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After Helping Author On Book About Obama And Biden, Michael Eric Dyson Goes With Pro-Establishment Endorsement Of Biden

After Helping Author On Book About Obama And Biden, Michael Eric Dyson Goes With Pro-Establishment Endorsement Of Biden

Dyson
Joe Biden has made some mistakes but author and Georgetown U. Prof. Michael Eric Dyson endorsed him anyway, partly for his relationship with Barack Obama. Vice President Joe Biden, left, talks at Morehouse College, Nov. 10, 2015, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/David Goldman). Michael Eric Dyson speaks during the funeral service for Aretha Franklin at Greater Grace Temple, Aug. 31, 2018, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Author and Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson, who has investigated and championed hip-hop and the work of Jay-Z, formally endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for president.

In a video posted on Twitter over the weekend, Dyson said he knows Biden has made some mistakes. However, Dyson praised Biden’s relationship with former President Barack Obama and a political career that put Biden on the front lines for 40 years, “making certain that those who are most vulnerable will be spoken up for.”

Dyson joins other high-profile Biden endorsers including Sanford Bishop, Amy Klobuchar, Susan Rice, former Democratic candidates Senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, and Michael Bloomberg and Pete Buttigieg.

“I think that Senator Biden, given his extraordinary history — I think that Vice President Biden, given his extraordinary service — will make a tremendous president,” Dyson said, crediting Biden for being “a fierce advocate of the downtrodden.”

On social media, not everyone agreed with Dyson. Benjamin Dixon tweeted, “Nothing but respect for you, Professor. You’re wrong about Biden, but nothing but love for you. Ps… you’re wrong about Biden. But mad love for you … But you’re wrong about Biden.”

Dyson praised Biden as an “extraordinary advocate for those who need help.” He said Biden “has given his service completely in our devotion to those principles that we all share. Like any other figure, of course he has made mistakes and I’m cognizant of and conscious of those mistakes but nothing he has done in any way argues against his valorous service, in any way … undermines his fitness for office to be the standard bearer for American democracy.”

On Twitter, Tramellionaire Tha Good Father was among those unwilling to forgive Biden’s mistakes. He replied to Dyson tweeting, “Nah Fam… that ‘Crime Bill’ @JoeBiden WROTE was the gateway to #MassIncarceration.”

Dyson insists Biden is the man to lead the country during perilous times. “In this age of malicious mendacity and vulgar mediocrity, we need a man of extraordinary gifts, character and consistency to take the helm of this nation,” he said. “We are in perilous times and Vice President Joe Biden is the man for the job.”

In a recent interview with Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC, Dyson said that Black voters are unhappy with Democrats. “Black voters are sick and tired of being taken for granted and sick and tired of being rendered last on the totem pole,” Dyson said. Candidates can’t “just go to the Black church and win Black voters…you have to have a game plan,” he said.

Biden has risen to the occasion, Dyson said on his Twitter video. He has been “made fit for office by his extraordinary partnership, not only with President Obama but even before that with millions of people with whom he has struck common cause in defending the very fundamental principles of our democracy. I am proud to endorse Joe Biden for president.”

One name missing so far off the list of Biden endorsers is former candidate Elizabeth Warren’s.

In a speech on the eve of Super Tuesday, Warren said that she respected and admired Biden bit he is not the way forward, Common Dreams reported. “Nominating someone who wants to restore the world before Donald Trump, when the status quo has been leaving more and more people behind for decades, is a big risk for our party and our country,” Warren said.

Dyson has authored books including “Holler If You Hear Me: Searching For Tupac Shakur” and “Born To Use Mics: Reading Nas’s Illmatic.”

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He wrote the foreword for the book, “Barack and Joe: The Making of an Extraordinary Partnership” by Steven Levingston. In the foreword, Dyson described the relationship between Obama and Biden as “the magical melding of two forceful personalities who were quite dissimilar in many ways, but no less capable of turning their differences into national benefit.”

Dyson also defended Jay-Z when the hip-hop artist and entrepreneur announced Roc Nation’s controversial contract with the NFL, agreeing to advise the NFL on live music, entertainment and social justice projects. Jay-Z was accused of being a sellout for doing business with the organization that colluded to punish Colin Kaepernick for kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice.

“It is hardly wrong for Jay-Z to do well while doing good,” Dyson wrote for the Washington Post. He is “motivated by grand ideals and good ends. Even Malcolm X, once he freed himself from his earlier narrow views, concluded that ‘Dr. King wants the same thing I want — freedom!’ So does Colin Kaepernick. So does Jay-Z. And so should we.'”