New York City-based promo products distributor Harper+Scott (asi/220052) has kicked off its new Speaker Series with Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at Vanderbilt University and author of Long Time Coming: Reckoning With Race in America.

On Wednesday, March 31, Dyson led a Zoom meeting about the cultural and social forces that have shaped the United States, and how the country is now actively confronting systemic racism. Organizers said the conversation was especially relevant considering the ongoing trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis Police officer charged in the death of George Floyd. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic influenced the racial pandemic,” Dyson said. “There was a paradigm shift, a ‘race quake’ in the wake of George Floyd because everybody was at home checking their phones and watching TV.”

When breaking down the levels of allyship, Dyson urged people to do more than putting a black box on their Instagram for a day. To truly get involved in the fight for equality, people need to be educated and take action. “Performance is critical to social justice and social awareness,” Dyson said. “If people would read more about the history of this country, they wouldn’t be so misinformed.”

When asked if the current social awareness movement would become the status quo, Dyson said society is experiencing an “incredible period of awakening.” However, there’s plenty more work to be done. “We know amnesia sets in fast. Denial sets in fast,” Dyson said. “We won’t be able to slide into complete indifference like many have before, but you have to get up every morning determined to make a difference. Anything that ends in ‘system’ and ‘institution’ has to be continuously examined for its potential to perpetuate a legacy of inequality.”

When asked about cancel culture, Dyson said he’s vehemently against it. As a Baptist preacher, he believes in grace and mercy. That doesn’t mean he believes in making excuses, though. “Zero tolerance is not a progressive idea,” Dyson said. “The problem with cancel culture is that to be alleged and accused is to be condemned. There’s no weighing of evidence and arguments. I understand that the traditional routes for women and people of color have been so unsatisfactory that we want immediate justice, but this isn’t it.”

Dyson was invited to the Speaker Series by Jon Alagem, co-founder and president of Harper+Scott. In 2003, Alagem was one of Dyson’s students in a class about the late musical artist Tupac Shakur at the University of Pennsylvania.