Toni Morrison, the 1993 Nobel laureate in literature, whose work explored black identity in America and in particular the experience of black women, died on Monday in the Bronx. …
The first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Ms. Morrison was the author of 11 novels as well as children’s books and essay collections. Among them were celebrated works like “Song of Solomon,” which received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977, and “Beloved,” which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988.
(The New York Times, August 6, 2019)
I appreciate all that. But I suspect prevailing black tokenism caused Morrison to receive her greatest prizes, namely the Nobel and Pulitzer, at the expense of my favorite black (female) writer, Maya Angelou.
I titled my June 2014 eulogy to the latter “Maya Angelou, Abused Child, Diva Prostitute, and Celebrated Poet, Is Dead.” That should suffice to explain why she was a far more interesting writer and person than Morrison. But it also explains why the lily-white judges of literary merit found Morrison more beloved. No doubt it helped that she had lighter skin and “bluer” eyes than Angelou to boot.
The Pulitzer Prize Board would be particularly hard-pressed to explain how it could have overlooked Angelou. After all, it awarded its prize for poetry every year – from 1970 when Angelou published “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” to 2014 when she published her last tweet.
Folks, that’s 44 years! And I’ll be damned if America produced 44 poets more deserving of this award in its entire history, let alone during Angelou’s 44-year writing career.
The only literary sin worse than this is the failure of the Nobel Committee to award Chinua Achebe its prize. I duly condemned it in “Achebe Awarded the Man Booker International Prize,” June 15, 2007. But I digress …
For the record, both Morrison and Angelou were equally deserving of the highest awards. This, especially given their white contemporaries (male and female) who received them.
But I am also conflicted because Morrison never fully atoned for this historic racial betrayal:
So diabolical is his charm that, despite his public betrayal of Guinier, Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison hailed Clinton as ‘the first black president of the United States.’ If she has any integrity left, however, Morrison too will soon publish her own memoir of disillusionment and disaffection with Bill Clinton.
(“Exposing the Real Bill Clinton,” The iPINIONS Journal, October 7, 2005)
But then along came Barack Obama. He forced Morrison to clarify her misbegotten pronouncement:
People misunderstood that phrase. I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race.
(Time, May 7, 2008)
I dismissed that, appropriately enough, as Clintonian spin.
In any event, it was left to Obama to recognize her and Angelou as peers in every respect by awarding both the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And I hope I can be forgiven for suggesting that, because he awarded it to Angelou first in 2010, he too favored her over Morrison – who he awarded it to in 2012.
Still, for me, Morrison’s celebrated novels amounted to little more than high-brow, race-based chick lit. Nonetheless, I wish our cable news channels would stop their vulture-like, wall-to-wall coverage of the latest white nationalist terrorist attacks, for just a few minutes, to pay proper homage to Morrison. She was 88.
Farewell, Toni.
Related commentaries:
Maya Angelou…
Chinua Achebe…
Bill Clinton…
white nationalist attacks…