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| Michael Eric Dyson |
In ALA Opener, Michael Eric Dyson
Delivers Stirring Case for Diversity
Publishers Weekly: 6.25.2016 by Andrew Albanese
ALA 2016 got off to a rollicking start. At the opening
general session on Friday, in Orlando, author and political commentator Michael Eric Dyson delivered a timely, impassioned
keynote that brought a standing ovation. “When we think about where we are as a
nation right now, we know that literacy is critical to sustaining an
intelligent citizenry,” he said. “And libraries are critical to that function.”
Over the course of his 35-minute talk, Dyson, a
frequent political commentator for MSNBC, mostly steered away from politics.
“I've been warned against [talking politics]” he said, noting the ALA’s
501(c)(3) status. “And I will for the most part acknowledge that. I ain’t here
to tell you who to vote for. You got sense,” he said to laughter and applause.
Nevertheless, in referencing his latest book, The Black Presidency: Barack
Obama and the Politics of Race in America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Dyson
conceded that it was “a refreshing breath of air” to have someone “who knows
how to conjugate verbs up in the White House.”
He then went on to call out a strain of
anti-intellectualism he sees gripping the country, calling libraries
"citadels of enlightenment" in a culture that is "peppered by a
dyspeptic resistance to high intelligence in the service of deep truth,” and
alluding to those who "appear proud to be unmolested by enlightenment.”
And though he acknowledged the benefits of social media, he stressed the importance
of books. "Twitteracy," he said, "is not literacy."
Throughout his talk, Dyson delighted the audience
with humor, often preaching, rapping, and at one point even singing opera. He
recited Tennyson with ease, and placed great American writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson,
David Henry Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
alongside “the great philosopher Christopher Wallace,” explaining that
"literacy" is more than the mechanics of reading and writing, or
whether or not one goes to school. “Literacy is the capacity to engage in
intellectual reflection,” he stressed, a “rendezvous with wisdom,” through
which we become “more humane.” READ MORE @
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