The Michael Eric Dyson Reader (6 page)

But weren’t there some highly unusual circumstances surrounding your dissertation, particularly the fashion in which you completed it? Rumor has it that your legend still lives at Princeton because of how you finished.

Well, I don’t know if “legend” is quite the word; “infamy” may be more like it. The usual process of completing one’s dissertation is the submission to one’s doctoral committee of a prospectus, a document that details and outlines one’s proposed thesis, which can run up to twenty, thirty, or sometimes forty pages. After
one is subject to a long, maybe three-hour, oral examination by one’s committee members, other professors, and one’s peers, one is asked to step out of the room while the committee votes to accept or reject one’s prospectus. If it is accepted, often with recommendations for changes, you are then permitted to go about the business of working on the dissertation, which might take anywhere from two to ten years to complete. You then submit the thesis to your committee (which responds with challenges and changes that are integrated into your work), sit for a final oral examination, and, hopefully, your dissertation is approved.

My committee included Cornel West, whose name I had submitted to a search committee to direct the Afro-American Studies program at Princeton before I left to run an antipoverty project and teach at Hartford Seminary in 1988; Jeffrey Stout, a well-respected religious ethicist, and the teacher with whom I spent the most time in the rigors of writing and rewriting papers, taking courses, and critically reading challenging books; and Albert Raboteau, the well-regarded religious historian and author of the classic work
Slave Religion.
Well, I submitted my prospectus in April 1993, and after a three-hour public oral examination, consisting of close questioning by my committee members and a few others in attendance, I was asked to leave the room. Upon being invited back in and taking my seat at the head of the examining table, I was informed that I had passed and that my prospectus had been approved.

Needless to say, I was quite happy, but for more than the usual reasons of having one’s intellectual work approved by one’s teachers. I had an even bigger investment than usual because of a big risk I had taken. As my teachers, and the others in attendance, verbally congratulated me from where they sat, I reached under the table and pulled out my completed dissertation, handed copies to my committee members, and said, “Here it is.” It is true that that was an electrifying moment. There was a collective gasp that was articulated, an “ah” that reverberated through the room, with some of the folk, including members of my committee, clearly stunned. I realized that it was a big risk to do what I had done. After all, they could have rejected my prospectus or asked for huge changes that would have necessitated significant revision of my work. Fortunately, it was approved, and after I submitted my thesis, I responded to the criticisms, integrated them into the final version of my dissertation, sat for my final oral examination, and was awarded my doctoral degree. And it is true that after my prospectus performance, some of my colleagues cornered me and said, “Day-am,” in the black vernacular, “that was unbelievable.” And when I came back to defend my dissertation in my final oral examination, some of my peers said that I had become a legend in the department. I’m just glad that things turned out the way they did.

But your legend doesn’t stop there. You also had a meteoric rise in academe for one so young. Didn’t you get your Ph.D. in 1993, and in the very next year, you received tenure at Brown, also an Ivy League university, and became a full professor at the University of North Carolina? That’s almost
unheard of in conservative academic circles, where promotion through the ranks often takes years and years.

Yes, that’s true. I had been pretty much teaching full time since 1989, when I left Hartford Seminary to become an instructor of ethics, philosophy, and cultural criticism at Chicago Theological Seminary. I taught at CTS for three years, two as an instructor, and when I completed my master’s degree in 1991, I got promoted to an assistant professor. I left CTS in 1992 to become an assistant professor of American civilization and Afro-American studies at Brown. In 1993, as you know, I received my Ph.D. from Princeton, and my first book,
Reflecting
Black,
was published and received favorable critical attention from both the academy and the broader public, and I was offered several teaching positions, including offers from Northwestern and Chapel Hill. Because of those offers, Brown sped up my tenure decision by about six years, since one normally receives tenure in one’s seventh year.

I was extremely gratified to be awarded tenure at Brown and, as it turns out, at Chapel Hill. (Northwestern offered me tenure too, but the president intervened and told me I could come to the university and essentially “try out” for two years; and if after that time I fulfilled my promise, then I would be awarded tenure. He based his decision, he said, on the fact that he had never known a scholar to be awarded tenure less than a year after he completed his Ph.D., with one exception—a scholar who would go on to win a Nobel Prize in economics. I shot back that, first, no one knew at the time the scholar was awarded tenure that he would receive the Nobel Prize, so the decision to grant him tenure was, by those terms at least, a risk, and second, since the president couldn’t be sure that I wouldn’t achieve equal prominence in my field, it made no sense to deny me tenure either. Needless to say, I rejected Northwestern’s offer.) Chapel Hill made the extraordinary step of offering me tenure and a full professorship, in light of the fact that I had completed my next book, which would be published shortly, a study of Malcolm X.

Wait. If it normally takes seven years to get tenure in the first place, it must take at least another seven years, if not longer, to become a full professor, right?

Well, it certainly can. After seven years, a scholar who successfully obtains tenure is usually made an associate professor. When you write the next book or two, depending on where you teach, you can be granted full professorship. And that may take seven to ten years, or in some cases not quite as long, and in other cases, significantly longer. So yes, it’s safe to say that I was fortunate enough to do in a year what can in other circumstances take as long as seventeen to more than twenty years to achieve. In a way, I have been driven by the sense that I have to make up for lost tune, which, ironically enough, has put me ahead of the pace of some of
my peers. Plus, I felt a sense of responsibility to my peers from my old neighborhood who will never be able to achieve at the levels I have enjoyed, not because they aren’t talented, but because they lack opportunity. Or, on my block, most of them are either in prison or dead. I felt blessed by God, and I didn’t want to blow it. Plus, a lot of the early writing and speaking I did—which, as it turns out, helped me to climb the academic ladder rapidly—was not only driven by a sense of vocation, but was done as well in the desperate attempt to raise funds for my brother Everett’s defense against the charge, and later the conviction, of seconddegree murder. Almost the month after I landed in Chicago to teach at CTS, Everett was accused of murdering a young black man in Detroit. I believe he is innocent, and I have expended quite a few resources in trying to prove his innocence, and to free him from prison. He’s been there now for eight years. That has given me great incentive to work as hard as I can, and of course, I’m sure there’s a good bit of survivor guilt involved as well.

Have you ever talked with John Edgar Wideman? He crossed my mind; as you know, he’s had a similar circumstance with his brother.

We’ve talked, but not about our brothers. Yes, he too has had to deal with that strange and haunting reality that often morphs into a tragic trope of black existence: one brother a prisoner, the other a professor. One of you free to move, the other one caged like an animal. The effect of that thought on one’s psyche is like an enormous downward gravitational pull. But I’m grateful to God for the ability to be able to do what I do, because I know it’s a tremendous gift and pleasure and leisure to be able to write and think. And I work hard, traveling around the country giving lectures, speeches, and sermons, writing books, articles, and essays, just trying, as the hip-hoppers say, “to represent.” So I spend long hours at what I do, but I’m not complaining. I’m a well-paid, highly visible black public intellectual who is grateful for what God has done for him and who wants to pass it on to somebody else. I don’t want to keep it for myself. I want to make sure that other people get a chance to express their talents and their visions. I have no desire to be the H.N.I.C., or the “Head Nigger In Charge.”

Do you get a sense of that . . . when you are in your flow . . . do you know the impact you’re having on a room?

That’s a good question. Let’s not have any false modesty: I’m a public speaker and I’ve been trained from a very young age in the art of verbal articulation. I’ve been seasoned to engage at the highest level of oral expression. So, I’m experienced enough to know when I’m hitting my target and when I’m missing it. There are times when I can feel the electricity of getting things right, because I’ve known when I failed [laughs]. I know what that feels like. And even when other people think I’ve done well, I often feel a great need for improvement. There have
been very few times when I feel like I absolutely nailed it. There are some moments when I know I’m “representin’” because I know I’m a vehicle. I’m a vessel. My religion teaches me that the gift is not in the vehicle, but in the giver of the gift. I honestly hope to be an instrument of the Lord. I hope that I’m an instrument of God. And I hope, therefore, that I work hard to stimulate the gift God gave me. I’m constantly striving to get better, to get clearer, sharper, and more eloquent. I think one of the ways that occurs is through testing ourselves in situations where people are unpersuaded by our beliefs and we have to make a case for them with as much passion and precision as possible. Crossing swords rhetorically is a great joy to me, and often a great learning experience.

At the same time, I’m attempting to excel at the height of my profession and at the top of my game, like Michael Jordan. I have no bones about that. I want to represent on that level where people go, “DAMN, did you hear what that brother said?” ’Cause I want young people to say it ain’t just got to be about sport, it doesn’t just have to be about some athletic achievement—as great as that may be—or about Oprah or Bill Cosby, as great and ingenious as they are at what they do. I want young people to say the same thing about intellectual engagement. I want them to have a desire to deploy a variety of jargons, grammars, rhetorics, languages, and vocabularies to articulate views in defense of African American or marginalized identities, as I attempt to do. I want young people to say, as the folk in the ’60s and ’70s used to say, “Got to be mo’ careful,” in admiration of such linguistic and intellectual skill. Not for show, but for war, against ignorance, misery, and oppression. I want young folk to say, “I wish I could do that, I wish I could be like Mike!” I have no qualms in hoping for that, because I want to seduce young people unto excellence, since they’ve often been sabotaged by mediocrity. I have no reservations in seeking to inspire young people to do what I do, only better. So I constantly strive to deepen my vision, broaden my intellectual reach, and expand my repertoire of verbal skills. And at times, you feel the pleasures of the palpable responses you evoke in those who hear or read you.

On the other hand, you’re always surprised by people who claim you have influenced them, because you can never accurately or adequately measure such a thing. We are prevented by circumstance and environment and context from knowing the true nature of our own influence, which is why we should really remain structurally humble. Not falsely modest, but structurally humble. For me that means if I am wielding influence, it is because I have tried to be faithful to the gifts God has given to me. Structural humility means that as a matter of principle, we remain cognizant of the need to check our arrogance and bridle our vanity. This recognition must be the very foundation, the very structure, of our public activity, to keep us from taking credit for what only God can give. To be sure, we never know the full extent of our influence, which is why we should also attempt to be vigilant in exercising our gifts. As the rapper Guru says, we never know when someone is watching or listening. I’ve had people around the country, folk who read my books, articles, and essays, or hear my sermons, lectures, or commentary
on radio or television, tell me that something I’ve said or done has changed their lives. That’s a huge responsibility, and we’ve got to accept it as part of our duties as public intellectuals. And such responsibility doesn’t stop at our national borders. I just got a letter from Japan, and some intellectuals want me to come there because they think I’m doing important cultural criticism. And I’ve just fielded an invitation from London to speak on religion, and from Italy to speak on politics, and from Cuba to talk about African American culture and politics.

In light of all of this, structural humility is surely in order. The best we can do is to represent the truth as honestly and clearly as we understand it, with all the skills at our disposal. Of course, nothing I’m saying means we can’t feel good about our achievements, or about the influence we might wield. From my perspective, if we truly believe that our vocations are manifestations of ultimate purpose, we’ll want to do our level best to stay at the top of our games as an acknowledgment of the gifts God has given us.

One last thing that ties in is how you’ll be able to do that. I can see very clearly your intellectual path. But how are you going to be able to keep your hand on the pulse of the street, because by necessity . . . it doesn’t have anything to do with your commitment . . . but, like you said, Japan, Italy, universities, busy . . . How do you maintain that connection? I know that’s vital to you.