Toni Morrison：“白人有一个非常，非常严重的问题......带我出来”

From Detroit to Damascus, tributes have been pouring in for the literary giant born Chloe Ardelia Wofford (and known as Toni Morrison) who died last week, at age 88.

Here’s an homage from Toronto writer Dionne Brand关于第一个和唯一只有黑人女性在文献中宣称诺贝尔奖。它在全球和邮件发布，部分内容：“女士莫里森拒绝了欧美叙事的要求将黑人带入世界与白天相邻的世界。她为我们的生活和生命本身制造了我们的核心。“

And here’s Morrison’s now widely circulated response to a once prominent white American television figure (since turfed) when he asked her how she dealt with racism.

“让我告诉你，这是一个错误的问题，”她酷之后回答道。“难道你不明白，那些做这件事的人，练习种族主义，都是局部？对着心灵有一些扭曲的东西。“

She continued: ”… I always knew that I had the moral high ground. … My feeling is that 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.”

Well …

一生的崇拜者,诚然挑战里德r of Morrison’s exquisite work (every novel sinceTar Babydemanded from me multiple readings), I met the esteemed Nobel Laureate once. The encounter happened in San Francisco where I’d been invited to introduce another writer who, afterward, would introduce Morrison to a jam-packed audience.

I arrived backstage where Morrison and the acclaimed British author had just returned from what I gathered had been a lavish meal. Clearly close friends, the women were in a jovial mood. Transfixed, I listened as Morrison began chatting about the precision with which she’d crafted a passage in a recent book. As the writer told it, she’d toiled mightily to capture, for the reader, the exact make and colour (green) of a car she’d imagined for the scene.

终于满意，莫里森说，她向她的编辑派出了文本，确实如此称赞她散文的美丽。但有一个问题，她向她的朋友们倾向。“他告诉我，汽车尚未在我设置这段经文时发明。”

And with that, the Nobel Laureate, thoroughly enchanted with herself, let loose with a burst of laughter that filled the room.

当我后来发现自己需要她的帮助时，我试图记住莫里森的高烈酒。背部：20世纪70年代时代纽约时报书评论家，为莫里森的早期小说提供了微弱的赞美，允许提交人有才华但是责任她wasting it（强调矿山）“省美国生活的黑人”。相反，审稿人（白色和女性）建议莫里森关注更广泛（读：白种人）世界。

The review brought a firestorm of complaints to the newspaper, including a letter from a then emerging writer named Alice Walker. “It is preciselybecause莫里森女士们致力地围绕着年轻黑人女性的内心生命......在[评论家]呼叫“省级”的环境中，她对那些读过她的每个人都有这样的影响，“未来的作者紫色. “She invariably tells us things we did not know or recognize before. … The people of the mainstream just haven’t realized it yet. But then, they are often so late.”

Walker mailed a copy of the letter to Morrison who, in turn, sent her a thank you note; a missive that I was eager, by the late 1990s, to reprint in my book,爱丽丝沃克: A Life.

但有一个问题。虽然沃克维持了备忘录的物质，但版权法决定了我确保莫里森的书面许可来使用其内容。打电话给我石化。

After several weeks of agonizing, I summoned the courage to contact the first and (still) only Black woman Nobel Laureate in Literature. By way of an assistant, she asked for a copy of the section (about two pages) in which my rendering of the New York Times review controversy would appear. I jumped to it.

I soon received a short letter in which Morrison granted my request to reprint her note. Although within her right to do so, she didn’t charge me a fee. Today, I hold fast to her graciousness, generosity, and wisdom: “If you are free, you need to free somebody else,” she once said. “If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.”

这是我尽力练习的原则。我也陶醉于我纪念托尼莫里森的美味笑声。

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The作者爱丽丝沃克: A Life, Evelyn C. White is a freelance writer in Halifax.

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