Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

by Michael Eric Dyson

Dyson desperately wants his readers to confront the sources of…violence in our nation's longstanding culture of white supremacy. But he also knows how many political arguments and sociological studies have fallen on deaf ears. And so rather than a treatise, Tears We Cannot Stop is a fiery sermon, and an unabashedly emotional, personal appeal…The result is one of the most frank and searing discussions of race I have ever read…Dyson is all too familiar with the claims of innocence and the kneejerk defensiveness that will surely greet this book, and yet he sets out to conquer such denial not only with the difficult truth but also, astonishingly, with love…Again and again Dyson makes it clear that more than white guilt, he seeks action, and more than condemnation, he wants change…A deeply serious, urgent book, which should take its place in the tradition of Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and King's Why We Can't Wait.