Michael Eric Dyson is a Georgetown University sociology professor, a New York Times contributing opinion writer and a contributing editor of The New Republic.

Dyson came from humble roots in Detroit, where he was a welfare father, a church pastor and a factory worker. He started college at 21 and eventually completed his doctorate in religion at Princeton University, studying Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.

He has authored 21 books, taught at elite universities, and won prestigious honors that include an American Book Award and two NAACP Image Awards. Ebony magazine cited him as one of the 100 most influential African Americans, and as one of the 150 most powerful Blacks in the nation.

Dyson’s 1994 book Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X, was named one of the most important African American books of the 20th century and his New York Times bestseller The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America, has been described as “an interpretive miracle” and was a finalist for the 2016 Kirkus Prize.

Dyson has appeared on every major television and radio show in the United States, including The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Real Time with Bill Maher and NPR’s All Things Considered.

“You’re telling me I’m being sensitive, and students looking for safe spaces that they’re being hypersensitive. If you’re white, this country is one giant safe space.”