April 12, 2025 – How We Love Is To Tell the Truth: Michael Eric Dyson

 

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

 

REV. PAUL BRANDEIS RAUSHENBUSH, HOST:

Dr. Michael Eric Dyson is a professor at Vanderbilt College; author of many influential books like Tears We Cannot Stop, A Sermon to White America, and Unequal: A Story of America, and his most recent is Represent: the Unfinished Fight for the Vote. And he’s a Baptist preacher, and he’s one of my favorite people to talk to in the world.

 

Dr. Dyson, welcome to The State of Belief!

 

REV. DR. MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, GUEST:

 

Rev. Dr. Professor Mr. Raushenbush. Always good to hang out with you, my friend.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

Oh, my goodness. Let me start the way I like to start, right now, in this time: How are you doing? Like, how is your spirit? How is your soul? How is your mind? How is your body? Are you taking care of yourself? Tell me how you’re doing.

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

Well, thank you for asking the question. Determined to do all of that and be all of that and to be well. As my pastor, the late, great Dr. Rev. Frederick George Sampson said, “We have already come through what we have come to.” So this is nothing new. It’s new in the sense that there’s some unprecedented features of this attempt at self-coup.

 

There is an attempt to eviscerate the institutions of American life, to eradicate the checks and balances of American democracy. There is an attempt to unfurl an anti-patriotic, anti-American agenda in the name of patriotism and America. And there is the attempt to undermine the legitimacy of legislative and judicial power as a check on executive power. There’s an attempt to expand the register of executive power. There is the attempt to get rid of what Thomas Jefferson understood as the necessity of term limits. And there is the attempt to radicalize a right-wing faction of our electorate even more. And there is the cynical attempt to use the issue of antisemitism in a completely illegitimate fashion that I’m afraid many of our Jewish brothers and sisters have implicitly or explicitly signed on to. And there is ultimately the energy around a fascist movement within American political life that has to be continually resisted. So that stuff is true.

 

But we are America. We are a democracy. We have to fight for that democracy. Like the Bible, democracy doesn’t speak for itself. We’ve got to speak for it. We’ve got to interpret it. We’ve got to talk about the principles and practices that will reproduce the best possibility of American democracy’s strength. And so I’m in it to win it; in for the fight, and determined to make certain that our nation is preserved from the autocracy and from the patrimonial attempt to turn this into a government, by extension, of one administration that seeks to eviscerate the practices of American democracy.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

Well, you have laid it out beautifully. Cosign! And I will just underscore, it is important to recognize that these feelings, especially, I think, for Black Americans are not new. But there is a new manifestation of it. I am going to just put it out there: I hope you’re taking care of yourself because we need you. We need your voice. I think we’re trying to put it out there, that all of us know and all of us have learned that self-care is important in this moment. But it’s easier said than done. So anyway, I’m just I’m putting all that positive energy towards you, because I just  value all that you’re doing.

 

And let me let me just ask you just a small question to start with. How is race shaping all of what you just talked about? How do you see race playing into all of these efforts from the Trump, Vance, Musk administration to do what they’re trying to do to the American country right now? They don’t want to say that. They don’t want to directly mention it. But race is playing a part in all of this. Speak to that a little bit, if you would.

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

Well, you’re absolutely right. The foundation of this is racially-driven. We look at the xenophobia that is playing out in this country, just rounding people up and then arbitrarily putting them on planes and deporting them. Now, let’s not pretend that we don’t understand that before this administration, Barack Obama had deported more people than any president before him. So it’s not even necessarily exclusively a consideration of partisanship. It’s about what our moral inclinations are and how they check our political sensibilities.

 

So when we talk about the xenophobia that leads to that rounding up, when we look at the racialized and ethnicized assaults upon Palestinian brothers and sisters who merely want to raise their voices in opposition to what they see going on in Gaza – and many conscientious Jewish brothers and sisters and Israeli brothers and sisters who understand, in kinship with them, that the genocide that we are undergoing has to be identified, acknowledged, and resisted. And I learned that from the great Jewish book of the Old Testament. I learned that from the Hebrew scriptures, that God sides with those whose backs are against the wall, and God criticizes God’s own people in order that they do better. And God certainly is not an antisemite.

 

When we look at the assault upon DEI…

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

What does that stand for, by the way? I forget. Does DEI stand for something?

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

Yeah, let me see. I think it stands for Domination, Evisceration, and Intimidation by the present administration. What it was supposed to have stood for was Diversity – which means that we have a number of different ethnicities, races, genders, sexual orientations that contribute to the culture – and abilities, as well.

 

Equity, which is not merely equality, but trying to figure out the best route to try to make things as they should be in a just world. Equality is: men have, in a public place, eight bathrooms, and women have eight bathrooms. Equity means men have two bathrooms and women have six bathrooms, right? Because we know we get in and out, just the structure and the anatomical arrangement suggests that there is easy access and egress for men more than women. So that’s equity.

 

Inclusion means that we incorporate a variety of ideals and ideas and concepts and understandings of the world, and peoples whose bodies have been historically Black. Now, this administration talks about assault on DEI because of incompetence. We’ve seen no administration be as incompetent as this one. We have never seen the attempt of this particular government, that we continue to appreciate, be run by people who are as incompetent as putting on Signal their plans of war; of now, we discover, using emails. Wait a minute. I thought, I know, you didn’t like that. We thought that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the worst offender in this regard. And now it turns out to be poppycock – because y’all are actually doing things with email, with Gmail.

 

We know Gmail is great, but come on, we have protocol for that. But you don’t know the protocol. You don’t have the forces in place that would have institutional memory because you’re firing them all. And you are getting rid of these people, wisdom, tradition, understanding, insight. You’re kicking folk out, and you’re putting folk in because of ideology and party that know nothing about running the darn thing.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

And let’s just name it, that a whole lot of White men who are just parading across, totally unqualified for positions that they’re being put in. Hegseth is perhaps the greatest example. But then, you know, RFK? I mean, come on. I mean, these are people who have no business in the place that they are, but because they are White men who are toeing a certain party line, they are being put into positions of power.

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

And the White supremacist ideology of a Stephen Miller, the White supremacist and White Nationalist leanings and the South African apartheid state orientation that is being filtered in this country – yeah, race plays a big role in what we see going on.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

You are not a foreigner to the understanding of the power of faith to do good in the world. And we’re going to get to that, because that’s a really important aspect. I have been speaking a lot about this, and we’re going to keep speaking about it, is actually, I think you’re seeing a lot of courage from faith communities right now in a way that you’re not seeing from some law firms, and you’re not seeing from universities, and you’re not seeing…

 

You know, when the Lutherans sue the Trump administration, and when the Lutheran bishops call it a Christian Nationalist administration, people are standing up – and I think that there’s something really important about the role of religion in pushing back. But how do you see – I ask you about race, but also a kind of White Christian nationalism that in some ways is the backbone of Project 2025 and what we’re seeing across this administration. Interestingly, they don’t talk about it as much as they could, but you know, this idea of like, well, we’re going to root out anti-Christian bias in the federal government – as if that was a thing, and use that as an excuse. Let’s start with the way religion has been weaponized, but then I do want to get to all your wisdom about how religion can be a great force for mobilization.

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

Well, look: Martin Luther King Jr. in his Letter From A Birmingham Jail said that sometimes, I look at these people, these White supremacists, these right-wing bigots, these people who refuse to acknowledge my humanity, and I look at their churches and I wonder, who is their God? And so any Christian worth his or her salt has got to, at some point, be an effective atheist. You’ve got to say, I can’t believe in that God. That’s not my God. That’s not a God I understand. A vitriolic, vengeful, revenge-seeking God.

 

Now, you can quote the Hebrew scriptures and you can quote the Bible about God as a God of vengeance and so on. Vengeance is mine, not yours, White supremacists. Not yours, White Christian nationalists. And don’t be trying to be a proxy for God. Don’t be trying to be a mouthpiece for God when you’re contradicting every principle that a conscientious reckoning with God puts forth.

 

So White Christian nationalism makes one thing clear that we should not be mistaken about. The real religion is whiteness, not Christianity. White Christian Nationalism should be WHITE Christian Nationalism, or WHITE Christian NATIONALISM, right? That’s where the emphasis is. This is a nationalist project motivated by a xenophobic passion, a protectionist concept of America, and trying to have a society that fails to make a distinction between patriotism and nationalism at that level – because patriotism says, I love my country but I’m self-critical about the means to pursue the particular ends that we articulate, and we’re open to constantly revising our concept of what a good country is, of how we can get there. We’re open-minded about that and open-ended within the context of the basic documents that define America: the Declaration of Independence; the Bill of Rights; the Constitution of the United States of America; the separation of powers; the Disestablishment Clause that says, no religion should be established so that all can flourish! So this is no Christian nation, y’all.

 

And Thomas Jefferson’s God isn’t your God, for all of you who claim to be like the founding fathers. What’s the first thing Jefferson did when he got hold of the Bible, the New Testament especially? What did he do? He cut out the miracles! But he left Smokey Robinson. Thank God, he was a good man. So you cut all the miracles, all the things that can’t be empirically verified. So he’s Thomas. When Thomas said, show me, show me, show me your wound, I’ve just got to see it for myself. This is a Thomas Jefferson radical empiricism William James kind of approach. We can even throw in Richard Rorty.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

Let’s go.

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

The point is, what are the litmus tests that determine the veracity of the claums being made? So, I say all that to say that this elevation of whiteness is the real religion of many White Christian Nationalists. They are not patriots who are self-critical, but nationalists who are uncritical in their celebration of America, right or wrong. It doesn’t make a difference. We must move forward.

 

And then that is antithetical to a God who says, even in the Bible – as Martin Luther King Jr. and others reminded us – I will break the backbone of your power. I will bring you under heel. I will discipline you. God is not uncritically celebratory of the kinds of factions that we generate out of ideological purity or partisan commitment that have nothing to do with the ultimate commitment to truth, justice, democracy, fairness, and the ethic of love.

 

So when we look at White evangelical piety at its worst, when we look at White Christian Nationalism in its most virulent expression, we see that this, to me, is antithetical to the very principles of Christianity that we should uphold.

 

And by the way, it’s not just the nasty, vicious expressions. Billy Graham, as nice a man as he was, was not very good at all when it comes to being self-critical about his whiteness and the degree to which his whiteness made him complicitous with a form of racist governance that was antithetical to Christian principles. So even though Billy Graham wasn’t a virulent expression of this, he was the roots of it – because he couldn’t support Martin Luther King, Jr. He said that years and years off, and maybe in the next world, we could work out principles of prejudice. You are as ineffective and as feckless a Christian minister, as heretical as that sounds – and I’m sure it’s offensive to many White evangelical pietists – the principle of complicity with the dominant worldview is something that Billy Graham himself spread as well.

 

So it’s the ugly side of it, it’s the lighter side of it, it’s the well-intending side of it, But Billy Graham stood silent when four girls were bombed in a church to their reward in heaven in 1963. Billy Graham stood silent when White supremacists warred against Christians like Martin Luther King, Jr. and others who were organized against well-intending, well-meaning, and well-doing Black believers.

 

So I think that we have to underscore that White supremacy, White nationalism, White Christian Nationalism are all over and infecting this administration and the beliefs of certain highly-placed figures who want to, as you say, root out anti-Christian bias – when at the end of the day, The Disestablishment Clause tells us that there is no official religion in America! That’s what, if you all don’t read history, that’s why they left the British culture. That’s why they left the UK, because they didn’t want the Church of England determining how and when they worship the Almighty God.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

That’s right. And for us Baptists, those pilgrims that everybody talks about in New England were attacking the Baptists. And so we had to go back. No, but this is just to say that this is real history and there’s a real reason that all of that exists. And so what’s been interesting to me is: they almost have not claimed morality in a way that I would have expected them to claim. They’re not trying to say: it’s moral to take money away from the vets. It’s moral. Because they realize it’s immoral.

They’re not trying to say: it’s moral to take money away from Social Security, from Medicaid, from Medicare. It’s moral to hurt elderly services, all these things. They’re not saying that, because it is immoral and they’re clear about that.

 

But what I have been interested in, and I think that this is where I’d love your perspective as a pastor, but also as a public intellectual who has thought deeply about the role of religion in liberative moments, and we are in a moment when we need some liberation. When you’ve been looking around, what have you been seeing and what would you like to see faith communities do in the face of what we’re experiencing right now?

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

Yes, sir. Well, first of all, continue to uplift the gospel of liberation to tell the truth about what we see, that God sides with victims and those whose backs are against the wall; that the gospel of love and liberation is about the transformation of hateful, vengeful, nasty-minded politics into an arena where we are, yes, arguing about forces and factors in American life and features of American life, but doing so with an eye to how we can best embody and represent the transformative power of a transcendent God who looks beyond our faults to see our needs. So the point is, that I want to see religious communities and Christian organizations girding up their loins, so to speak, and understanding that they have a religious duty to resist fascist beliefs.

 

Now, we don’t have to take the Bonhoeffer route; but we do have to say, as Bonhoeffer did, that my faith mandates that I intervene, stand up, speak against, and talk about the fascist elements forming – because they are fundamentally immoral, beyond being illegal, and we have to stand up for the legitimacy of the State and suggest that that legitimate State must be protected, even when we have arguments with it.

 

You’re looking at Black people who have argued against the application of certain principles, priorities, and perspectives within legal and jurisprudential rationality, but we never tried to undermine the State. We wanted to change laws that we felt were anti-democratic, that were illegal, that were immoral – I’m sorry, that were legal at that point, but changed – it used to be legal to be prejudiced against Black people and to put them in a different hotel. It used to be legal for Black people to drink out of a different water fountain. It used to be legal for Black people not to have access to education that was equal and that was just and democratic, small “d”. It used to be against the law for Black people to vote. It used to be against the law for them to be able to go to a hotel or eat at a restaurant with their White brothers and sisters and others. So that stuff had to be changed. But we didn’t undermine the infrastructure, the legal infrastructure that allowed us to articulate our viewpoints. We worked within that context to change the law. And we changed the law by protest, by resistance, but not by a coup.

 

If anybody had reason to undermine the legitimacy of American democracy, it’s Black people. But what did we do? We reinforced it. What did we do? We allowed America’s ideals to reverberate in our chest, to resound in our throats, to be articulated through our tongues. and to be embraced by our work. The people who had the least reason to support it gave it its greatest support, I would argue.

And so, for me, we have to remember that at this particular time, and we have to say, as a church community, as a religious community – even beyond our Christian beliefs, because we’ve got Muslim brothers and sisters, Baha’i, we’ve got others reading the Bhagavad Gita, the Holy Q’uran, the Upanishads, the Tao Te Ching, whatever your religious book is – at the end of the day, those of us who believe in God, believe in love. Love is my ultimate religious declaration, my faith belief. And if you are an atheist, but you believe in love, you are of my ilk. And if you are a White Christian who is a nationalist, who hates Black people – I am an atheist to your God and do not know that God!

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

I think what you’ve been talking about is moral clarity, but also mobilization and also standing up. And I think it’s such an important point that Black Americans over the history of this country have the most reason to undermine the legitimacy of this country – and yet have done the most to move this country forward to fulfilling its actual purpose in the world. And I think all Christians and others, communities: “What does this time require of us?” should be asked? What does this time require of us?

 

One of the things I’m talking about a lot is courage in this moment. And “courage”, you know, the root is love, in courage. Like, how do we love our neighbor? Who is us and who is not us, but is our neighbor? And how do we love this country as an act of patriotism enough to fight for it in this moment? And I think there’s going to be more and more actions that faith communities are going to be a part of and may be leading that are going to bring us into the streets, that is going to show, really, understand that old sappy song we used to sing, They’ll know us by our love. I hope that’s true. And it’s just really important.

 

One of the things that I have – I don’t want to make too big of a deal of this because it’s really not the majority – but it’s very interesting how in every photo op of people praying over Trump, they get as many Black people in there as possible. And there is a kind of prosperity gospel sensibility that is out there. And somehow – and again, this is the minority – but it seems like there’s kind of a buying into a kind of White Christian framework around America. And I’m sure you’ve thought about it, but I’m just wondering if you have any insight into this – and Latino evangelicals even more. And so, how do we reach out and make sure that we are trying to frame something in an inclusive way that doesn’t push them into the arms of the MAGA religious movement?

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

It’s a great question. You know, Jesus said, sometimes you’ve got to shake the dust from your feet and just leave the place. You do all the work you can. You do all the evangelizing you can. You do all the commitment to trying to change people’s perspectives or challenge their beliefs as you challenge your own, right? You’re open to that. None of us are perfect. None of us have the answers. So we try to work with each other, struggle with each other, talk to each other in order to change.

 

But at the end of the day, if after all that, they are determined to uphold fascism – you’ve got to shake the dust from your feet, bro. You’ve got to say, we’ve got to part ways. We’ve got to be Paul and Timothy and whoever else. And we’ve got, you go your way, I go mine.

 

Except in Paul and Timothy’s case and in others, there was at least the ostensible commitment to bringing the Gospel in the best way possible. We could cede the legitimacy of that to our opponents or our… We don’t have to call them enemies, those who disagree with us. But at the end of the day, you shall know them by their love and you shall know them by their fruit. We are no judge of people. Judge not lest you be judged. But we are fruit inspectors!

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

Fruit inspectors! Yes. They’re trying to get rid of all the inspectors. They’re getting rid of the inspectors. I love that.

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

All of them. They tried to get rid of them. They fired all the inspectors. Right? So the thing is, is that we go and inspect your fruit. Where’s your patience? Where’s your love? Where’s your kindness? Where’s your courage? Where’s your commitment through passions of empathy and identification with the other? We’re looking at the fruit, bro.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

Does it give you life or does it give you death?

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

Is your Chiquita banana ripe? Or is it overripe, bro? What you doing? So the thing is, is that we’ve got to tell the truth. And how we love those, even who are fiercely opposed to us, we tell the truth. We raise high the bloodstained banner of truth. Facts are at a premium. People are buying what they want to believe, again. And as the great Richard Rorty said, “Give me freedom, and truth will take care of itself.” He understood.

 

He understood that all these arguments about truth are underwritten by a commitment to fundamental freedom. And if we work the freedom out, then truth will take care of itself. Because as we see right now, truth is to the highest bidder. Truth is to those with the most power. Truth is to those who have the most money. We know that one man made like 147 billion last year, even as his cars – and I don’t have to name no names, you all know who I’m talking about – as his cars are getting burned up off the lot. He’s making money off of you all. He wants to deny you.

 

It isn’t DOGE, it’s dodge. Dodging, right, the fundamental principles of truth. And so he wants to fire tens of thousands of members of government while reaping gross benefit from his own economic arrangements with the government, this administration. So as Christians, how we love them is tell the truth. How we love them is martial facts. How we love them is continue to uphold the belief that there is some objective consideration for this truth. And even if we deconstruct objectivism, we understand that the truths that we have consensus about have some meaning and significance: forces of tradition, verities, that have been delivered to us as a result of struggle and conversation must be held as sacred.

 

The commitment, most especially, to the vulnerable must be held sacred. The commitment to those who are dying must be sacred. The commitment to those whose resources have been diminished by no fault of their own must be held sacred. And those who have made mistakes and who continue to seek a better path, those must be held sacred in a government where we have undermined the capacity to mend the safety net. It’s being shredded and destroyed in the name of callous capitalism, of vicious commitment to partisanship and ideology, and we’ve got to tell the truth about that.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

I’m going to ask you: just the wealth of knowledge you have, I would love for you to reference someone that most of us probably have not heard of, but who we should all know, who might be instructive for this time. So this can be anyone, a religious leader, a political leader, someone who – it does not have to be a leader at all, it could just be someone who did something that could be instructive. Because a lot of it is familiar. A lot of it feels like we’re stepping off a cliff. And so I’m just wondering, is there anybody who comes to mind?

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

Well, look, a famous guy who just spent more than 25 hours speaking from the Senate well is Cory Booker. Now that’s a very famous guy, but he’s got a conscience. Al Green, Congressman Al Green, holding up his cane. And “You have no mandate.” You have no mandate. No mandate.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

No Mandate. And that was so important. And every Democrat should have gotten up and done it with him. You have no mandate.

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

And walked with him and said no mandate.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

No mandate.

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

No mandate.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

And he’s absolutely true. They’re acting as if they won a landslide election, which they didn’t.

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

And on our side, we have to stop over-interpreting: Oh my God, we’ve lost this battle, we’ve got to rethink… No, we barely lost. Look at that as a sports team. You know, we need one more piece – not blowing up the whole team, not destroying the whole infrastructure, just figuring out what we do. But that’s what we’re doing, because we’re cowards without commitment to principle. And we’ve got to tell the truth on our side, as well.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

What Cory Booker did is he really talked, he laid it out for 25 hours. He laid it out. And he also said so much that was important, including about his faith – which many of us appreciated, that he was out there saying, you know, this is antithetical to my faith. And so I think that we are done ceding the religious space. We are done ceding the moral space, and we are done playing nice. I mean, holding up little paddles saying, this is bad. No. Al Green with his cane saying, you have no mandate. Everybody should have jumped up at that moment. We have to pierce it…

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

I’m with you on that. We have to pierce it, and we’ve got to sometimes take the paddle and apply it to the seat of knowledge. So the thing is, is that the Rev. Dr. Frederick Douglas Haynes III – a lot of people haven’t heard of him – but he is a deeply and profoundly committed minister of the Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, who has been on the battlefield, local level, fighting those who would do payday loans with their predatory lending; he is on the national scene, standing up against the junta of a right-wing, White supremacist, White Christian Nationalism.

 

If you want to support somebody who’s doing the right thing, who’s standing up and telling the truth, then the Rev. Dr. Frederick Douglas Haynes III in Dallas; the Rev. Gina Stewart in Memphis, Tennessee, another great, great preacher. These are all great preachers. And of course, the Rev. Otis Moss III in Chicago at Trinity United Church of Christ, and the Rev. Howard John Wesley at Alfred Street Baptist Church in Virginia, Alexandria. And Rev. Jackie Thompson. You all may not have heard of them, but they’re on the front lines doing their thing. Rev. Jamal Brown, of course, in Atlanta. They are on the front lines, doing their thing, raising up the Gospel, preaching every Sunday to the converted and the unconverted alike.

 

You know, when people say, well, you’re just preaching to the choir – the choir’s got to rehearse. The choir needs to practice. The choir isn’t just going to get up on Sunday and sing and don’t know that their song is reinforcing the scripture reading and the sermon. The choir’s got to be involved too. Preach to the choir so that they can sing a better song of democracy in America.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

Yeah. Preaching to the choir. Ridiculous. You know, a small group of people – Margaret Mead said a small group of people can change the world – it’s the only way it’s ever happened. That small group of people who are committed…

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

Well, people hanging out with a guy from Palestine. Yeah.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

Right. So we’re in an important moment, a crucial moment. I’d like to ask you, if you had the ear of every single listener – because you do – what’s one thing you would like to make sure they do in this moment? So, you’re speaking to our listeners right now. We’re speaking to our listeners right now. What’s one thing that you would love for every single listener of this show to do – because people are often asking, like, well, what can I do? I don’t know what to do. So what’s a thing to do?

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

One of the things you can do is – let me give it to you as an acronym: Voice Opposition To Evil. You see what I did there? Voice Opposition To Evil. VOTE! Please vote! Please vote. You know, we think, my God, what do we… Vote. Because had we voted differently, just a few different votes, in one way this would be an entirely different country right now.

 

This is not the government, this is an administration. Please understand the difference. The American government is under attack by this administration! This administration will go, the government remains. Right? The school remains, the students come in and come out. Understand what is permanent – even though I love what the students are doing. Understand that. So the first thing you can do is vote.

The second – and we’ve got an election coming – and look at what happened in Wisconsin when we stood up against millions and millions of dollars being funneled in by a billionaire. Justice still won last night.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

You know I’m from Wisconsin, so you know I had that group text with my family, I was connecting with all my friends from high school. We were all in it, and people were aware of what was happening. Elon Musk trying to buy an election, and the people weren’t having it.

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

We’ve got to resist that. We’ve got to resist that. But look: go to your local legislative body. Go to the school districts. Go to your local government. Do what these White Christian women and White engaged progressive women in Tennessee, where I live, are doing. They are filling up the local legislative halls in Tennessee, in Nashville. They are raising their voices. They are opposing this. “You are not going to do this in my name, under my watch. I will raise my voice up.” You’ve got power. Call your congressperson. Call your local councilperson. Call your United States senator and raise your voice. Continue to vote, continue to protest, continue to join organizations that are spreading the truth and spreading the facts as we have been denied. That’s what you can do on the local level.

 

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 

Since 2021, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson has taught at Vanderbilt University, where he holds the Centennial Chair and serves as University Distinguished Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies in the College of Arts and Science, and University Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society in the Divinity School. Author of many influential books like Tears We Cannot Stop, A Sermon to White America, and Unequal: A Story of America, and his most recent is Represent: the Unfinished Fight for the Vote.

 

Dr. Dyson, thank you so much for joining us on The State of Belief.

 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:

 

Thank you, my brother. Keep up the good work.