https://www.cbc.ca/news/e...-1.5237176

kitbradley said:

I never read any of her books. But Oprah turned one of them, "Beloved", into a movie. It is deep! It took 2 or 3 watches for me to get the full meaning of it.

I actually had to read Beloved twice before I understood the full meaning. Toni was a fantastic writer, but not an easy read, that's for sure. It takes committment and focus to read her works.

:f:

Podcast per the NY Public Library
https://www.nypl.org/blog...gela-davis

Podcast #97: Toni Morrison and Angela Davis on Connecting for Progress


One of Morrison's most intriguing positions is that the enactment of violence is equivalent to self-destruction. In answer to one question, she discussed the detriment of homophobia to the homophobic:

"Homophobia—it’s so obviously—the violence connected with that, it’s so obviously a destruction of the self, I mean it’s just blatant, you know, to me, this others, or maybe people don’t realize it so much, but calling people names and beating them up and hanging people off of fences, I mean it’s just so self-destructive, you know. The more vicious it is toward the so-called homosexual person, the more violence there is toward oneself in that, and I think that that, you know, distributes itself in other kinds of scapegoats."

Morrison spoke about the way the power of language to define our identities. In particular, she was interested in the social potential of the word "citizen":

"Citizen suggests some relationship with your neighbors, your block, your town, with the village. After World War II they stopped using that word and we were consumers. That’s all you could hear, the American consumer this and the American consumer that. And we bought things for status and that’s what we were supposed to do. Now, what are we? We are taxpayers. All of a sudden, it’s about my little tax, my little money, I don’t want to give it to the government, those people who should not have it. You know, the people, we talk about capitalism sort of seeping into the blood, they just change the language and redefine us and we go for it. My driver was fussing about his taxes. I said, “so what? You pay taxes, so what?” But you know, all of a sudden we lose who we are, or are redefined. And when the language changes, we change. The labels change, so all of a sudden it’s about taxes. If I hear any something else about taxes—but if we were still citizens, that’s a different thing. We feel some obligation. We don’t pass by people."

Where to Start If You Haven't Read Enough of Toni Morrison's Books


https://time.com/5645078/...In8Lt9ZQbA