THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 12, 1997 TAG: 9702110032
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 131 lines
HE'S BEEN CALLED the ``hip-hop intellectual,'' equally likely to quote the rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg and the philosopher Michel Foucault.
He's not afraid to speak the unspeakable in the ivory tower.
When he addressed the December commencement of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, several spectators walked out in disgust at some of the lyrics he cited - ``nigga'' and ``ho'' were among the less objectionable epithets - and the university chancellor apologized for any offense taken.
Michael Eric Dyson, a former Baptist preacher in Detroit who now teaches communications at Chapel Hill, has become a rising star among black intellectuals, mixing unorthodox analysis and fiery forthrightness.
He's put out a string of books on subjects ranging from Malcolm X to the Million Man March and become a TV fixture on shows like ``Oprah'' and ``Nightline.''
Today, Dyson, who is in his late 30s, will be speaking at noon at Norfolk State University's Brown Hall. His speech is titled ``From God to Gangsta Rap,'' but there's no telling where he might go.
He could offer his views of rap: that too much of it is homophobic and sexist, but that it offers a revealing window into inner-city life and is no more anti-establishment than jazz was earlier in the century.
He might offer his take on the similarities between two seemingly opposite figures - Louis Farrakhan and Colin Powell.
He might tell black men to stop whining about ``Waiting to Exhale'' and start singing the praises of black women.
``He's very much in the black preaching tradition, what one guy called the tornado tradition,'' said Michael Berube, an English professor at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, who praised Dyson in a piece on black intellectuals for the New Yorker two years ago. ``He's one of those folks who's got an extraordinary range of interests, from classical philosophy to hip-hop and Michael Jordan.''
Michael Jordan? Dyson might have antagonized just as many people at Chapel Hill in December with his criticism of the former Tar Heel as he did with his rap citations.
He chided Jordan for giving $1 million to Chapel Hill's School of Social Work, but refusing to donate to the university's Black Cultural Center: ``One of the greatest lessons you can learn is what Jordan failed to learn: It's all right to give back to black folk who loved you before you became a star, who were human before the law declared it. . . .''
Dyson's speech at NSU is being sponsored by the Student Government Association. Student president Anthony Walters heard Dyson speak last month at a student leaders conference in Richmond and knew he had to get him on campus.
``He's an ordained minister, but he speaks about hip-hop culture,'' Walters said. ``. . .It's not often when you find speakers who can relate to students and relate to the kinds of things we're going through. . . .He made it known that he understands from our point of view.''
``Race Rules,'' a book of essays published by Addison Wesley last year, is the most recent of Dyson's four works. For Benjamin Berry, a professor of history and American studies at Virginia Wesleyan College, the most intriguing section was Dyson's examination of Powell and Farrakhan.
For all their differences, Dyson writes, both were raised by West Indian parents and now champion the value of self-help. But he finds both leaders lacking. Powell, he writes, too easily glosses over questions of race. His wife's acknowledged fears for his safety if he ran for president ``blew the cover off the illusion of race transcendence by her husband.''
Farrakhan, he writes, has failed to speak out against the repressive measures of the African dictators he has visited, perpetuated the Nation of Islam's sexist and anti-gay attitudes (``The Nation neglected the lives, pains and perspectives of black women'') and exhibited ``an obsession with Jews, the need to discover a Jew behind every problem that blacks face.''
Better than either, he says, is Jesse Jackson, who has been ``concerned about linking justice, power and love'' and ``out front on unpopular issues (such as black-on-black homicide) all along.''
Said Berry: ``He's using him (Jackson) as a model of the kind of leadership that we're going to look for in the future. I'm not sure I agree with it, but it's an interesting approach.''
In the book, Dyson also takes on the black church for its failure to face up to sexual realities - demonizing homosexuals, adopting a Victorian stance toward sex while looking the other way at preachers' infidelities: ``If the black church . . . was erotically honest, it would admit that the same sexual desire that courses through rappers' veins courses through the veins of its members.''
Unlike many academics, Dyson also veers into the personal. In that chapter, he owns up to an unflattering scene from his days as a young pastor. Engaged to be married, he was called to a female parishioner's house and ended up in a passionate kissing encounter.
The rest of his life story has also been full of dramatic flourishes: His brother was imprisoned for murder. Dyson himself got married at age 18, fathered a son and went on welfare. At 21, he was already a Baptist preacher and two years later he was ordained. He later graduated from college and received a doctorate in religion from Princeton University in 1993.
For all the praise and attention he's received, Dyson has been attacked by both sides of the spectrum for his political views. And some scholars have pounced on his alleged intellectual thinness.
Eric Lott, an associate professor of English at the University of Virginia, offered a mostly sour review two years ago in the political journal Transition. Although Dyson is ``alive to various kinds of class experience in black life,'' Lott said, he ``rests content with underwhelming surveys and cursory takes.'' Lott declined to be interviewed, but said the review still reflects his views.
Berube, the Illinois professor, said Dyson's prolific publishing record - he puts out roughly a book a year - makes it unlikely that he'll produce a research masterpiece. But that, he said, shouldn't detract from Dyson's achievements in less scholarly pursuits.
Berube, the son of Old Dominion University education professor Maurice Berube, said: ``You get academics criticized for being too hermetic, not being concerned enough about public culture, and then come some folks who are immersed in it. . . .Make up your minds.''
Dyson has occasionally joked away the criticism. Of Lott's middlebrow critique, Dyson wrote: ``Just to think, most people have to meet me twice to draw that conclusion.'' But after the Chapel Hill speech, he reacted angrily to the chancellor's apologies, saying: ``The chancellor has to be careful about using his office as a bully pulpit for narrow thinking.''
Walters, the NSU student president, doesn't think Dyson will have problems with the Norfolk State audience. At the Richmond conference, Walters recalled, he didn't use any profanities. And, he said, young people know that when Dyson quotes from rap, ``he's actually reiterating it; it's not coming from him.''
``He's going to definitely intrigue the students,'' Walters said. MEMO: News researcher Kimberly R. Kent contributed to this story. ILLUSTRATION: Ron Caesar
Michael Eric Dyson will speak at Norfolk State today at noon.
FILE PHOTO
Dyson has been attakced by both sides of the spectrum for his
political views.
WANT TO GO?
Who: Professor and author Michael Eric Dyson will discuss ``From
God to Gangsta Rap: Notes on Black Culture''
When: Today at noon
Where: Norfolk State University's GWC Brown Hall - Little Theater
Admission: Free