January 18, 2017 The Skanner Page 9
BOOK REVIEW: ‘Tears We Cannot
Stop: A Sermon to White America’
By Michael Eric Dyson
St. Martin’s Press
Hardcover, $24.99
202 pages
ISBN: 978-1-250-13599-5
Book Review by Kam Williams
“America is in
trouble, and a
lot of that trou-
ble--p erhaps
most of it--has
to do with race.
Everywhere we
turn, there is
discord,
divi-
sion, death and
destruction.
When we sur-
vey the land, we
Michael Eric Dyson
see a country
full of suffering that it cannot fully un-
derstand, and a history that it can no
longer deny. Slavery casts a long shadow
across our lives...
Black and white people... seem to occu-
py different universes with worldviews
that are fatally opposed to one another...
What, then, can we do?
What I need to say can only be said as
a sermon... I offer this sermon to you, my
dear white friends... I do so in the inter-
est of healing our our nation through
honest, often blunt, talk... Without white
America wrestling with these truths
and confronting these realities, we may
not survive.
To paraphrase the Bible, to whom
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much is given, much is expected. And,
you my friends, have been given so
much. And the Lord knows, what wasn’t
given, you simply took, took, and took,
and took.
But the time is here for reckoning with
the past... and moving together to re-
deem the nation for the future.”
— Excerpted from the Chapter 1, “Call
to Worship” (pages 3-7)
M
ichael Eric Dyson teaches So-
ciology at Georgetown Univer-
sity, and is the prolific author
of 20 best-sellers and a popular
face on the TV talk show circuit. Many
might forget that Professor Dyson got
his doctorate in Religion from Prince-
ton University.
In his new book, “Tears We Cannot
Stop,” he reminds us that, “Although
I am a scholar, a cultural and political
critic, and a social activist, I am, before,
and above anything else, an ordained
Baptist minister.” That helps explain
the profusion of captivating, flowery
rhetoric whenever the brother’s been
handed a microphone.
While his previous works were
aimed at a black audience, this is his
first intended to be read by whites. It is
also written in a unique literary style,
namely, as a sermon designed to keep
Caucasians standing on their feet like
an inspired congregation of holy roll-
ers.
The chapters are even laid out like a
See BOOK on page 11
‘Silence’
By Kam Williams
For The Skanner News
P
ortuguese traders first landed
in Japan in 1543, followed soon
thereafter by Francis Xavier
and other Jesuits. So many lo-
cals started converting to Christianity
that, less than a decade later, the em-
peror issued an edict banning Cathol-
icism and ordering the expulsion of all
missionaries.
Violators were forced to either re-
nounce the religion or face crucifix-
ion, which resulted in many of the
faithful’s going underground to avoid
persecution. Consequently, when a
cleric disappeared, it was often diffi-
cult to discern whether the missing
person had been martyred or was
merely in hiding.
This was the case with Father Cris-
tovao Ferreira (Liam Neeson) who
had been spreading the gospel around
Japan for close to a quarter-century
before he suddenly vanished with-
out a trace after sending an ominous
See ‘SILENCE’ on page 11