An Evening with Toni Morrison

well thank you and good evening to all of you today we have the privilege and honour of welcoming to our campus one of our country's indeed one of the world's most distinguished writers she's here to speak to us about our novels and our work we are thrilled to have professor Tony Morrison visiting our University on behalf of all of us who form the George Washington University community I want to extend the warmest welcome possible to professor Morrison earlier today she and others gathered in front of Lisner auditorium to dedicate a bench as part of her bench on the road project this program commemorates the history of african-american people by placing benches at historic locations throughout the United States and abroad we're deeply touched and honored that we here at George Washington University are a part of this great initiative dr. Terry Reid who joined our University as our first vice provost for diversity inclusion a lot more to say about this project and of course more to say about Toni Morrison's life and her work it is now my distinct pleasure to invite dr. Reid to this podium to set the context tonight's program and to introduce our distinguished speaker welcome Wow the GW community in all of its rich diversity has come together tonight to celebrate the extraordinary life and work of Professor Toni Morrison after reading and teaching courses discussing perhaps jazz or beloved after going to the gym spending hours in research labs and administrative offices or in front of a computer trying to craft the perfect sentence or thought for a thesis or book chapter after feeding the kids arranging pickups meeting editorial deadlines speaking to or praying for our families and after participating in a bench dedication ceremony on the day declared Toni Morrison day by the District of Columbia City Council we have gathered we have gathered in this place key aspects of this classrooms history for tonight we are all GW students is an important element of the learning we hope will take place president Knapp routinely reminds us that where our campus is situated contributes greatly to the value of a GW education he admonishes our students to take full advantage of the front-row seats they now have to the unfolding national and international drama that is America let us take note then of the significance of place as it relates to tonight's event not too many years ago this auditorium had a policy of excluding black audiences and in response to complaints of discrimination moved to the less blatant practice of not allowing performances that might draw a mixed audience that history shapes the substance of our presence here tonight I hope you had the opportunity to view the displays that hang in the lobby depicting this venues history and the historical experience of african-americans at GW if not I encourage you to take a moment before you leave to explore the wonderful exhibit put together by our friends at Gilman library reflecting on race and the distinctive experiences of black people on our campus and in America with all of its contradictions is an indispensable element in a preparation for life and leadership in this country and in the world tonight's program was made possible in partnership with the Toni Morrison Society the English department office of the Provost Women's Leadership Program Alumni Relations multicultural Student Services Center a Gulman library special collections Research Center and external relations please help me thank them the office of the provost and the Planning Committee in particular robert snyder for organizing this event I would also like to extend a special thank you to Evelyn and Scott Schreiber who donated the spectacular bench that now sits in front of Lisner auditorium as Provost Lerman said the bench by the road project is a memorial history and community outreach initiative of the Toni Morrison society that project sets out to remedy the absences of historical markers that help all of us to remember the lives of Africans who were enslaved and of how professor Morrison's haunting and amazing novel beloved served this symbolic role the bench at GW is the sixth to be installed and it is in place in remembrance of the racial separation segregation and eventual integration of Lisner auditorium as professor Morrison speaks about her life and reads from her work we are her students and not just an audience I say this because to me professor Morrison is first and foremost a teacher a master teacher in fact through her novels librettos lyrics courses structured and impromptu lectures as well as with the totality of her life in all its pain and glory she pushes us to think about the jagged edges of our experience to reflect and to recollect on the nastiness and beauty of life you cannot listen to or observe her and not be struck and humbled by her wisdom and genius reading Sula and the bluest eye as a young girl never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that our paths would cross at Princeton University and that I would have the honor to be in her presence as she challenged and on occasion chastised her students and colleagues to do better and to be better I look back at this part of my life story and say to myself truth is better than fiction well maybe not Toni Morrison fiction professor Morrison is no stranger to Washington DC she studied and taught at Howard University she recently celebrated a mile birthday earlier this year at the Library of Congress and we'll return there during this visit to participate in the National Book Festival activities there she will receive the Library of Congress's National National Book Festival Award for creative achievement organized by the Library of Congress Center for the book Toni Morrison is the Robert F go Hien professor in the humanities America special consultant to the director of the Princeton Atelier and lecturer with the rank of professor in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University looking to provide her students opportunities to engage in real-life work and professional artists with professional artists across various art fields miss Morrison created the Atelier at Princeton University in 1993 her nine major novels have received extensive critical acclaim she received the National Book Critics Award in 1978 for Song of Solomon and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for beloved in 1993 Ms Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006 beloved was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as the best work of American fiction published in the last quarter century to add to her list of accomplishments Miss Morrison has also written lyrics that have been commissioned by Carnegie Hall for world-renowned artists Kathleen battle and Jesse Norman after all of these great accomplishments I am happy to say she is not done yet in addition to speaking about her life and work and reading from her latest novel or mercy professor Morrison will read excerpts from her as yet untitled forthcoming work she has also agreed to answer some questions from the audience much like the teacher as I've already described please join me in welcoming to the stage a prolific writer vibrant intellectual and extraordinary human being professor Tony Morrison thank you thank you very much can you hear me because I haven't one of these Beyonce you know lovelier things I'm delighted to be back in Washington I have some rather special feelings about this town it's so different in many ways and so very much alike in other ways I came here in 1949 in defiance of the only person in my family to ever have gone to college and when he heard that I was interested in doing this he suggested I go to Ohio State University because I'm from Ohio he went there state school it wasn't all that far from where I lived and I just thought that was not such a hot idea not because I knew anything really a lot about it he did but I really wanted to be in the company of black intellectuals I thought that would be marvelous I had been taught by some good teachers some mediocre but none black never lived in a black neighborhood and I thought this was the best place to be they were interested my family in sending me away to college they they they promised to come to me for one year three quarters that they thought they could do after that and it was too big so I thought that was a pretty good deal so I came I have to say there were some fabulous teachers here but as far as being a student the most exciting place for me even though I majored in English and minored in humanities for the called humanities classics the place that was most exciting for me was in the theater not because I was any good I wasn't I did one play perfectly all the rest were inside embarrassments but the interesting thing was that we read plays it differently not to the interpret for a paper but to understand the whole the scene the character the relationships it was just a different kind of reading and for years afterwards even now I read plays by them and read them as I don't always like the way they're performed but if I read them that I could kind of make it up myself at any rate the theater was an important thing for me and then there was a group of people in Washington some more faculty members some were s faculty who had a writing Club a little in six or seven or eight or nine Owen Dodson and cook in John Ravel and six or seven and some people were from Broadway some painters some were poets some historians and a Miller who was a local poet anyway they had this once a month media and I went and I brought to the meetings old stuff you know things he wrote when you were a freshman or when I was first I was teaching him by then run away and they wouldn't let you keep coming if you didn't have anything new and I had run out of old stories I wrote 10 years ago that weren't any good I had to write something new and I was eager to go because they had such good food I mean it was really put on a spread so I wrote this story about a young girl who wanted had prayed for blue eyes and never got them at the time I wrote that it was just a little I know maybe eight or nine pages I was thinking about something that was true in my own life when I was a kid about a girl that I knew we she and I were close friends and she had said that we had quarreled a little bit about who about whether there was a god and I you'll be happy to know was convinced there was and she was convinced there wasn't and she had proof and the proof was she had prayed for two years for blue eyes and he had not provided them and I remember looking at her thinking suppose she'd gotten them how grotesque it would be and then realize right after that that she was really quite beautiful I was telling somebody today at that age you don't really know beauty you know cute or nice or something but just that and I didn't realize that she was for summer I ever noticed anyway so I wrote that and they sort of liked it I had a good meal and then I went home and then I left Howard got a job as a publisher in an educational publishing house in Syracuse and I just picked that story up this was years later and I had was under the impression you know this is like I know what is it seventies and everything was blackest beautiful and get rid of whitey and stuff but everybody was you know snick and I was no wait a minute wait a minute you are my black queen I said hold on oh you don't remember anyway was the kind of book that I wish had been written and nobody had written it so I thought I'll take this whole story which didn't work at all because the person at the in the center was so inarticulate and so unaware that she couldn't hold the story so I surrounded her with you know friends and a family and other people and so on now the important thing is I said it out to a couple of publishers and I got little I wish I could get those letters I got letters back that said most of them said thanks a lot but no thanks and once in a while an editor would take the time to explain why they didn't warn it and I remember one that said this book has no beginning no middle and no end and I thought worse but the interesting thing is that I thought all those negatives beings are about 12 of them I thought they were all wrong it never occurred to me that their judgment was right so anyway eventually I got someone to take it because there was a commercial market for african-american men writing you know man telling the promised land and brother my eye and you know all that it was right in there I know but not this so I thought so they just did it and then the editor left anyway so he just sort of floated there in that house and I thought well you know five hundred people will read this I was pretty right because I think they printed 3000 copies and sold maybe 1200 I was very excited about that and then City University in New York you know there was a concurrent women's movement and they decided that every student who went to Cooney the city the University of New York had to read certain books by women and by african-americans and the lowest I was one it was can you believe that if every human being who went to City University of New York had to read The Bluest Eye year after year after year after year that's a huge sale so this little book they had sort of dismissed it if you ever get a first edition of that you will not see any biography is this this little thing on the flap that I wrote about the story no bio because I was working at Random House then and I didn't think it was a good idea to be writing and publishing you know I didn't hire me to be a writer they hired me to acquire books on and it was all stupid but in the big picture me on the back anyway they the paperback house didn't have any more books and sold out their little forty five hundred or whatever so all of a sudden this order comes in from City and they have to repeat because it's required reading so there in lies success but the point of the point of the story is this after I that book was accepted I went into this very very deep sadness you know I had two children they were the light of my life but there really was nothing else then I went to work anyway what doesn't matter the point is that there was this call of darkness and I realized that I didn't have anything to think that I missed writing it taken me five years to write the blue aside that a little book because I was so much enjoying it enjoying the writing of it that I wasn't rushing toward a deadline and then I realized that one of the things that was bothering me was I didn't have another writing idea and then I thought of Sula that thing and everything in the world we can to look coherent to me again I mean even that which was incoherent or bad useful it's all territory it's all information it's all you can use or not use all of it so the point being I am very happy when I'm writing or even if I'm not writing if I have an idea about something I want to write and it sort of pulls me together intellectually spiritually you know just in everyway language does that for me anyway so I've always recognized since then what that posthumous you know post partum what the butcher was after you know writing a book so I don't worry about it anymore although recently I had at any rate I don't know if I've been going on too long I organized this thing to do ten minutes of this 20 minutes of that and then the rustic to a day so I don't know did I go over no one knows no one cares it's okay well the thing is having an idea not just the question I don't know about this is this really true oh I see something written in a little piece of paper that seems to me to hit something very current like when I wrote Paradise it was because I was reading about black newspapers at Oklahoma and the advertisements that they were putting in those they were like fifty black newspapers and they're all these colored towns and one of the ads said come prepared or not at all don't come if you don't have it don't come with unique so I thought that's mean what about all these slaves they were ex-slaves right going west and they'll tell me they would get to a little town and nobody would take a man you know so that idea of constructing black towns was fascinating to me in Paradise and other ideas that disk questions what was that light what that what must that have felt like when I did a mercy I was really interested as I was explaining to some students about when did racism become so much the law of the land and associated with slavery and so black slaves were this brand-new idea slavery was everywhere I mean how all the empires rested on slavery the Greece Rome Turkey England Russia Europe in general that's who did that work they called him something else and peon so if they work the land and it went on to generations so it wasn't like that was some brand-new idea that just it was invented in America but what happened to make it associated with chattel slavery and race because they had indentured servants whose children were also indentured etc etc anyway so I had to go back to a time before racism was established and institutionalized because you know nobody's born like that so what is it when did it really gets legalized institutionalized and that was interesting to me so I had to go back to 17th century 1690 because in 1692 were the Salem witch trials so the friction was about religion not race as powerfully this religion mine is good yours is not you get the hang you know yeah whatever so that put me back there and then the problem became who's gonna tell his story so when I figured that out I was very happy with my what I thought was my little smart idea but I had no voice for this girl I know as she sounded like because she was born a slave portuguese plantation she's taught to read and write by catholic priests and she comes comes up north so any instead of trying to do a what they call a language of the period or some dialect that I couldn't even invent I found her voice by simply change and making sure she only spoke in the present tense she doesn't use the past tense on the one hand it made her young in my view there's people young people it's always now there's no past so future like now so she thinks about the sucks that way and so in in developing it and then I began to like that voice I began to really like it as opposed to the other sort of traditional voices so I'm gonna read from the opening and the end I'll tell you why I'm gonna read the beginning on the end it doesn't matter if you haven't read it because we did the end doesn't tell you anything okay I think you should get the address who's she talking to don't be afraid just don't do the reader know but anyway I hope it becomes clear who she has to persuade and at the same time sort of situate the story don't be afraid my telling can't hurt you in spite of what I have done and I promise to lie quietly in the dark we've been perhaps or occasionally seeing the blood once more but I will never again unfold my limbs to rise up and Bertie I explained you can think what I tell you a confession if you like but one full of curiosity familiar only and dreams and during those moments when our dog's profile plays in the steam of Idul or when a corn husk dog sitting on a shelf it's soon splaying in the corner of a room and the wicked of how it got there is plain stranger things happen all the time everywhere you know I know you know one question is who was responsible another is can you read if a peahen refuses to brood I read it quickly and sure enough that night I see a man of my standing hand and man with her little boy my shoes jamming the pocket of her apron other signs need more time to understand often they're too many signs or a bright moment clouds up too fast I sought them and try to recall yet I know I am missing much like not reading the garden snake crawling up to the door saddle to die let me start with what I know for certain the beginning begins with the shoes when a child I'm never able to abide being there for it and always longed for she always begged for shoes anybody shoes even on the hottest days my mother and men of my knee is falling is angry at what she says are my 35 ways only bad women we're high heels I am dangerous she says and wild but she relents and let me wear and lets me wear the throw issues from señoras house pointy-toe 1 raised yield broke the other warned and a buckle on top as a result Lena says my feet are useless will always be too tender for life and never had the strong soles tougher than leather that life requires Lena is correct Florence she says it's 1690 who else these days has the hands of a slave and the feet of a portuguese lady so when i set out to find you she and miss just give me sirs boots that fit a man not a girl they stuffed them with hay and oily corn husks and tell me to hide the letter inside my stocking no matter the itch of the sealing wax I am lettered but I do not read what mistress writes and Lena and sorrow and not but I know what it means to say to any who stopped me my head is light with the confusion of two things hunger for you and scare if I am lost nothing frightens me more than this errand and nothing is more temptation from the day you disappear a dream and plot to learn where you are and how to be there I want to run across the trail through the beach in white pine but I'm asking myself which way who will tell me who live in the wilderness between this farm and you and will they help me or harm me what about the boneless bears in the valley remember how when they move their pelts sway as though there's nothing underneath their smell be lying their beauty their eyes knowing us from when we are beasts also you telling me that is why it is fatal to look them in the eye they will approach run to us to love and play which we miss read and give that fear and anger the giant birds are also nesting out there bigger than cows Lina says and not all natives are like her she says so watch out a praying savage neighbors call her because she is once church-going yes she bathes herself every day and Christians never do underneath she wears bright blue beads and dances in secret at first light when the moon is small more than fear of loving bears or birds bigger than towels I fear backless night how I wonder can I find you in the dark now at last there is a way I have orders it is ranged I will see your mouth and trail my fingers now you will rest your chin and my hair again while I breathe into your shoulder in and out in and out I'm happy the world is breaking open for us yet its newness trembles me to get to you I must leave the only home the only people I know Lena says from the state of my teeth I am maybe seven or eight when I am brought here we boiled wild plums for jam and cake eight times since then so I must be sixteen before this place I spend my days picking okra and sweeping tobacco sheds my nights on the floor of the cook house with a with uh Nana my we are baptized and can have happiness when this life is done Reverend Father tells us that once every seven days we learn to read and write we are forbidden to leave the place so the four of us hide near the marsh my mother me her little boy and Reverend Father he is forbidden to do this but he teaches us anyway watching out for wicked Virginians and Protestants who want to catch him if they do he will be in prison or pay money or both he has two books and a slate we have sticks to draw through sand pebbles to shape words on smooth flat rock when the letters are memory we make whole words I'm faster than my mother and her baby boy is no good at all very quickly I can write from memory the Nicene Creed including all of the commas confession we tell not write as I am doing now I forget almost all of it until now I liked all leaner talk stone talk even sorrow talk best of all is your talk at first when I am brought here I don't talk any word all of what I hear is different from what words mean to a minim I and me Lina's words say nothing I know nor mistress's slowly a little talk is in my mouth and not on stone Lina says the place of my talking on stone is Mary's land where sir does business so that is where my mother and her baby boy are buried or will be if they ever decide to rest sleeping on the cookhouse floor with them is not as nice as sleeping in the broken slave with Lina in cold weather we put planks around our part of the cow shed and wrap our arms together under pelts we don't smell the cow flops because they are frozen and we are deep on the fur in summer if our hammocks are hit by mosquitoes Lina makes a cool place to sleep out of branches you never liked a hamlet and prefer the ground even in rain when Sir offers you the storehouse sorrow no more sleeps near the fireplace the men helping you will and Scully never lived the night here because their master does not allow it you remember them how they would not take orders from you until sir makes them he could do that since they are exchanged for land under lease from sir Lina says sir has a clever way of getting without giving I know it is true because I see it forever and ever me watching my mother listening her baby boy on her hip señores not paying the whole amount he owes to sir-sir saying he will take instead the woman in the girl not the baby boy and the debt is gone I'm gonna my bags no her baby boy is still at her breast take the girls she says my daughter she says me me sir agrees and changes the balance do as soon as tobacco leaf is hanging to dry Reverend Father takes me on a ferry then a catch there are boats and bundles me between his boxes of books and food the second day it becomes hurting cold and I'm happy I have a cloak however then Reverend Father excuses himself to go elsewhere on the boat and tells me to stay exactly where I am a woman comes to me and says Sangha I do and she takes my cloak from my shoulders then my wooden shoes she walks away Reverend Father turns a pale red colour when he returns and learns what happens he rushes all about asking where and who but can find no answer finally he takes rags strips of sail cloth like about then wraps my feet now I am knowing that unlike with Senor priests on love here a sailor spits into the sea when Reverend father asked him for help Reverend father is the only kind man I ever see when I arrived here I believe it is the place he warns against the freezing in hell that comes before the everlasting fire where sinners bubble and send you forever but the ice comes first he says and when I see knives of it hanging from the house and trees and feel the white air burned my face I am certain the fire is coming then Lina smiled when she looks at me and wraps me for warmth mistress looks away nor is sorrow happy to see me she flaps her hand in front of her face as though bees are bothering her she is ever estranged and Lina says she is once more with child father still not clear and sorrow does not say will and Scully laugh and deny Lina believes that it serves says she has a reason for thinking so when I asked her what reason she says he's a man mister says nothing neither do i but I have a worry not because our work is more but because mother's nursing greedy babies scare me I know how their eyes go when they choose how they raised them to look at me hard saying something I cannot hear saying something important to me but holding the little boy's hand well I was gonna read them in but I don't think I will I'll read them I want to leave enough time for questions and this thing supposed to be over at nine right okay anyway if we have time I'll do it but what I do want to do as promised because I'm interested in it is read just a few pages of a book the next novel then I'm writing you'd be happy to know I hope that I finished it and I have a title and so I'm going to read you these few pages of the voice of the man who is about whom the story's written I tell a little bit about the strategy because it might be of some interest I wanted this voice to talk to me I'm writing the story me right author and he sort of come correcting me disagree or just describing something so that there's a kind of conversation that goes on not overwhelming but every now and then he comes in between the the so-called author and the subject so this is his voice that opens the book okay they rose up like men we saw them like men they stood we shouldn't have been anywhere near that place like most farmland outside Lotus Georgia this here one had plenty scary warning signs the threats hung from wire-mesh fences with wooden stakes every 50 or so feet but when we saw a crawlspace that some animal had dug a coyote Nene or a dog we couldn't resist just kids we were the grass was shoulder high for her and waist high for me so looking for snakes we crawled through it on our bellies the reward was worth the harm grass juice and clouds of gnats did to our eyes because right there because they're right in front of us about 50 yards off they stood like men they're raised hooves crashing and striking their manes tossing back from wild white eyes they bit each other like dogs but when they stood reared up on their hind legs their forelegs around the withers of the other we held our breaths and Wonder one was Russ color the other deep black both sunny was sweat the nays were not as frightening as the silence following a kick of hind legs into the lifted lips of the opponent nearby Colts and mares in different nibbled the grass or looked away then it stopped the rust colored one dropped his head and poured the ground while the winner loked off in an arc nudging the mares before him as we elbowed back through the grass looking for the dugout place avoiding the line of parked trucks beyond we lost our way although it took forever to recite the fence neither of us panicked until we heard voices urgent but lo I grabbed her arm and put a finger to my lips never lifting our heads just peeping through the grass we saw them pull the body from a wheelbarrow and throw it into a hole already waiting one foot over the edge and quivered as though it could get out as though with a little effort it could break through the dirt being shoveled in we could not see the faces of the men doing the burying only their trousers but we saw the edge of a spade driving the jerking foot down to join the rest of itself when she saw that Blackfoot with its creamy pink and mud Street soul being whacked into the grave her whole body began to shake I hoped her shoulders tight and tried to pull her trembling into my own bones because as a brother four years older I thought I could handle it the men were long gone and the moon was a cantaloupe by the time we felt safe enough to disturb even one blade of grass and move on our stomachs searching for the scooped out part under the fence when we got home we expected to be equipped or at least scolded for staying out so late but the grown-ups didn't notice us some disturbance had their attention and since you said I'm telling this story at the since you're set on telling my story whatever you think and whatever you write down know this I really forgot about the burial I only remembered the horses they were so beautiful so brutal and they stood like men you're interested in asking professor Morrison a question please make your way to the center aisle where mr. golden will assist you please state your name where you're from and keep your comment or question brief thank you hi I'm Becca Daniels I'm a student here at GW and I was wondering what your reaction was to the New York Times headline after the 2008 presidential election which stated Obama elected president as racial barrier Falls and do you believe the American perspective has changed on race over the past three years or perhaps will change well some of it has changed that's a hard dub listen racism pays it's useful it works you don't find anybody writing an editorial column or on television that has something nice to say about the president it doesn't pay nobody wants to hear it also racism is expensive very expensive you have to have two toilets instead of one but it has always worked because you don't have to talk about class you've only talked about race in this country so it's very gonna be very hard to just get rid of that because it almost has nothing to do with people's real feelings you know remember I don't know if you would remember you too yeah I remember during the civil rights movement the problem they didn't mind if than white people of the south circle so they didn't care if they stood next to a black person they just didn't want to sit next to the right person you know it was a sort of a horizontal thing I mean you look at it sort of logically so it's a it's a it's one of those strange things that exist in this country and in some other countries but if it didn't work they'd give it up that it works and as far as the politics is concerned I can't quite I have some strong feelings about the current nature of the political scene and then soon as I think I grabbed it something else happens and I don't understand it anymore so I can't answer the question completely but I can tell you it it never occurred to me that race disappeared or racism not race disappeared just because they elected Barack Obama to the White House hello professor Morrison thanks for coming my name is Rumsey I'm a senior here at GW and my question is one of my classes we saw an interview you gave to c-span where you said that you didn't think beloved or The Bluest Eye was age-appropriate for a lot of middle schoolers and high schoolers who read it and required reading programs and my question is given the movies TV shows and music my generation listens to do you really still think that's true and on topic of required readings do you think there's any books that should be added or taken off the current list than are in our public schools well you know you're right about when I said that I was not thinking about all of the blatant sexuality and murder and blood and guts that our routine on television and there's a little I guess restraining order like this is not fit for everyone or something but at the time you know the bluest I was banned everywhere in schools and I even got a letter which I put on my bathroom wall from the Texas Correctional Institution which had banned Song of Solomon from the prison library and they had little blocks about why they banned different books and mine was because it might start a prison riot so I felt I had accomplished something I had written a book that might just inflame a whole prison but what I was sort of respond my sister did not permit her children to read The Bluest Eye until they were seventeen years old my sister so so I don't I just couldn't start saying oh everyone should my feeling is that with that everyone people should read anything and everything and you can't be frightened of dirty words I mean what kind of brain is that he's scared because somebody said I mean it's unbelievable but there's so many brilliant books that are on the no read list Ulysses you know goodbye Columbus you know everything worth reading is is banned by somebody in the schools so that's why I may have been a little flip when I had that answer on CNN but my feeling is that you know I don't feel these things compete with one another who wants a book that it's not alive it's design you know there there is a certain kind of level of children's books but and I'm not sure at what level anybody should read anything I remember being in the sixth grade and since I could read for a long long time I was before I went to school and I remember being in the sixth grade the teacher they told us to bring a book from home to read I bought in this book called a strange woman and it was interesting except I don't know what they were talking about and it was made into a movie later with Hedy Lamarr and this book was about a woman who liked what do you call it when they'd like to be beaten masochism yeah her so so every now and then something something something and she would go in the garage and a husband would hit it I don't know and I was not and my teacher the teacher said to me I don't think you should be reading that book and so she took it away and she gave me Tom Sawyer which I had read like three years before so I was sitting there's no one so I guess she's trying to protect me I don't know but the funny thing was that I didn't understand the book anyway you know the real subtlety of masochistic sexual whatever I don't know my mother joined the literary Gill we had all kinds of books in the house some of them were good some of them are horrible so I don't think you should curtail curtail the inquisitive mind of a child we have time for two more questions really because the evenings running late we could be here till 11 o'clock tonight but we did promise miss Morrison that we would in this program so thank you for standing in line for the questions but we'll take these two my name is Christina Mueller and I'm a former GW English student professor Morrison welcome back to DC I I live in a small community a small gentrifying rapidly gentrifying community college right park beneath Howard University and my question for you is in a community that is changing so quickly what is your advice to this city and to my community about how to graciously move through this transition with its implicit and explicit racism education you know I don't really know somebody asked me that in Vienna she about Harlem and she said I understand all the mom-and-pop stores are gone all the numbers runners are gone it's terrible it's awful because Walmart's up there somebody you know and rich or upper middle class white people are buying all the big houses and so on lawyers and sauce and I told her I mean I was being flip and I said I'll just get over it they changed the place used to be ducked you know before before you know it became all that I come from such a mixed city town with so many immigrants from Poland in Italy in Czechoslovakia and black people and Mexican people and I could read and speak English fairly well so I was all in my last name at that time was toward the end of the alphabet so I always sat next to nunzio's ah no and all these you know the wiki's and people who didn't speak English and I you know kids learn English real fast so they always put me next to those you know immigrant kids so anyway I never I didn't feel that until actually talking to Washington did I feel the power of segregation cultural segregation until I came to the city you know and I thought the whole world was like Lorain Ohio you know oh you know you and I went to New York I thought that no it's not but you know I think you have to not make it an either/or choice you have to do what's comfortable and ethical and generous in your life and neighborly exactly exactly thank you well we have time for one more these questions are sensational one all night well your name I'm a Claremont a sir I'm chemistry professor I've been here 30 years and 36 years as a professor but in your presence I'm a student I have a question I think I have ripped half of your books and in these books and also in the other black scholars you really find to discuss a problem in this country in 1981 the number of prisoner for about hundred thousand if we trust Google and approximately we have two million prisoner right now we have five percent of all population but we have 25 percent of world prisoner so it's really a strange that we talk about human rights but we neglect it all the way at home and regrettably there's colours at home completely forget about it so when you leave when you read love it I think it would be very lovely to see the story of these prisoners and what happens well you're right about the subject matter and outrageous absence of human rights and also the preponderance of non-violent crime people in it had a little marijuana or something and the courage and the in the private private prison industry which is growing needs prisoners I mean you know it needs them little a need food so the more people they can criminalize you know whether they're illegal immigrants are some young black men or some children the merrier because they get money that's a way in which as I was saying before race works because you get to put all those people in there and so on and also they work they got prisons in Texas where when you leave the prison you owe money for room and board because they're private prisons you're gonna anyway so they're that you're right about that and I don't know how to it's not an interesting story fictionally speaking to me it's an interesting idea it's a sociological 'ti powerful thing to examine you know I'm a very close friend of Angela Davis and that's all she does is work on prison stuff and have organized Isis in books and so on but I never found I've never found it compelling fictional material I might do at some point but so far not thank you thank you for professor Morrison please join me in thanking professor Morrison one last time we'll do she says she'll take the one last question miss Morrison the next president of the United States I'm Tasha Anna I'm a student from Howard University on behalf of the class of 2014 I'd like to say we are anxiously awaiting your return to the University I just wanted to ask you what's your writing process like and which of your novels which of your novels did you most enjoy writing and what do you feel makes a good novel the process varies I don't I don't write if it's not there then I write every day just because I have the time if I don't have the scene or the dialogue or the picture or so if it's not clear I don't write and the more I write the more economical I can be I know when the writing I didn't always know when I was writing badly in the beginning I would write and write and write and it was like horrible and then I have to throw it away and then do something else but now I know how to skip the bad writing and just go straight to what I'm gonna want to say so that process is very you know it's routine I write very very early in the morning before you know anybody's up I start so I could be finished by noon and so that's the process and you asked me you didn't ask me about a favorite book you said how do I oh we're always the one I'm doing now the one I just read from Oh perfection people down here asking what the name of the novel a home that's a hard one to remember thank you thank you thank you look at this thing while thanks very much for coming please view the exhibits in the lobby good night

Channel: undefined

Views: 52,802

Rating: 4.9250426 out of 5

Keywords: George Washington University, Lisner Auditorium, GW, Pulitzer, Nobel, Toni Morrison

Id: ocVG7W4HxvM

Length: 71min 34sec (4294 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 22 2011