“Toni Morrison has always taken for granted the centrality of Blackness in her novels. She has refused throughout her writing career to privilege “Whiteness” in her literary works. In this clip, Toni Morrison discusses the way she felt when interview Bill Moyers asked her when she would write about white people, as if this was something she should be interested in doing. She refuses to accept the idea that writing about Black people is not “real writing,” and that Black writers must engage with White characters or the White world in order for their writing to be legitimate. She will not privilege White people, nor will she explain things to White readers.” – @Anti_Intellect
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TRANSCRIPT Provided by YouTube:
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idea of writing about race or the
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absence of race
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Bill Moyers I think once asked you the
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question
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can you imagine writing a novel that’s
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not centered about race then you said
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absolutely yes
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will you that’s what he asked I think
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you see I answered the question he
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didn’t pose you know Tolstoy writes
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about race yeah all the time
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so does Zola so does James Joyce now if
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anybody can go up to an imaginary James
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Joyce and say you write about race all
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the time its central in your novels when
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are you going to write about what
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because you see the person who asks that
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question doesn’t understand that he is
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also he or she is also raised so to ask
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me when am I going to stop and or when
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if I can is to ask a question that you
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know in a sense is its own answer yes I
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can write about white people white
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people can write about black people
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anything can happen in art there are no
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boundaries there having to do it or
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having to prove that I can do it is what
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was embarrassing or insulting in this
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book I did it was insulting that people
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helped me understand what was insulting
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the the idea that you felt like you had
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to prove that you could write yeah the
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question was posed as though it were a
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desirable thing to do to write about
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white people or to write not about race
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that’s what that means to me and that it
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was a difficult do a higher level of
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artistic endeavor or it was more
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important and that I was still writing
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about marginal people
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and why don’t I come into the mainstream
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you importing too much into the question
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maybe I think what could else could it
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be
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prolly what what does that mean what
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does that question me you tell me if I
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make them too much I don’t know I mean I
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don’t know that you I don’t think it
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probably means I didn’t ask the question
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so I don’t think it probably means but I
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don’t think it had to do about your
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marginalizing by not writing about it
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only works if I can go to william Styron
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well maybe not when I’m starring because
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he has done
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somebody major quite and say as a
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journalist can you write about like me
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that’s right
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can I say that what kind of question is
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that to put the ed doctorow who has done
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it by the way but I mean if I can say
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when are you going to write about black
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people to a white writer if that’s a
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legitimate question to a white writer
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but it is a legitimate question to me I
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just don’t think it is innocent you know
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if the glove has to be pulled inside out
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if it’s always it’s not a literary
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question it has nothing to do with the
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literary imagination it’s a sociological
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question that should not be put to me it
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should I couldn’t ask that of any writer
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who was you know I couldn’t ask it of a
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black writer when you gonna write about
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white people now maybe I’m wrong you can
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tell me now or later if I’ve blown it up
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all out of proportion I don’t think so I
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just don’t know what the question means
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except what I think it means do you
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think it may just be a little question a
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little curious you know small incidental
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question
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maybe I’m responding because I have had
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reviews in the past that have accused me
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of not writing about white people I
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remember a review of Sula in which the
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reviewer said this is all well and good
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but one day she meaning me
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will have to face up to the real
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responsibilities and get mature and
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write about the real confrontation for
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black people which is white people just
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though our lives have no meaning
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you know depth without the white gaze
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and I’ve spent my entire writing life
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trying to make sure that the white gaze
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was not the dominant one in any of my
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books and the people who helped me most
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arrive at that kind of language were
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African writers general whatever Bessie
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had those writers who could assume the
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centrality of their race because they
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were Africans and they didn’t explain
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anything to white people those questions
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were incomprehensible to them those
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questions that I would have as a
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minority living in an all-white country
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like the United States but when I read
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the poetry of says are or the poetry of
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single are the novel’s particularly
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Things Fall Apart was more important to
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me than anything only because there was
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a language there was a posture there
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were the parameters I could step in now
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and I didn’t have to be consumed by or
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be concerned by the white gaze that was
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the liberation for me it has nothing to
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do with who reads the books
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everyone of any race any gender any
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country but my sovereignty and my
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authority as a racialized person had to
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be struck immediately
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with the very first book and it was
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strange because in this country many
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books particularly then forties fifties
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you could feel the address of the
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narrator over my shoulder talking to
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somebody else talking to somebody one I
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could tell because they’re explaining
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things that they didn’t have to explain
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them they were talking to me was that
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this is it it’s profound for me so that
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I may be he may be right maybe I’m
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overdramatizing the whole question which
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was innocent enough because the problem
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of being free to write the way you wish
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to without this other racialized gaze is
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a serious one for an african-american
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writer
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