Michael Eric Dyson Goes OFF on ‘Lethal Ignorance’ of Joe Rogan Questioning His Blackness: ‘Damn Sure Proved’ His ‘Whiteness’

Professor Michael Eric Dyson fricasseed podcaster Joe Rogan over remarks about Dyson’s skin color and Blackness, blasting Rogan’s “lethal ignorance.”

Earlier this week on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Rogan and guest Jordan Peterson held forth on the subject of Dyson’s skin color, which they agreed was insufficiently dark to merit the appellation “Black.”

Peterson, still smarting from the time Dyson quipped “You’re a mean, mad White man” during a debate several years ago, remarked “I am white — actually that’s a lie too. I am kind of tan. And he was actually not Black, he was sort of brown.”

This resulted in a rumination from Rogan that included the observation that “Unless you are talking to someone who is, like, 100% African from the darkest place, where they are not wearing any clothes all day and they have developed all of that melanin to protect themselves from the sun, even the term Black is weird.”

Professor Dyson responded during a guest appearance on CNN’s Don Lemon Tonight, and pulled no punches.

Host Don Lemon introduced the professor of African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University and author of “Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America,” and asked him to weigh in on the conversation.

You know, you would hope they were joking because if they weren’t, this exposes the vast lethal ignorance at the heart of so much whiteness, whether intentional or not.

We all know that Black is not a phenotypical reality. We’re not talking about a genetic predisposition toward darker skin. We’re speaking about an existential context. We’re talking about a philosophical idea. We’re speaking about rooted cultures in deep histories that have vast traditions, that have generated complicated identities. And we know that blackness in terms of its identity ranges from vanilla vitality to chocolate charm. And all ranges in between.

So, it’s not about shade. It’s not about a kind of inherited characteristic of race. Race is, as we’ve been arguing in school, and I would advise Dr. Peterson and brother Rogan to take a class, when we talk about race as a social construct, what we’re saying is it’s not about a biological determinism, it’s about an inherited set of beliefs that depend upon a society to imbue it with meaning. And therefore, it’s not simply about who you are, your skin color, your hair, your shade and tone.

Now, while they unsuccessfully challenged my blackness, they damn sure proved to their whiteness. Indifferent to history, oblivious to truth, and indifferent to reality.

Prof. Dyson went on to lampoon Rogan’s view of life in Africa and told Lemon that “Brother Rogan is smarter than that” and “knows better.”

“But do they know better or are they just speaking to the people in their audience and just sort of capitalizing on that thinking that’s what they want to hear?” Lemon asked.

Dyson replied that “I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive,” and that “they’re playing to the ignorance of their audience, but they’re also, you know, exposing a kind of lethal ignorance about the very nature of race itself.”

Watch above via CNN.