Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

by Michael Eric Dyson

have been separated from God by the idolatry of whiteness. So we’re not in this to help somebody else. We’re in this for our own souls.”

In fact, viewing black folk—or brown folk, or gay folk, or poor folk—as the other is the problem.

Beloved, hopefully your new friends will make it easier for you to speak up against the injustice that black folk face.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said that we would have to repent not only for the “evil words and deeds of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.” We need to hear your voices ring out against our suffering loud and clear.

It makes no sense to tell black folk to do what white immigrants did to become successful.

Black immigrants often have a leg up on American blacks as well. They have arrived from societies where they enjoyed equality without regard to color. Thus they arrive with great assets, skills, and experiences, allowing them to compete in the American marketplace. These black immigrants faced no color barriers to human capital like those we face in America. Neither can we discount the exotic appeal of foreign blackness. Many white folk find it far more

attractive to deal with a black person from the Caribbean or Africa than American blacks.

That difference is a big one for...

If you do a good enough job of reading up on the black experience, you can fight those arguments in your own circles.

Beloved, you can also range far beyond your circles and visit black folk in schools, jails, and churches.

Visiting a black church is just good for your soul.

Beloved, all of what I have said should lead you to empathy. It sounds simple, but its benefits are profound. Whiteness