Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

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

As the country grapples with racist division at a level not seen since the 1960s, one man’s voice is heard above the rest. In his New York Times op-ed piece Death in Black and White, Michael Eric Dyson moved a nation. Isabel Wilkerson called it an unfiltered Marlboro of black pain and crushingly powerful, and Beyonce tweeted about it. 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. Short, emotional, literary, powerful-this is the book that all Americans who care about the current and long-burning crisis in race relations will want to read.