I am a huge fan of Toni Morrison. The Bluest Eye was the first assigned reading that I actually read from cover to cover. I devoured it...and remember being so glad to have a reading assignment that actually was about me...about something I could relate to easily.
Not only am I a fan of Morrison's writing but also of her oratory. Periodically I scan the web for interviews or lectures she's given. The below footage is my most recent find.
In reference to the question of whether today's young women, particularly African American women, are able to connect with The Bluest Eye (in the same way that Morrison and women of the 1970s did) she states:
"[Young African American Women] seem to be excessively confident in themselves...They don't even know what I'm talking about....."
I am surprised by Toni Morrison's statement. My blogging on this is not meant to be viewed as me pointing the finger at her only, but I guess as more of a launching pad for discussion on collective responsiblility. I've heard it before...when asking elders about a young person's ability to do or think about virtually anything...I've seen that facial expression before. In my view it's a community issue. When elders write off young people's ability to feel or relate then they also (I'm sure unconsciously) shut off major points of dialogue.
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Something surreal happened to me at work today. I was doing an activity to help introduce Birmingham's role in the modern Civil Rights Movement. My group consisted of children from the ages 4-16 and they were all attending a summer camp at their church. At the end of the activity...we had a discussion about "the movement" and the people who were involved. The students then followed by asking several questions but one stayed with me:
A young Black girl about 10 years old told me, "It's hard to talk about this stuff...I feel funny going through the museum. What is that funny feeling and will I always have it?"
Her question and the comments of other young people in the room clearly serve as evidence that young people have an ability to connect with their identity in ways which even Toni Morrison (in the above post) and other elders would find hard to imagine.
In response to the young girl's question I basically told her that she was probably feeling her history and that was a good thing. Instead of being afraid she should continue to remember and use her feelings as motivation.
One time Charile Rose was interviewing Toni Morrison and he asked her (paraphrasing here): "Don't you ever get tired and feel weighed down by always writing about heavy race topics like slavery?" Morrsion commented (paraphrasing again), "No. All I have to do is write about the past. They (Slaves) had to live it. The least that I can do is make sure that they are remembered."
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Somewhere in this process is the next step, a bridge, a link to the past. My personal goal is find it and help be a conduit for not just dialgue, but also reasonable action.
1 comment:
“They don’t even know what I’m talking about.”
Wow. Then why’d she write the book? If she’s suggesting that our generation cannot understand/relate to the issues in The Bluest Eye, essentially her experiences, what benefit would there be in reading it? As a non African American female, I would hypothetically have even less benefit.
I do not believe either of those statements is true. Reading The Bluest Eye does not give me Morrison’s own experiences, but it is the closest I can come to gaining an otherwise unattainable perspective. And as for not understanding the particulars of issues, that may be true. (My ancestors were not enslaved, though they did walk the Trail of Tears.) However, in my short lifetime, as a female in the South, I’ve experienced oppression: sexism and heterosexism are still everywhere, particularly in the Bible Belt and Baptist Church I was raised in. So my point, however ineloquently expressed, is that today’s generation of females still face oppression and repression, simply in different forms than Morrison’s—and that we can relate. That our “confidence” is contradictory: we owe its very possibility to the strength of women like Morrison, but I don’t know a woman, or a person for that matter, who has never been insecure—that maybe this confidence is projected on us because how dare we, with all the progress that’s been made, still feel oppressed and insecure?
When it becomes a game of “Who’s had it worst?” nobody wins: no one can connect, find common ground or begin to understand.
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