Entertaining race : performing blackness in America / Michael Eric Dyson.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Command performance
The arts. I love music: on the concert stage ; Do you see what I see?: in the photograph ; Act like you know: in the theater ; Represent: on the silver screen
Religion. Holy hallways: in divinity school ; Do you hear what I hear?: God in the public square ; I love to tell the story: in the pulpit ; Eulogizing ancestors: in the grieving sanctuary
Bodies in motion. Balling out: in the arena ; To live up to their own constitution: in politics ; Cooler than the other side of the pillow: in Black masculine style
The life of the mind. Class notes: at the lectern ; Think about it: in the study
Talk back. Tete-a-tete: in conversation with the younger generation ; Battling brains: on the debate state
Publics. The right address: speeches on the public stage ; The right of the people peaceably to assemble: protest orations ; Read the papers!: opinion pages ; Graduated tax: on the commencement stage. The King of Pop and the Queen of Everything
"One love," two brothers, three verses
Mission accomplished
Hello like before
The church of Aretha Franklin
August March
Photobombing Mandela
Of mic and lens
King at midnight
The blues of August Wilson
Trump L'oeil of race
Bigelow's general method
What's Derrida got to do with Jesus?
The prophetic passions of a Black radical evangelical
Abraham, Isaac, and us (and Hagar and Ishmael and Trayvon and Michael Brown, too)
George Floyd and the politics of Black automortology
Black love in a time of Coronavirus
What have I left?
Hard out here for a P.I.M.P
A key, a song, a bridge
Long live the Queen
When she
Pound for pound
He the best
Currying favor
The root of Jesse
Alright
When Robin becomes Batman
Brother, can you spare a nod?
Behind the mask
Contesting racial amnesia
Dreams of the drum
Critical race theory in action
More than academic
The life of the Black mind in the age of digital reproduction
In Baldwin's shadow
Race, racism, racists, antiracists
We matter, we care
It ain't the demos, it's the demon
Mean, mad white man and the pugnacious Black preacher?
What's love got to do with it?
A shovel or a rope?
Like Hemingway being mugged by Morrison
When that flag goes down America comes up
Golgotha in Memphis
King's dream, Rihanna's demand
Model minorities?
The weltanschauung of Lil Wayne, or What can you do with a Harvard degree?
How we become who we are
Is America still a dream?

"For more than thirty years, Michael Eric Dyson has played a prominent role in the nation as a public intellectual, university professor, cultural critic, social activist and ordained Baptist minister. He has presented a rich and resourceful set of ideas about American history and culture. Now for the first time he brings together the various components of his multihued identity and eclectic pursuits. Entertaining Race is a testament to Dyson's consistent celebration of the outsized impact of African American culture and politics on this country. Black people were forced to entertain white people in slavery, have been forced to entertain the idea of race from the start, and must find entertaining ways to make race an object of national conversation. Dyson's career embodies these and other ways of performing Blackness, and in these pages, ranging from 1991 to the present, he entertains race with his pen, voice and body, and occasionally, alongside luminaries like Cornel West, David Blight, Ibram X. Kendi, Master P, MC Lyte, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alicia Garza, John McWhorter, and Jordan Peterson. Most of this work will be new to readers, a fresh light for many of his long-time fans and an inspiring introduction for newcomers. Entertaining Race offers a compelling vision from the mind and heart of one of America's most important and enduring voices"-- Provided by publisher.