Tears We Cannot Stop - by Michael Eric Dyson (Paperback)

About the Book

As the country grapples with race with anguish and anger at a level not seen since the 60s, one of America's leading black voices speaks out honestly and provocatively to white America.

Book Synopsis

NOW A NEW YORK TIMES, PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY, INDIEBOUND, LOS ANGELES TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, CHRONICLE HERALD, SALISBURY POST, GUELPH MERCURY TRIBUNE, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER NAMED A BEST/MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2017 BY: The Washington Post - Bustle - Men's Journal - The Chicago Reader - StarTribune - Blavity - The Guardian - NBC New York's Bill's Books - Kirkus - Essence

"One of the most frank and searing discussions on race ... 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. --The New York Times Book Review

Toni Morrison hails Tears We Cannot Stop as Elegantly written and powerful in several areas: moving personal recollections; profound cultural analysis; and guidance for moral redemption. A work to relish.

Stephen King says: Here's a sermon that's as fierce as it is lucid...If you're black, you'll feel a spark of recognition in every paragraph. If you're white, Dyson tells you what you need to know--what this white man needed to know, at least. This is a major achievement. I read it and said amen.

Short, emotional, literary, powerful--Tears We Cannot Stop is the book that all Americans who care about the current and long-burning crisis in race relations will want to read.

As the country grapples with racist division at a level not seen since the 1960s, one man's voice soars above the rest with conviction and compassion. In his 2016 New York Times op-ed piece Death in Black and White, Michael Eric Dyson moved a nation. Now he continues to speak out in Tears We Cannot Stop--a provocative and deeply personal call for change. Dyson argues that if we are to make real racial progress we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted.

The time is at hand for reckoning with the past, recognizing the truth of the present, and moving together to redeem the nation for our future. If we don't act now, if you don't address race immediately, there very well may be no future.

Review Quotes

Anguish and hurt throb in every word of Michael Eric Dyson's Tears We Cannot Stop...It is eloquent, righteous, and inspired...Often lyrical, Tears is not...without indignation...brilliance and rectitude. --The Philadelphia Inquirer

Dyson...creates a sermon unlike any we've heard or read, and it's right on time...an unapologetically bold plea for America to own up to its inexplicable identity anxiety. --Essence

[Dyson's] narrative voice carries a deeper and more intimate authority, as it grows from his own experience as a black man in America -- from being beaten by his father to being profiled by the police to dealing with his brother's long-term incarceration...Dyson's raw honesty and self-revelation enables him to confront his white audience and reach out to them. --The Chicago Tribune

Be ready to pause nearly every other sentence, absorb what is said, and prepare for action. Tears We Cannot Stop is meant to change your thinking. --The Miami Times

[Tears We Cannot Stop] talks directly to you, about issues deep, disturbing, and urgently in need of being faced. --Philly.com

"One of the most frank and searing discussions on race ... 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. --The New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice)

Impassioned. --Library Journal

Readers will find searing moments in Tears We Cannot Stop, when Dyson's words proves unforgettable...But more than education, Dyson wants a reckoning. --The Washington Post

"Dyson lays bare our conscience, then offers redemption through our potential change." --Booklist

If you read Michael Eric Dyson's New York Times op-ed piece Death in Black and White, then you know what a powerful work of cultural analysis his book, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America is going to be. At a time when everyone needs to speak more openly, honestly, and critically about the racial divisions that have been allowed to grow in the United States, Dyson's book -- available in January -- could not be a more welcome read. --Bustle

A hard-hitting sermon on the racial divide... The readership Dyson addresses may not fully be convinced, but it can hardly remain unmoved. --Kirkus Reviews (Starred)

Elegantly written, Tears We Cannot Stop is powerful in several areas: moving personal recollections; profound cultural analysis; and guidance for moral redemption. A work to relish. --Toni Morrison

Here's a sermon that's as fierce as it is lucid. It shook me up, but in a good way. This is how it works if you're black in America, this is what happens, and this is how it feels. If you're black, you'll feel a spark of recognition in every paragraph. If you're white, Dyson tells you what you need to know--what this white man needed to know, at least. This is a major achievement. I read it and said amen. --Stephen King

Michael Eric Dyson is alive to the fierce urgency of now and yet he's full of felicitous contradictions: an intellectual who won't talk down to anyone; a man of God who eschews piousness; a truth-teller who is not afraid of doubt or nuance; a fighter whose arguments, though always to the point, are never ad hominem. We can and should be thankful we have a writer like Michael Eric Dyson is our midst. --Dave Eggers, from the preface of Can You Hear Me Now?

About The Author

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON--distinguished University Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies, College of Arts & Science, and of Ethics and Society, Divinity School, and Centennial Professor at Vanderbilt University--is one of America's premier public intellectuals and the author of seven New York Times bestsellers including JAY-Z, Tears We Cannot Stop, and What Truth Sounds Like, and most recently Long Time Coming. A contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, Dr. Dyson is a recipient of two NAACP Image awards and the 2020 Langston Hughes Festival Medallion. Former president Barack Obama has noted: "Everybody who speaks after Michael Eric Dyson pales in comparison."