Thread by @newsbysamuels

I didn’t read my first Toni Morrison novel until I was in 22. That, in itself, was a failure of my schooling and my imagination. But I finally got into a popular class on her on works my senior year at NU.
The professor asked everyone to say why they took the class.

Everyone else had a story about reading her novels changing their lives. I mentioned that I felt guilty that I hadn’t read anything of hers. The entire class laughed at me. The prof then said: “We will relieve you of your guilt!”

I was indeed freed of the guilt, but her work provided another type of freedom. As a black journalist, so much of the discussion of my perceived value is described as being relational: To translate the black experience to the masses in ways that are digestible.

Morrison’s work offered us a different type of perspective: the freedom to just be, to just write good stories from black hands, as seen through black eyes, that exist because we exist.

The value of black stories and black storytelling wasn’t relational to white people. They were good enough on their own.

And here’s the thing: those books were devoured and appreciated by everyone because of that authenticity. Even if the phrases or the anecdotes or the language seemed strange, readers kept with her because they could seize onto those fundamental human emotions that we all share.

She unearthed uncompromising humanity, one that couldn’t be denied. It’s not surprising that we now see so many acclaimed black authors, both fiction and non-fiction, who follow her screed today. It wasn’t that Morrison was ahead of her time. She helped create the time.

So publicly, I just want to thank her for being so good, but mostly for being herself. It opened so many doors and paved a path for so many of us to walk tall. What a life.

I still don’t know why those kids laughed at me because I hadn’t read her books. But I know now that I smile a little wider because I had read them. That matters more.
RIP #ToniMorrison