JERSEY CITY – African-American scholar and bestselling author Dr. Michael Eric Dyson spoke Thursday at Hudson County Community College’s Culinary Arts Center in Jersey City.
Dyson, originally scheduled to speak in February as the second installment of the school’s three-part 2009-2010 Lecture series, honored the rescheduling (due to a snowstorm) by speaking to about 200 people where he entertained as well as educated the audience with his searing analysis on a variety of topics ranging from President Barack Obama to pop sensation Taylor Swift.
Much of his hour-plus lecture, intellectual and humorous, he looked at how Obama changed the politicial and social landscape not in the United States but the world after a near-decade of post-9/11 repression under a George Bush presidency.
“The beauty it seems to be of Mr. Obama’s administration and the Age of Obama is that it challenges this post-imperial presidency,” Dyson said.
Yet Dyson, an outspoken supporter of Obama during the 2008 presidential race, took him to task for not confronting the issue of race while in the White House.
“It’s hard to talk about race, it’s hard to talk about the economy but you got to do it – that’s your job,” Dyson said, “This is not a monarchy, he didn’t inherit the job, he ain’t Prince Charles.”
Dyson also took questions from the audience that spanned from why Dyson uses humor in his lectures to the rising cost of education. Then he did a post-lecture book signing.
Audience members after the lecture came away impressed with Dyson such as Aja Moore, an honors student at the college who had introduced Dyson before his lecture.
“It was an honor a man of Dyson’s stature came to speak at the school,” she said, “and he showed why is one of this country’s foremost scholars.” – RK
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