What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America

by Michael Eric Dyson

What Bobby lacked in social stature and physical gifts, he compensated for in terms of a derring-do that teetered from raw courage to reckless endeavor. He took readily to an existentialist’s creed of molding one’s life out of the materials of the given time and space of one’s days while clinging tenaciously to a Catholic faith in the Almighty, a faith put constantly in peril by the tragedies of the human plight. He was drawn to Greek philosophy and Shakespearean drama, which matched his gallows humor—witticism in the face of woe, poetry to placate the pain.

Jimmy raged against the dying of the moral light and fought fire with fire by unleashing his fury on the racial hell from which he sought to deliver our nation.

King understood white supremacy as a distortion of democracy, as an interruption of the delivery of social goods. Thus, his “I Have a Dream” speech suggested that the American Dream was sufficient to accommodate the aspirations of black folk. The adjustment had to be made in society’s laws, customs, habits, traditions, and conventions. Baldwin believed the state was doing exactly what it was set up to do: undermine blackness. Thus, black animus was a condition of the state’s very existence.

Recently, as bigotry resurfaces, symbolized in the events in Charlottesville in August 2017, the lie is put to the belief that “this is not American, this is not us,” when, indeed, it truly is. We do not want to acknowledge how true it is because it makes us look complicit in prejudice we thought we had gotten over. Donald Trump is far more representative of the nation than many whites would like to admit.

“I start with the understanding, or the premise, that conversation, art, expression is the most powerful weapon we have against violence and oppression,” Peele tells me.

It’s been said that racism is so American that when we protest racism, some assume we’re protesting America. So let’s be very clear. Colin has always been very respectful of the individuals who selflessly serve and protect our country and our communities and our families. His message is solely focused on social injustice for historically disenfranchised people.

We are tired of telling you that Trayvon did not deserve to die at the hands of a racist vigilante who killed him because he is a coward and the most flagrant example of how you protect vicious people and turn their guilt into unconvincing innocence.