I want to love Dyson’s work, but something about his writing always fails for me. The content is reliably fabulous, but I think I’ll give his next book a pass.

In May of 1963, Robert F. Kennedy called for a meeting with James Baldwin, author and a strong voice in the Civil Rights Movement. Baldwin brought several guests with him including the singers Lena Horne and Harry Belafonte, as well as Jerome Smith, a freedom rider who was recovering from a severe beating by white supremacists. Kennedy expected a polite even deferential meeting. What he got was much more honest and angry - these leaders of the Civil Rights movement were no longer willing to be patient. Baldwin knew that new polices wouldn't change anything 'if the value of black life had not been established'. Instead, he and his friends angrily spoke truth to power to Kennedy about 'blackness seen through the prism of pain and trauma'.

In his book What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America, political analyst and scholar Michael Eric Dyson uses this meeting to begin a searing and passionate analysis of race relations right up to the present. He looks at artists, actors, musicians, academics, activists, and political figures since this historic meeting including Barack Obama, what he accomplished and what he didn't. He makes it clear that the 1963 meeting opened an important conversation about what truth sounds like and it needs to be reopened if the country is ever to move forward past the trauma caused to the nation by America's original sin, slavery.

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and St Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review</i>

The subtitle of the book talks about an unfinished conversation about race in America. This is a conversation that should always be ongoing. Dyson's book offers a lot of interesting facts as he works to convey his point. This book deserves a space in classroom libraries everywhere.

Michael Dyson is a dynamic author. Love him or not, he gives one food for thought. I have read some of his other books and was not disappointed with this one. Reading this book was like being privy to a conversation between these great men. Kudos to the author for blessing us with this. Please, please, please, get this book. Sit and read the book, absorb what has been written, then thank the author for writing this book. And, please do not forget the publsiher for giving this to us to read. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book. Although I received the book in this manner, it did not affect my opinion of this book nor my review.

This was... ok. Obviously extremely relevant to the divisive climate, but a touch too academic for my own enjoyment. I enjoyed the insight into RFK but overall I didn't think this had to be a book, but would have worked better as one essay in a collection of like-minded writers.

"Whatever his faults, or limits, Bobby Kennedy was committed to getting into a room and wrestling with the demons of race. Over fifty years later, we find it hard to follow this example, and our failure dooms us to untold suffering."

As we observe the 50th anniversary of the assassination of MLK and RFK, we are still wrestling with the same problems and the same questions. Michael Eric Dyson takes a conversation about race that happened five years before their deaths in 1963. The Baldwin-Kennedy meeting was an attempt by Robert F. Kennedy and his President brother to tackle race issues in America. Dyson aptly points out that their attempts at conversation were to use James Baldwin and the rest of the group for political points in the upcoming election, but the group was not having it. In what Dyson describes as a "brutal battering" Baldwin describes the real issues for African-Americans in this country. Yet, 55 years later, we are having the same conversation. Dyson expertly takes this talking point and compares it to the present day issues.

While many books are trying to capture our current era, few are able to take timely current information and weave it into a narrative. Whereas Coates's We Were Eight Years In Power is an elegy to Obama's presidency and the dangerous era of Trump, Dyson takes it further into the present. He discusses everything from Black Lives Matter and Black conservative thought, much like Coates, but also weaves in current discussions such as the films Get Out and Black Panther. He pulls in historical context to very modern current events.

This is a good partner with Coates We Were Eight Years in Power and provides more context inside Coates essays of the eight years of the Obama Presidency.




NOTES FROM
What Truth Sounds Like
Michael Eric Dyson

May 17, 2018
The Meeting
Like the words of Martin Luther King, Baldwin’s words had already wormed their way into Bobby’s vexed racial thinking. He tried to diminish their power by acting as if it was black folks who were most directly impacted by Baldwin’s writing. Hence the suggestion that the maid would want Baldwin’s autograph on the magazine that sat by Kennedy’s bed.
May 19, 2018
The Meeting
In fact, the brutal battering he suffered at the hands of the Baldwin crew offers an important lesson to white people about how to start real change. And that involves sitting on your white ass and finally, as black folk have been forced to do, listening, and listening, and listening, and listening some more.
May 19, 2018
The Meeting
Whatever his faults, or limits, Bobby Kennedy was committed to getting into a room and wrestling with the demons of race. Over fifty years later, we find it hard to follow this example, and our failure dooms us to untold suffering.
May 20, 2018
The Politicians: Whiteness and the State
Politicians did not have to name white interests because they were considered American interests. The founders and the original citizens made whiteness the default position of American identity and humanity. American citizens were allowed to be white without having to say so. They could rely on the benefits of whiteness without having to name them—one of which was the celebration that attended the notion of the self-made man. It was an identity that gave white folk a false sense of achievement by connecting them to an ancestry whose claims to glory rested on a lie of their own hard work—work that had instead been outsourced to enslaved black folk.
May 20, 2018
The Politicians: Whiteness and the State
President Kennedy was a northern white liberal who subscribed to the idea of equality in the abstract without endorsing a revolutionary overhaul of racial politics. He got a big boost in black communities because of a symbolic gesture—as a presidential candidate, the Massachusetts senator placed a telephone call to Georgia’s governor, Ernest Vandiver, to get Martin Luther King out of jail in October 1960, right before the election that put Kennedy in the Oval Office. While the gesture endeared him to black folk, Kennedy was careful not to alienate his white supporters. Kennedy had infamously courted white southern voters by meeting with their leaders to reassure them he would not be a vigilant advocate of civil rights. Kennedy pledged to Vandiver that as president he would never use federal authority to coerce school desegregation in Georgia. In office, President Kennedy put conservative bigots on the federal court, recoiled at the sight of the interracially married entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr., when he appeared at a White House celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday with his wife, Mai Britt, and attempted to string King and other black leaders along as much as possible. His equivocations and hesitancies amounted to precious[…]

May 20, 2018
The Politicians: Whiteness and the State
Obama and Trump are thus wedged between two poles of unbelievability: that Obama, the ultimate traitor to American identity, could be elected; and that Trump could cavalierly give away the family secrets by exposing the twisted logic of whiteness for the world to see. It is unthinkable to many whites that such a man could be president, that such a figure with his array of flaws could take command. After all, a subtler, or more sophisticated, whiteness often occupies the presidency. But the truth is that Trump harkens back to original and founding whiteness.

May 21, 2018
The Artists: Dangerous Intersections
This agreement held that respectability politics were crucial for black success. In the realm of art, that meant that black music and style must cross over, and, at times, defer to, dominant American culture. This agreement insisted that ugly habits and weaknesses—which all groups have, but which were often unfairly used against black folk to prove our pathology—must be shielded from public view. Hip-hop insisted on making the family business public and telling the truth about personal weakness and failure while acknowledging big conflicts—of class, of sexuality, of gender, of a generation—in black America.

May 21, 2018
The Artists: Dangerous Intersections
As hip-hop has made clear—and black religion, too, for that matter—when we conceive of the horrors we confront, they have a masculine tint; we measure the terrors we face by calculating their harm to our men and boys. Thus the role of our artists has been limited to validating the experiences, expressions, and desires of boys and men. When we name those plagued by police violence, we cite the names of the boys and men and not the names of the girls and women. We take special note of how black boys are unfairly kicked out of school while ignoring that our girls are right next to them in the line of expulsion. We empathize with black men who end up in jail because of a joint they smoked while overlooking the defense against domestic abuse that lands just as many women in jail. We give authority to and celebrate men at church to compensate for how the white world overlooks their talents unless they carry a ball or a tune. We thank black fathers for lovingly parenting their children, and many more of them do so than is recognized in the broader world, which is[…]

May 21, 2018
The Artists: Dangerous Intersections
Hansberry was a lesbian, privately negotiating her queer identity while married to the Jewish writer Robert Nemiroff.11 There was even less space for her to reckon with her sexual desires in the confines of a culture that extracted a pound of flesh for each layer of her three-tiered oppression: black, female, lesbian. Hansberry

May 21, 2018
The Activists 1: Policy and Witness
limitations to what he might say about race because he led an organization that held him accountable. Perhaps this is why Baldwin claimed not to have invited Martin to their meeting; he wanted folk there who spoke from their own personal conviction, and not for a group, and so didn’t feel the need to censor themselves. “I didn’t want Martin there,” Baldwin said afterward. “[Kennedy had] already talked to Martin,” who “had to speak for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, whereas none of us was speaking for any organization.”3 But Kenneth Clark says Baldwin had reached out to King, who couldn’t come because he was tied up in Chicago and instead deputized Clark to speak for him.

May 22, 2018
Even If: Wakanda
If Get Out was outward looking, offering us a way to identify the horrors of whiteness, how it seeks to cannibalize our bodies and force them to host the hoary meanings of resentful and envious whiteness, whiteness as rage and displacement, then Black Panther turns inward to help us remythologize blackness, to see blackness as an imagined kingdom of possibility, to see it as an alternative universe of humane endeavor
All Excerpts From
Michael Eric Dyson. “What Truth Sounds Like.” St. Martin's Press, 2018-03-27. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

This book is aptly subtitled. It is delightful to feel like you're walking into the middle of a conversation and become immediately engaged. You have to sit quietly and concentrate on listening. You get the feeling that Michael Eric Dyson chooses each of his words with precision in telling the stories of other conversations.

Much of the book is centered around a now-famous conversation that was held in 1963 between Attorney General Robert Kennedy with several black leaders at the time, in particular James Baldwin. We get a glimpse into the surprise from Kennedy at the rage shared in the room about racial experiences.

Today we have no excuses for being surprised, if we’ll just listen. Dyson does an excellent job in sharing from his own experiences and those of others about the issues still seething below the surface and sometimes above the surface between blacks and whites. The book isn’t so much prescriptive as it is descriptive. But in understanding the problem more clearly, perhaps we can also discover ways to help solve it.

Some of my favorite lines from What Truth Sounds Like:

“What’s good for black folk is good for the nation."

“There’s an expression in many African countries when you meet somebody for the first time. The greeting is not, ‘Pleased to meet you.’ The greeting is, ‘I see you.’ And I see you in all of the dimensions of who you are.”

“Black protest is a form of black humanitarianism, in fact, is its prelude and often its most righteous incarnation.”

My thanks to Net Galley for the review copy of this book.

An exploration of the black experience of America in terms of a meeting between RFK and many notable members of the black community in 1963.

The author begins by describing the meeting between RFK, James Baldwin, and many other prominent black artists and intellectuals in 1963. RFK was looking for validation but heard the deep pain and anguish regarding the condition of black people in America. At the time RFK did not truly hear it; as time went on it seemed he internalized some of what he learned.

The author spends the rest of the book describing various aspects of the interaction to show how the conversation about race in America is in many ways still at that same point as it was in 1963. Politicians want credit for what has improved but do not want to see how things really are. The author spends time discussing Cornel West and his interactions with Te-Nehisi Coates and Presidents Clinton and Obama in sharply critical ways. He goes into detail about Muhammad Ali and what he represented. The final part of the book is devoted to Black Panther and its value for the black community.

A powerful and gripping read for those willing to dig into the issue.

Michael Eric Dyson has written 19 books, including 4 best-sellers and we own several of his titles (Making Malcolm, The Black Presidency, Tears We Cannot Stop) so I was curious to see his latest: WHAT TRUTH SOUNDS LIKE which is subtitled "RFK, James Baldwin, and our unfinished conversation about race in America." Here, Dyson reviews a private breakfast meeting held in 1963 between then attorney general Robert Kennedy and a group of black intellectuals and entertainers (Lorraine Hansberry, freedom rider Jerome Smith, Lena Horne and Harry Belafonte) organized by James Baldwin. Dyson summarizes the meeting as a "watershed moment in American politics, revealing the limits of liberal good will and the explosive power of truth through testimony."

He argues, "if hope led people to that room more than 50 years ago ... that hope will still be our guide in continuing conversation today." Dyson, a Georgetown University Professor, then compares and contrasts with current actions and discussions involving activists, artists, intellectuals, and politicians, referring to Colin Kaepernick, Jay-Z, Kamala Harris, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Cornel West, and many others. Throughout, there is much focus on anger, but students will likely be intrigued by the historical ties to present day events as well as the section where Dyson comments on The Black Panther and fictional Wakanda. WHAT TRUTH SOUNDS LIKE received a starred review from Booklist.

As always, Dyson is a compelling writer. His intersectional approach to his subject is timely and essential, and his use of the conversation between Kennedy and Baldwin as a helpful lens through which to examine the current state of American discourse around race and politics. A great companion to Tears We Cannot Stop.

What the truth sounds like, and is for me as I sit here and write this review is that I don't know how to review books such as this. Part of me wants to offer a review that strictly focuses on the writing. That (cowardly) part wants to remain neutral in all works that are social hot topics such as politics and race. I don't want to take a side. As reviewer, I feel it's a duty of sorts not to take a side. But another part, a bigger part of me knows I can't be honest and not share my opinions on the subject matter. The issues Michael Eric Dyson addresses in What Truth Sounds Like are happening all around whether or not I pick a side or engage in the conversation.

What Truth Sounds Like focuses on an off-the record (so to speak) conversational discussion Robert Kennedy engaged in James Baldwin and other prolific black American figures during the height of the Civil Rights movements. Baldwin, along with Harry Belafonte, Lorraine Hansberry, Lena Horne, Rip Torn, and few others. Kennedy hoped that with the help of those in attendance, they could provide insight on what laws or politics needed to be done in order to reestablish "peace". Kennedy expected that this gathering of black scholars who'd risen from the chains of Jim Crow's oppressive grasp, would understand that change takes time.

What they explained, and still to this day needs to be explained (for some reason), is that there is no more time.

More on that later...

So... let's put on the reviewer hat. Michael Eric Dyson writes What Truth Sounds Like with a pace that is conversational yet with an urgency that is similar to those who protest that Black Lives Matter. Because I'm a huge fan and have seen him on CNN, MSNBC, and other news outlets, it was refreshing to read his words as opposed to hearing his words and thoughts crammed into a segment. In the same way What Truth Sounds Like is conversational in tone, there's also an obvious love-letter in there to Baldwin (especially) and those who have chosen to carry the torch since Dr Martin Luther King Jr's assassination. Muhammad Ali, Lebron James, The Carters, Colin Kaepernick, and the women who have pioneered the "Me-Too" and "Black Lives Matters" campaigns.

I guess this is where I get personal...

It's not fair to make this review about myself, but as I mentioned, history is happening all around me, us, regardless of my level of participation. Dyson suggests that the Kennedy-Baldwin conversation still needs to be had. Based on the amount of young black men being gunned down by those promising to serve and protect, then beating any charges they are faced, is proof the conversation is not over. The fact that our country elected a bigot that doesn't even denounce the KKK is proof there's more to say. In a world where "BBQ Becky" and the Yale student feel that they need police to protect them from blacks who actually have a right to be where they are.

And it infuriates me. All of it. I grew up in an extremely diverse Utopia that didn't prepare me for the anger I feel when these stories come to light. When someone white tries to convince me that they voted for Trump because he's a business man and can ignore his bigotry just screams you're probably racist. And we can have a conversation why. I'll hear your point but you must hear mine as well.

Like Dyson mentions often in this read, there are moral issues as to why these grievances against people of color keep happening. It's sad. It's really sad that there is this mentality that runs rampant in the US of an "us" against "them". I would love to provide quotes from the text but I wouldn't know where to stop. Because I enjoyed reading Dyson's words so much, I was shocked when the references page popped up.

And then... I continued clicking on the many links provided. To state simply I was engaged in this truth would be a gross understatement. The text is so moving I had to read the references and also go to my local used bookstore to grab a few books (mainly Baldwin's and older Dyson works) that I needed to fuel my soul.

Ultimately, there's no doubt the discussion on race needs to be had. It's imperative because black Americans are tired of continuing to be exploited. Imagine building, funding, living in a world that doesn't find you fit or suitable. You're an outsider. That's where we live. Thank you Michael Eric Dyson for writing What Truth Sounds Like.

Copy Provided by St. Martin's Press via Netgalley

There was a meeting in 1963 between Robert F. Kennedy and James Baldwin and a few of Baldwin’s friends. When you think of an example of speaking truth to power, that meeting as described by Dyson here, will indeed standout as definitive.

Dyson writes “I heard over the years how explosive it was, how it brought together other folk I had admired, including Harry Belafonte. The gathering pitted an earnest if defensive white liberal against a raging phalanx of thinkers, activists, and entertainers who were out for blood. I’ve always wanted to read a book about that historic moment, and more important, about its meaning for us today as we struggle with many of the same issues America confronted 50 years ago.”

Dyson has not written that book, but this one has enough details about that meeting to give a clear picture about what took place. He manages to put the reader in that room while brilliantly filling out the book with looks at the various communities represented. There are chapters on the Artists, Activists, Intellectuals and the Politicians. And Dyson doesn’t just lock into 1963, he brings the discussion current because....”racial and political truths that we still confront today.”

So while that very important and volatile meeting sets the foundation for the book, the actions or inactions of our current community leaders-not in the geographical sense, but community in the sense of interest groups, i.e. Artists, Politicians, etc.-are the brick and mortar that makes this a must read. The melding of the historical with current day concerns and challenges qualifies this work as one of Dyson’s best.

Dyson’s prose and criticism is as always, electric and sharp, “the enshrinement of ignorance as the basis of power and authority, is the personification of white supremacy and white arrogance.” The indictment of white supremacy while encouraging Whites to wake up and recognize is a continued effort from his most previous work, Tears We Cannot Stop. As evidenced by the subtitle here, Dyson is of the belief that the historic meeting in 1963 was an important conversation about race that no doubt needs be to continued and expanded because it remains unfinished. However in this book he has turned up the volume so it’s clear what truth sounds like! Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced DRC. The publishing date is June 5, 2018. Mark your calendar.