Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

by Michael Eric Dyson

Beloved, it’s not just on the silver screen where you dilute and distort our history. In everyday life the refusal to engage black folk tells on you through your exaggerated sense of insult where none should exist. Many of you are “shocked, shocked!” that black folk have taken to reminding you that “Black Lives Matter.” Some of you are just peeved, but others of you are enraged. That’s because you’re used to distorting and diluting our history without much frontal challenge. You fail to realize that the nation has already set the standard for determining which lives matter and which don’t. Black lives were excluded from the start. The reason “Black Lives Matter” needs to be shouted is because American history ignored black history, didn’t tell black stories. The founding documents of American society didn’t include black life. When black folk say “Black Lives Matter,” they are in search of simple recognition. That they are decent human beings, that they aren’t likely to commit crimes, that they’re reasonably smart. That they’re no more evil than the next person, that they’re willing to work hard to get ahead, that they love their kids and want them to do better than they did. That they are loving and kind and compassionate. And that they should be treated with the same respect that the average, nondescript, unexceptional white male routinely receives without fanfare or the expectation of gratitude in return.