"Two lost souls on the highway of life.
Now ain't it just great,
and ain't it just grand,
we got each other."
Morrison's Literary Work
Somewhere I read, almost certainly in a passage written by James Baldwin, an account of a young Afroamerican couple, deeply in love with each other, who were stopped while driving by the police in either South Carolina or North Carolina. After the young man showed his driving license, he was briefly searched. Then at least one of the policemen 'searched' the young woman — and during the 'search' slowly put his hands under her brassiere and felt her breasts and then placed his hand or hands under her panties and felt her private parts. Finding no contraband, the officers then released the couple and returned to their duties of protecting the public. After this very painful episode, the two young people were unable to discuss the event in any meaningful way. The erstwhile lovers gradually drifted apart and did not get married as might otherwise have been expected. It goes without saying among those familiar with the mores of U.S. Southern segregation that the young man would have reasonably expected that if he had done anything to protect the honor of his lover that he would have been beaten, most likely have been arrested, and might — indeed — even been murdered. And, the young woman would most likely had very similar expectations. Still, this particular twosome were decisively separated by their experience.
Different people, of course, respond to such situations in different ways. The very strong ethos among 'black Muslims' to protect their women with force (as needed) is one obvious response. And one occasionally hears stories of various Afroamerican women who have said — whether they acted upon their words or not — that a real man, even a real 'white' man would be preferable to a man who would not be a 'man' when his wife, his lover, his children, or his mother were dishonored by a white man (or anyone else for that matter). Below, I will consider how Toni Morrison has addressed aspects of this issue.
In Toni Morrison's work, one sees instances of couples choosing (both during the epochs of slavery and segregation, with excursions into the present epoch) to cleave to each other even when one or both of them have been 'branded' by willing and/or unwilling deeds of sexual behavior that have occurred under enormous duress and these deeds have left their physical and psychological marks (memories, dreams, violence…). These stories are told with great detail and elaborate craft. Two examples of this approach are found in the novels, Jazz (1992) and Beloved (1987). For a Morrison novel (!), the story in Jazz is relatively straightforward. We discuss it first.
As in other Morrison novels, there are flashbacks, ruminations, different 'voices' (perspectives) and dreams so that it takes some time for the main story to emerge. The story itself, however, is rather straightforward. A married woman, Violet, defaces and desecrates the corpse of a young woman (Dorcas) who had an affair with her husband, Joe. Joe is in fact the murder of the young woman. [The author's artifice (special circumstances) prevents legal punishments, but allow the local Afroamerican community to know the main details of the events.] After various twists and turns the novel finally culminates with this now older couple 'keeping on' at 'keeping on.' And as the disparate strands of the story finally come together the ending of Jazz is - to me - quite beautiful. She renders — as it were — a final triumphant verbal paean to the people of Harlem that reads like the final trills of a trumpeter. As I read the last few pages I was reminded of my first trip to New York City in 1958 when my guides were taking me through a few streets of Harlem where I saw more people living and crowded together than I had ever seen and I was struck by the pulsing energy that came up and our of these brick apartment buildings, concrete sidewalks and asphalt streets. [I had grown up in a very small Eastern Kentucky town with only a few visits to smaller cities.] Also, on a personal note, the very difficult reconciliation of Joe and Violet Trace — amplified, of course, by the hyperbolic plot that is Morrison's sui generis trademark — struck a chord within me. I haven't had such dramatic incidents in my own life — but having recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of my wife's and my own marriage I am conscious that any marriage is to some extent a closed circle that has its own ups and downs. And, apparently for the great majority of couples, some of those strains are quiet severe even in the 50% of those marriages that do not end up in divorce.
Morrison's renown Beloved is a much more complex novel which highlites the after effects of a runaway slave (Sethe) who murdered her own child to prevent the child from being enslaved. The starting point in Morrison's mind for the book was the actual murder of a child by a runaway slave mother, Margaret Garner, who did not want her child to grow up in slavery. This book, too, has its flashbacks, different voices, historical underpinnings along with it haunting dreams and ghosts — and one might even say — some 'black magic'. Extended commentary about the book in various literature venues suggest that this was the primary work in her literature portfolio leading to her 1993 Nobel Prize in literature. Morrison later commented that she left 'Beloved' — the chimera, ghost, and presence of Sethe's murdered baby — to be the one that might judge Sethe. Morrison's comment strikes me as an extraordinary raw and honest comment by an author about her own work. Following our own theme, however, the subplot involving the sometimes tortured relationship between Sethe and Paul D. exemplifies another example of Morrison's working thru the closed circle of the enslaved. (Paul D. is another runaway from the original Kentucky plantation where Sethe had been married and borne her children.) Morrison's novel ends with Sethe, Paul D. and Sethe's daughter Denver proceeding forward as a small family, again, as it were, under the injunction "to keep on keeping on." She portrays in exquisite detail the haunting ghosts of slavery. And her stated intention has been to describe those the forgotten black women and black communities who have lived through slavery, segregation, and have endured up until the present. Her unique rendering of blackworld, blacktalk, and blacksong serves those ends quite well.
More General Thematics by the Commentator (LCHj)
However, one need not — indeed one must not — subscribe to everything that an author says about her work in order to appreciate it. Authors' words about their works can be illuminating — but in generally they are quite incomplete about both the strengths and weaknesses of such work. Morrison is no exception. And, in that spirit, I want to look at a several comments she has made and place them in a wider context.
In the dedication to Beloved Morrison mentions the "Sixty Million and more" who perished during the African Slave trade. The dedication, of course, evokes the words "Many Thousands gone" in the old Spiritual, "No more auction block for Me." Now, in actual fact, I would think that she is, indeed, historically correct in suggesting that the number '60,000,000' is a probable understatement of the damage done by the slave trade and its implementation. Now, being explicit about my own commentator's presupposition as a fair-colored human being who has lived ~93% of my life within the continental United States, I believe that the Holocaust (1933-1945) and the Institution of Chattel slavery within the United States from ~1700—1865 constitute the two of the most egregious acts — if not the two most egregious acts of communal evil within modern Western (Euroamerican) civilization. Others, of course, may have different views. The post-1492 appropriation of American lands accompanied by malice and murders of the native people could be viewed as a 'single' communal act. However, I wish to single out the period from 1700-1865 in the United States for special attention.
From the beginning of the 18th Century until the end of the U.S. Civil War, the novel legal and religious fiction was developed and empowered which held that, in particular, the children of a union between a father of European ancestry and a mother of African ancestry was of the 'same race' as the mother. This novel fiction had arisen, especially in the Southern British Colonies, to meet two particular challenge for slaveholders. First, the native Americans did not 'cotton' to slavery and, furthermore, were able to escape more easily than the imported African slaves. Secondly, the tenuous boundaries between indentured servants from Europe and slaves from Africa (indentured servants were sometimes kept in bondage for 2-3 decades, a significant number of slaves either bought their freedom or were freed by their masters) created additional practical difficulties. Fair skinned runaway indentured servants could often disappear into the general mix of fair-skinned European colonists. It was much easier for the slave master and his hired minions to find a 'runaway' with African physical features than to find and identify one with European or native American features. The most immediate practical consequence of this new doctrine was that a slave-owning father could sell his own son or daughter.
I have used the term 'fiction' to describe this new doctrine — whether expressed in enforced laws or in theological doctrine — but this 'doctrine' was, in fact, both a historical lie and a deep dive into collective moral depravity. On the other hand, once this doctrine became the 'norm' within the slaveholding states, individuals growing up within these environments had to face these norms in one way or another. And, over time, new developments occurred. Soon a child of the union between parents of European and African ancestry was termed a 'mulatto' — whether the union was one of love, mutual desire, or violent rape. Then, a child of a European parent and a 'mulatto' was termed a 'quadroon.' In Louisiana, especially, this terminology became quite developed as 'white' men would have 'quadroon' mistresses with 'octaroon' children who could be sold or freed as the white father decided. In most of the slaveholding South, however, a 'simpler' perspective held sway — any trace of African ancestry tainted the offspring as members of a race that were or could be legally treated as chattel. This fundamentally dishonest classification system has always had its practical as well as moral difficulties, but its effects — a century and a half after the 15th Amendment abolished slavery — have been and continue to be readily seen. Our language has been buffeted about as well — 'African','colored', 'negro', 'black' and 'Afroamerican' — are 4 of the more prominent terms that have been used at different times and by different groups to refer to those people living within the United States who have visible features (skin tint, hair textures, lips, hip structure) that provide immediate evidence of probable or definite African ancestry within the past century or so. The fundamental problem, of course, is that it is a lie — as a general rule peoples who live near the equator are quite dark and people who live far from the equator are lighter. And, peoples who live in or around the Arctic Circle are quite fair in complexion. Of course, all human beings who live today outside of Africa are descendants of people who left Africa sometime between 300,000 years ago and yesterday.
I spend some time on this issue because such facts matter. From my own perspective, the combination of the 'dark passage' of the transatlantic slave ships with their terrible death-&-murder rates and the subsequent legal empowerment of fathers to sell their own children and of any slaveowner to separate spouses and children constitute a very, very dark episode in the history of human kind…
However, it is necessary to put even the most terrible deeds into their human context. The Holocaust was not simply a collective crime against humankind by the German nation under the leadership of Hitler and his fellow Nazis. The Holocaust was the product of centuries of occasional pogroms, creation of Jewish ghettos, and other forms of festering anti-semitism within Christianity that have roots reaching back to the resentments of early Christians against persecutions by Jewish authorities in the first century (CE).
Likewise, chattel slavery is but one of the forms of slavery that have plagued the human species. Most slaves brought to the Americas were bought from Africans. Slaves are mentioned as a fact of life in Jewish, Christians, and Muslim scriptures. In many instances, slaves were able to eventually earn their own freedom. Separation of families has sometimes been restricted by law — in recent centuries Roman Catholic venues prohibited some of the horrific excursions legally permitted in U.S. protestant venues. But, I am not adding all these excesses up or making strict comparisons. I once read of an old African man who stated that one should not 'count' one's children. In a similar manner I hazard that counting the dead with only half an eye can sometimes be even worse than looking away. There are some very unhealthy ways of remembering real facts. I am certain that the Turks committed terrible atrocities in Serbia 500 years ago, but there are some very unhealthy ways of remembering real facts. These atrocities against the Serbs and the Turks more recent atrocities against the Serbs, Kurds and Armenians do not excuse the siege of Sarajevo or the mass graves of Srebrenica. Likewise, the murders of the Holocaust do not excuse the current Israeli practice of killing 10 Palestinians for every Israeli citizen killed. There have been, are, and — presumably — will continue to be far too many society sanctioned misdeeds and murders. An extraordinarily large proportion of them are inspired and committed by nations, ethnic groups, and religious institutions who are only able to count their own dead.
Some Morrison Comments
Toni Morrison has sometimes said that her work is explicitly 'political'. And, indeed it is — just as Hemingway and Faulkner were 'political.' Human beings are indeed political, sexual, societal, and physical beings. And, I would certainly agree with her that non-political literature, non-political law, or non-political press do not exist. There are, however, important distinctions that must be made. Both fairness and honesty is always needed in politics. They are usually incompletely present, but an explicit interest in their pursuit is often needed. Morrison has stated words to the effect that her intent is to give voice to forgotten black persons and forgotten black women. Now, as a matter of fact, she also includes others in her work. For example in Mercy (1992), set during the early days of colonial slavery she includes chapters on a white couple, Jacob and Rebekka Vaark, in addition to the several slave women who are the main focus of the novel. And she references with appreciation various authors who have been useful to her. However, her appreciation for white women in segregated societies is surprisingly sparse in the literature that I have seen. The Grimké sisters of South Carolina during slavery, Lillian Smith's opposition to lynching during the early 1900's, and fellow Noble Laureate (2007), Doris Lessing, seem to have been given short shrift in her analyses. These women have known that the pedestal of 'white womanhood' in racialized caste systems was simply a flattering form of enslavement. Their work provides insight for any woman or man concerned about the links between sexual roles and societal injustice.
In commenting about the killing and murders of young African-American youth Morrison is reported to have said:
"People keep saying: 'We need to have a conversation about race.' This is the conversation. I want to see a cop shoot a white unarmed teenager in the back. And I want to see a white man convicted for raping a black woman. Then when you ask me, 'Is it over?', I will say yes."
Morrison is off the mark. Policemen shoot and have been shooting unarmed teenagers and older men in the back from the time they began to holster weapons. For several generations an obscenely large proportion of those killing and murders involve Afroamericans and have frequently remained unpunished. If the general society does not respect 'black lives' when manslaughter or murder is committed by a person wearing a badge, then — in actuality — none of us is safe. Some people respond to such selective killings with their own 'selective' killings. In killing some policemen in Dallas, a young African American ex-soldier is reported to have said, "I want to kill white people — especially white policemen". Several other 'random' killings of police have not been solved. But, returning to our topic. Killings by policemen — all too often unpunished — are hardly restricted to Afroamericans or to members of other minority groups. On a more positive and, I believe, a more important note, there are large differences in the latitude with which different cities and communities permit their members to use deadly force. Committed people can bring about positive changes in their communities.
At another point Morrison made the comment "I teach my children that there is a part of yourself that you keep from white people — always." Of course, if you think of your 'white' audience simply as necessary 'help' for your career, the 'help' may hear some things that you did not intend them to hear.
Final Comments
From the mix of her own experience, her readings, her conversations, and her considerable talents, Toni Morrison has created stories of the enduring problems for the descendants of slaves in the American Republic. Her work has helped to considerably broaden the scope of U.S. and Western literature which is, of course, the why and how she has earned the Nobel Prize in literature and other awards. Some of her wider generalizations about her characters and her work are not untypical and share assumptions about the 'practical truth' of racial distinctions and injustice that are held in one way or another by a great number of U.S. citizens, particularly those who are politically active and/or are older. When she speaks in more general and ideological terms about her work, her remarks are often technically quite interesting and always politically relevant. In my opinion, however, her moral vision does not reach the level of her high artistic skill and her intense personal energy.
Selected Bibliography
Carolyn Forché, Editor (1993) Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness. W.W. Norton & Company: New York/London. 812 pages.
Sarah Moore Grimké (1838; 1970) Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women. Lenox Hill (Burt Franklin): New York. 128 pages.
Harriet A. Jacobs (1861: 2000) Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by herself. Jean Fagan Yellin, Editor. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England. 336 pages.
Thomas D. Morris (1987) Southern Slavery and the Law: 1619-1860. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill/London. 575 pages.
Toni Morrison (1987) Beloved. Alfred Knopf. New York.
Toni Morrison (1992) Jazz. Alfred A. Knopf: New York. 229 pages.
Toni Morrison (2008) A Mercy. Alfred A. Knopf: New York. 274 pages.
Danille Taylor-Guthrie (1994) Conversations with Toni Morrison. University Press of Mississippi: Jackson, Mississippi. 293 pages.
Digital Bibliography
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/25/toni-morrison-books-interview-god-help-the-child
