Toni Morrison Takes White Supremacy To Task

Few intellectuals have waged a public battle against white supremacy and patriarchy like Toni Morrison. Morrison has both examined and challenged systems of domination throughout her intellectual life. With her novels, essays, and interviews she has taken critical looks at the interlocking systems of race and gender oppression. In this interview she is asked by PBS's Charlie Rose what it is like for her to encounter racism. In true Morrison fashion she turns the question on its head, and places the onus for explaining racism back into the hands of White people. She asks Rose what he thinks of racism, why do Whites hold onto, and what are they going to do about it ending it. She rejects the notion that racism is simply something that Black people must grapple with, insisting, demanding, that White people also grapple with it. Fearless. Brilliant. Powerful.

Full Interview: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2790851242454573240#docid=4593061045941294502

Yes I do, Charlie, but let me tell you,

that's the wrong question.

[Charlie Rose] OK What's the right question?

[Toni Morrison] How do you feel?

Not you, Charlie Rose,

but don't you understand

that the people who do this thing,

who practice racism,

are bereft, there is something distorted about the psyche?

It's a huge waste, and it's a corruption

and a distortion.

It's like it's a profound neurosis

that nobody examines for what it is.

It feels crazy.

It is crazy.

And it leaves,

it has just as much of a deliterious effect on white people;

and possibly equal as it does black people.

I always knew that I had the moral high ground.

All my life.

I always thought those people

who said I couldn't come in the drugstore,

I had to sit in this funny place,

I couldn't go in the park...

[Charlie Rose cuts in] You felt morally superior to them from day one.

[Toni Morrison] I did.

And I thought they knew that I knew that they were inferior to me, morally.

I always thought that.

And my parents always thought that.

[Charlie Rose] You said your your father was racist cause he always felt like he was superior...

[Toni Mossison] That's right, he always felt superior,

and that was a form, you know, of defensive racism.

But if the racist white person -

I don't mean a person who is examining his consciousness and so on

- doesn't understand that he or she is also a race,

it's also constructed,

it's also made,

and it also has some kind of serviceability,

but when you take it away,

like take your race away,

and there you are all strung out,

and all you got is your little self,

and what is that?

What are you without racism?

Are ya any good?

Are ya still strong?

Still smart?

You still like yourself?

I mean, these are the questions,

part of it is, "yes, the victim, how terrible it's been for black people..."

I'm not a victim.

I refuse to be one.

[Charlie Rose] And the victim is the other person who is morally inferior...

[Toni Morrison] That's a serious question... of course! ...

[Charlie Rose] ...& who has to hold onto racism to somehow for his or her own self esteem & definition

[Toni Morrison] If you can only be tall because somebody's on their knees,

then you have a serious problem.

And my feeling is, white people have a very very serious problem.

And they should start thinking about what they can do about it.

Take me out of it.

[Charlie Rose] Then give white people some free advice.

[Toni Morrison] They're all in my books [both laughing].

[Charlie Rose] And the advice is... [cuts off]