{"id":333,"date":"2008-10-27T07:33:33","date_gmt":"2008-10-27T13:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/crawler\/?p=333"},"modified":"2008-10-27T07:43:10","modified_gmt":"2008-10-27T13:43:10","slug":"sociologist-michael-eric-dyson-on-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2008\/10\/27\/sociologist-michael-eric-dyson-on-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"sociologist Michael Eric Dyson on Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Creative Commons licensed photo by Barack Obama on flickr.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/94975828@N00\/2976561511\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3291\/2976561511_3d729bd23f_t.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"20081025_Reno_NV_Rally0177\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/news\/feature\/2008\/10\/24\/dyson_interview\/\">Salon Magazine<\/a> interviewed Georgetown University sociologist Michael Eric Dyson about Barack Obama and race in America. Salon writes, &#8220;According to sociologist and Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson, Barack Obama has already won the election. But if he were white, &#8216;he&#8217;d be up by 15 to 20 points in the polls.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>An excerpt from the interview:\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Does it not surprise you that two-thirds of black Americans say race relations are poor?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not at all. Regardless of whether or not they make $100,000, they still see barriers imposed that white brothers and sisters don&#8217;t see. If you were stopped by a policeman, as a black person you think: Will they make up some story that I tried to run and shoot me in the back? I use that example because I have been pulled over by the police several times despite the fact that I have a Ph.D. from Princeton and some notoriety. It makes no difference. You are still afraid. That is the great equalizer among black people, regardless of how rich or well-known they are.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It would obviously be an enormous achievement if Barack Obama were to be elected president. What would he be able to change for black Americans?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Well, let&#8217;s start with what he can&#8217;t change. Given the investment of black people in Mr. Obama&#8217;s success, you would think that he was a kind of political Santa Claus, that the day after he was elected, black people wouldn&#8217;t have to pay taxes or would get a get-out-of-jail-free card. But social inequalities will still be real. Ironically enough, he has imposed upon himself certain restrictions when it comes to showing a willingness to be susceptible to the demands of black people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Read\u00a0Cordula Meyer&#8217;s interview with Dyson <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/news\/feature\/2008\/10\/24\/dyson_interview\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Salon Magazine interviewed Georgetown University sociologist Michael Eric Dyson about Barack Obama and race in America. Salon writes, &#8220;According to sociologist and Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson, Barack Obama has already won the election. But if he were white, &#8216;he&#8217;d be up by 15 to 20 points in the polls.&#8217;&#8221; An excerpt from the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39074],"tags":[39112,39110,154,39115,39111],"class_list":["post-333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sightings","tag-culture","tag-inequality","tag-political","tag-politics","tag-race"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions\/337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}