I often say I'm in the Toni Morrison era of my life. I'm mom-ing a toddler, a full-time technical editor, and scribing my 1st book length nonfiction piece. Touré fits well on the Toni's literary family tree. I'm trying to be worthy of a branch too ❤️🖤💚
I saw this post a couple weeks back, and I let it sink in. I let it clang around in my mind in between Trump shock news, Diddy jail gossip, work, writing, and thinking. Only today did I circle back and watch the documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (2019). I have never read a Toni Morrison book from cover to cover. I have no excuses. I am supposed to be a writer and author, and yet I have committed this author’s sin of not reading Toni Morrison. My father, an African English professor always had her books on his shelves my entire life. Even so, as a voracious reader, I never prioritized diving into a Toni Morrison book.
I have likely read thousands of books in my life including the classic staples of a “conscious rappers bookshelf” Autobiography of Malcolm X, The Miseducation of The Negro, The Destruction of Black Civilization, Why Should White Guys Have All The Fun, Native Son, Invisible Man, The Metu Neter, the list goes on and on. For some reason, as product of 80s and 90s Hip Hop culture, many books I read were everything but Toni Morrison. I was 24 in 2004, I wasn’t into the books that Oprah had in her book clubs.
However, it was because I wasn't "grown" enough to "get it" or see some full generational circles. Born in 1931, it appears Toni Morrison began publishing her books around the age of 40 as well. Now, at 44, I have crossed that line of middle age, and in my reflections about life in America, living abroad, and the current political crisis in America. I will go back and read Toni Morrison. In fact, I will start with her essay “Mourning Whiteness,” in which she articulates exactly what “Trumpism” is: “Americans in fear of losing their veil of whiteness.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/aftermath-sixteen-writers-on-trumps-america
This is one of the last things she wrote before her passing at 88 years old in 2019, I find it like a whisper from the ancestors about what we should do right now! Toni Morrison never got to see Kamala Harris become Vice-President. She never got to see Kamala’s DNC acceptance speech. Toni Morrison, the most powerful champion of black girls and women was so close to seeing the first African-American female president take office. So now, we must pick up the torch from here, and see it for her. Everyone of us who write, think, read, express, build, politic, negotiate, organize, design, and create must pick up where Toni Morrison left off. Toni warned us that “whiteness’ in and of itself was a false veil. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/toni-morrison-trump-election-making-america-white-again American’s (many who got here via immigration) deceive themselves by adhering to a false sense of whiteness.
This explains Trump, MAGA. They are willing to give up their entire human dignity and sense of humanity to save the lost status of “Whiteness.” The high tech social media public lynching of Diddy is part of it. The emasculation of Pharell Williams with million dollar Louis Vuitton purses and cartoonizing his biopic in Legos is part of it.
For Whiteness and racism to survive, it needs trauma, tragedy, and ignorance. It needs to hide or block the truth. It has to perpetuate the lie that we are criminals, unserious, toys, objects, entertainment. It needs us to be multi-million dollar slaves dunking basketballs and catching footballs. What did Tupac say!? “Prison is PACKED and it’s filled with BLACKS!” Now, even those who thought they escaped the plantation in Revolt like Diddy, got snatched back into bondage. Like his album cover: no way out. If American’s vote Trump back in that presidential office On Nov. 5 (whether out of ignorance or deliberately); the United States will fall back into segregation. It will be a slippery slope of decadence, depravity, and deviance, we have not seen since slavery and Jim Crow. May the spirit of Toni Morrison guide us to a better future!
Touré doesn’t miss.
I often say I'm in the Toni Morrison era of my life. I'm mom-ing a toddler, a full-time technical editor, and scribing my 1st book length nonfiction piece. Touré fits well on the Toni's literary family tree. I'm trying to be worthy of a branch too ❤️🖤💚
I saw this post a couple weeks back, and I let it sink in. I let it clang around in my mind in between Trump shock news, Diddy jail gossip, work, writing, and thinking. Only today did I circle back and watch the documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (2019). I have never read a Toni Morrison book from cover to cover. I have no excuses. I am supposed to be a writer and author, and yet I have committed this author’s sin of not reading Toni Morrison. My father, an African English professor always had her books on his shelves my entire life. Even so, as a voracious reader, I never prioritized diving into a Toni Morrison book.
I have likely read thousands of books in my life including the classic staples of a “conscious rappers bookshelf” Autobiography of Malcolm X, The Miseducation of The Negro, The Destruction of Black Civilization, Why Should White Guys Have All The Fun, Native Son, Invisible Man, The Metu Neter, the list goes on and on. For some reason, as product of 80s and 90s Hip Hop culture, many books I read were everything but Toni Morrison. I was 24 in 2004, I wasn’t into the books that Oprah had in her book clubs.
However, it was because I wasn't "grown" enough to "get it" or see some full generational circles. Born in 1931, it appears Toni Morrison began publishing her books around the age of 40 as well. Now, at 44, I have crossed that line of middle age, and in my reflections about life in America, living abroad, and the current political crisis in America. I will go back and read Toni Morrison. In fact, I will start with her essay “Mourning Whiteness,” in which she articulates exactly what “Trumpism” is: “Americans in fear of losing their veil of whiteness.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/aftermath-sixteen-writers-on-trumps-america
This is one of the last things she wrote before her passing at 88 years old in 2019, I find it like a whisper from the ancestors about what we should do right now! Toni Morrison never got to see Kamala Harris become Vice-President. She never got to see Kamala’s DNC acceptance speech. Toni Morrison, the most powerful champion of black girls and women was so close to seeing the first African-American female president take office. So now, we must pick up the torch from here, and see it for her. Everyone of us who write, think, read, express, build, politic, negotiate, organize, design, and create must pick up where Toni Morrison left off. Toni warned us that “whiteness’ in and of itself was a false veil. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/toni-morrison-trump-election-making-america-white-again American’s (many who got here via immigration) deceive themselves by adhering to a false sense of whiteness.
This explains Trump, MAGA. They are willing to give up their entire human dignity and sense of humanity to save the lost status of “Whiteness.” The high tech social media public lynching of Diddy is part of it. The emasculation of Pharell Williams with million dollar Louis Vuitton purses and cartoonizing his biopic in Legos is part of it.
For Whiteness and racism to survive, it needs trauma, tragedy, and ignorance. It needs to hide or block the truth. It has to perpetuate the lie that we are criminals, unserious, toys, objects, entertainment. It needs us to be multi-million dollar slaves dunking basketballs and catching footballs. What did Tupac say!? “Prison is PACKED and it’s filled with BLACKS!” Now, even those who thought they escaped the plantation in Revolt like Diddy, got snatched back into bondage. Like his album cover: no way out. If American’s vote Trump back in that presidential office On Nov. 5 (whether out of ignorance or deliberately); the United States will fall back into segregation. It will be a slippery slope of decadence, depravity, and deviance, we have not seen since slavery and Jim Crow. May the spirit of Toni Morrison guide us to a better future!
Yes, yes, yes!
Great video essay on the GOAT. She also discovered Henry Dumas and saved his work from obscurity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dumas?wprov=sfti1#