black folk are niggers and all the term represents. Instead you must swim in the vast ocean of blackness and then realize you have been buoyed all along on its sustaining views of democracy.””
![“What are you for? It may be, to a degree, consoling that white brothers and sisters did not vote for [Donald] Trump, and do not participate in that brand of animus, that gas-bagging of enormous bigotry.” quote by Michael Eric Dyson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/01d/michael-eric-dyson-1424_animus_what-are-you-for-it-may-be-to-a-degree-c_14940.jpg)
![“I've written a lot of other books and this book [Tears we cannot stop] was different. I couldn't just say what I wanted to say in the same style that I said it in those other books. I felt compelled to preach.” quote by Michael Eric Dyson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f3e/michael-eric-dyson-1424_book_i-ve-written-a-lot-of-other-books-and-th_45441.jpg)
![“Elvis [Presley] had a stepstool, if you will, to success because he came from the dominant culture. They identified with him. Michael Jackson had to come further and go deeper into the pit of possibility of American democracy and of cultural expression.” quote by Michael Eric Dyson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/28f/michael-eric-dyson-1424_american-democracy_elvis-presley-had-a-stepstool-if-you-wil_62719.jpg)
