Addy Mohorich

Final Book Review Project

Toni Morrison

December 14, 2021

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Being a Black Female in America according to Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison is an extremely well-achieved author for her countless narratives that

depict what it means to be black in America. I choose to read the book The Source of Self

Regard which is a collection of essays, speeches, and meditations and was published in 2019,

which is the same year she died. The book speaks to Morrison's life experience on a personal

level incorporating her internal monologue as well as experiences that shaped her into herself. In

my book review, I will be focusing on core themes throughout the book such as her idea of home

and the ways she went through life as a black female in the United States.

For a brief background, Toni Morrison was born in 1931, in Lorain, Ohio. Although she

grew up in a semi-integrated area, racial discrimination was a constant threat. She began writing

in her 30s and has won many awards for her authentic writing including the Pulitzer prize and

the presidential medal of freedom from former President Obama. She was the first African

American woman to win the Nobel prize in literature and her work has inspired many other

writers as well as individuals who connect to her stories. While she began as an English

professor at Texas Southern University, she then switched to being a fiction editor at Random

House before relying on her writing as her career. Another aspect of her life that is worth

mentioning is that she grew up in a family that emphasized black culture instead of trying to

minimize it by incorporating storytelling and songs into her lifestyle which is clearly shown in

her writing in The Source of Self Regard.

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Morrison broke her novel up into three sections titled “The Foreigner's Home”, “Black

Matter (s)”, and “God’s Language” and I will be diving into one essay from all three sections that

give a glimpse into Morrison’s largest beliefs. For the first essay that I want to analyze in the

book, I will be discussing one titled “Home”. It is also one of the first ones in the book which I

believe provides an outline for many of the recurring themes in the pages to follow. She begins

with defining home as “memory and companions and or friends who share the memory” before

questioning what home really means. She shares that in order to create a safe home for

everyone, we must decide whether to resist or become complicit in the process of alienating

others that lead to a country rooted in racism. This makes us question who truly is a foreigner in

the United States when the history of our country is built on stolen land. While Morrison did not

directly talk about indigenous populations, this took up space for me when I was reading many

of the chapters in the first section. The history of the United States cannot be ignored when

discussing colonialism and black history because while colonizers pushed out many traditions

and people that identify with the land of the present-day United States, they also shipped over

countless slaves from Africa that brought blackness to this land in the first place.

Morrison makes an effort to emphasize black culture that she knows and loves while also

explaining a power structure that comes from finding belonging within oneself through the

process of finding the “other” in different individuals. This process also reinforces a binary

system that keeps people in boxes so it is easier to oppress them. Some examples of this binary

at a basic level are white black, wealthy poor, male female, and straight queer. Morisson mostly

focuses on her experience as a black female within the United States and expresses worry for the

current time period as aggression towards these identities increases. However, no matter what

identity is being attacked, whether it is religion, race, or culture, people will still find a way to
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demonize the lesser “other” until assumed safety and homogeneity are reached. I hope we can

all agree we do not want to live in a homogenous society. We have spent all semester learning

about how to be more culturally competent as leaders, no matter our own personal identities.

The essay also raises the question of who or what is an American after including some

aspects of the history of the country which I believe goes against the reading we had of the

bullet-pointed list of American cultures. Even though, as a class, we saw some truth in a few of

those points, most of us agreed that it was too broad and outdated to encapsulate people who live

in America as a whole since there is such a diverse population. Hopefully, generations to come

can continue this progression of inclusion instead of continuing to demonize the “other” in

identities to create a safe sense of home for all people, instead of just the few who fit the desired

mold of an American. While it may sound silly, I believe that the generation that is growing up

in a world where social media is so prevalent with apps such as Tik Tok and Instagram is being

shown more diversity. Users do have the ability to follow accounts that they choose which can

act as a feedback loop to reinforce their current beliefs, they both have a discover page that is

capable of showing media that is outside of their direct interests. Particularly with Tik Tok, there

are countless users who are showing off their uniqueness and emphasize that it can be possible to

be proud of your identities. In my own personal experience, there are many creators that show

off their queerness which helped me become more comfortable with myself and other

educational videos about different cultures which I have learned a lot from.

The next essay that I was to discuss is titled “Hard, True, and Lasting”. Morrison begins

this essay with a paragraph from “The Green Tree” by Bessie Head. She put this in to explore an

idea that Head brings up that “we tolerate strangers because the things we love cannot be touched

by them”. This line jumped out at me as well which led me to question what are the things I
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truly love? This book took me a long time to read because of how many thought-provoking

questions she asks. While she provides answers to a lot of them due to life experience and her

clear knowledge, she also leaves a lot to the reader for self-reflection and personal education.

Morrison progresses the idea of passions by connecting it to herself and by being an author. She

believes that by being a writer, she must, as all others do, identify the values they feel worthy of

preservation or the values that they believe detrimental to some freer, finer, or steadier life. She

then explores her connection to this by finding her values among “her people”, which is the

black community.

I have used the term “my people” quite a few times in my life, specifically when getting

adjusted at Gonzaga or thinking about my home as people that make me feel safe and loved and

valued. I remember being stressed going into college that I wouldn’t be able to find the people

that make me feel this sense of community. I also recalled a phone call I had with my mom the

second semester of my freshman year and expressing how happy I was that I finally found

people who I found love and light when I was around. Being around these people brings joy and

inspiration to keep living a worthy life. They have instilled values in me which connect to the

way I live life and the ways that I am a leader. This essay emphasized lessons we learned in the

first semester of CLP and through our whole time of understanding the importance of ourselves

and how our personal experiences shape our leadership styles. In our first semester, we did an

activity to identify our core values and I remember at the end of the activity I was surprised by

my results. We went around the room and shared our top three core values to get to know each

other on a level that went deeper than casual conversation. The values that I identified have

made themself clear in times of my own leadership with having relationships and authenticity as

my most important values.

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In the final essay, I will be analyzing, authenticity is at the core of what Morrison is

describing in “Rememory”. Morrison is once again discussing herself as a writer and how she

chooses to articulate topics that connect to race and different narratives. She explains that her

ultimate goal is to create a space that is both culture-specific and “race-free”. She argues that

authors who focus on a white narrative have a privilege to believe their work is free of race

because others are raced, and white people are not. Her work aims to go against this belief, and

while not attempting to erase any given experience make room for other stories and histories.

Her mention of being careful to not erase an experience reminded me of the Bennet model for

cultural competency that we discussed in class. The goal to ignore an aspect of someone’s

identity falls very low on the model into denial and defense. It prohibits creating a safe space for

all people and by fighting against inclusivity and ignoring that there is a racial divide that

oppresses anyone who is not white or white-passing. This is also connected to authors or readers

who believe that books about white narratives aren't racialized. I have heard people complain

about books or movies that are “too politically correct” if the plot mentions anything other than

witness or heteronormativity. This is an extremely toxic belief to hold since it continues to

perpetuate a society that only attaches value to one storyline. Morrison describes a vision that

connects to the integration level of the Bennet model as she desires to write about race, a

celebration of culture, and a discussion of the consequences of history.

Morrison lands on the idea that a way to keep her writing honest and authentic would be

to tap into her own memory and slave narratives that she has heard from people in her

community. She then defines the word rememory as a collection and remembrance of the

members of the body, family, and population of the past. She mentions her mom and other

stories that have been passed down as a way to keep these memories alive while still creating a
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possibility of hope for the present. These narratives are crucial to understanding the generational

trauma that members of the black community face every day and how our present-day systems

are still working against people of color. While Morrison mentions a hope for the present day, it

is difficult to always see this hope. In an interview that she partook in, the white male

interviewer asked if she would ever write a book that isn’t centered around race. She answers

the question in an extremely informed way, and it is obvious that she has been asked this many

times. This question connects to the chapter that I just discussed but she dives deeper into the

ways that a white author would not be asked the same questions. The interviewer interrupts her

after she was explaining how she sees the importance of race and how not discussing aspects of

these identities is inherently racist and privileged. He states that she is reading too much into the

question. Morrison does not back down since she is an incredibly educated and well-versed

black woman and flips the script on him asking how he would have answered the question.

Morrison’s novel is an extremely educational look into her life as a black woman in the

United States. The power she holds in her identities is inspiring while she also shares many

intimate details of her internal monolog. The three different sections break up the book nicely

and all focus on different themes while also all connecting to Morrison’s experience as a black

female. The Foreigner's Home”, “Black Matter (s)”, and “God’s Language” all emphasize the

different core values that Morrison holds. I find critical race theory interesting and I like to

believe that I have educated myself on topics such as this but Morrison discusses the topics in

such a personable way and dives into the nitty-gritty much more than I have in the past. The

book took me a long time to read because it showed a lot of self-reflection on how I, as a white

female, can do so much more in my life to be culturally competent. With growing up in

predominantly white spaces and attending an extremely white university it can be challenging to
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face race issues, however, I have not been as good at engaging in these conversations as I would

like. Toni Morrison shocked me in her authenticity and truth. I would like to read some of her

other novels that are more fiction based but portray the truth about being black in America in

different lights. She mentioned a few of her other books in The Source Of Self-Regard which all

seem to speak to different experiences that may be held by people of color. I am grateful that I

chose to read this book for the project and believe it shed a perspective on blackness that I have

not before seen or felt like was acceptable for me to be a part of. I learned that while I will never

truly know the implications of being black, I can continue to learn through Toni Morrison, other

authors, and people in my life. The whole book discusses how crucial it is to understand

yourself first before you can begin to understand others on a deeper level instead of just

strangers. This will help build a more culturally competent environment where we recognize

everyone has different experiences that have impacted them in ways we do not know. This is

part of emotional leadership that is shown in Morrison's books that sheds light on moments of

joy, as well as hardships. She also demonstrated how we can find power in our identities so we

can begin to understand the identities that others hold when leading across cultures.

Personal Reflection

I found myself incorporating personal anecdotes into my book review to relate more to

Morrison’s inanimate writing style that often felt like a conversation. I was in awe of how she

connected such personal thoughts and then discussed them with eloquent and well-informed facts

about the United States that I had never thought of. While reading the novel, I was aware that I

am white, but also felt privileged to be able to see the inside that Morrison brings. After

finishing the book I revisited the reading that we had on Morrison earlier in the semester. It was
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her Nobel lecture from 1993 and held more meaning for me after I understood a little more about

her. The story focuses on the power of language, trust, and understanding, which are also

important themes in The Source of Self Regard. The idea of wisdom is questioned through a

woman who is blind. The use of a disability is interesting because, until the end, she doesn’t

believe she can trust anyone. I connected this to Morrison’s novel and her discussion of being

black in the United States. From the outside, not many people who are not part of the black

community can understand what being black means. Simply because, if you are white or

white-passing, race is not something that consumes many of your thoughts. Just like how having

a disability isn’t talked about much within the United States since that isn’t the “normal”. This

was interesting to revisit since I had more knowledge of Morrison and her life experiences.

I also found Morrison’s writing interesting to think about in relation to Julia Alvarez’s

writing in “A White Women of Color”. Both authors deeply dive into their different cultural

identities while living in the United States. Alvarez grew up in the Dominican Republic before

moving to America and lost a sense of identity in both places as she was always pining after

achieving “the other”. This is a topic that I have discussed greatly this semester in many of my

different classes of always chasing something that is unattainable due to societal pressure. Many

people fall into a loop of constantly chasing something that is just out of their reach, and even if

it is ultimately achieved, it is never satisfactory. Both authors emphasize these struggles in

different ways but both draw a similar conclusion that the goal is not homogeneity but

integration. If there was more acceptance in this country then there would be less of an emphasis

on attempting to achieve the other. It is also interesting how the other can be seen as the desired

goal or a way to separate differences and continue to oppress people of marginalized groups.
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Society has truly created such a toxic environment that doesn’t allow anyone to be happy with

the palace they are in.

I connected to the other with being a female but also being part of the LGBTQ+

community. It can be difficult to find a safe space to talk about my sexuality if I am not

surrounded by my friends who I know accept me. This aspect about myself is hidden from every

person in my family besides my sister. I have only realized that I am a lesbian this year, and I do

not come from a very accepting family. This makes breaks difficult for me because I have

become exhausted by hiding a part of me that has become a larger aspect of my identity than I

initially realized. Last year during our extended winter break I fell into a fairly deep depression

(and I don’t want to use that word lightly) over my internal struggles with my sexuality. I didn’t

truly realize what was going on at the time, but I had no one to talk to and only became happy

again once I was back at Gonzaga. With the people that bring my safety and love and joy.

Needless to say, this year has been better for me but with the looming winter break approaching,

I am filled with worries that the rest of my family will find out. I am lucky that I can choose to

hide this part of me if I feel it would affect my overall safety, but not everyone has the chance to

do this. One cannot change their skin color to protect themselves from prejudice. I learned more

about the everyday implicates of being black from Morrison but she also showed me hope. Hope

for all people to experience love and safety, no matter where they are. This would also let me be

seen with my girlfriend in public as partners, not just as two friends out to lunch. Creating a

culturally competent society also includes queer culture and me not dropping my girlfriend’s

hand once we exit the car or showing affection the same way that heterosexual presenting

couples can.
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The multitude of my identity is why I was truly in awe of Morrison’s authenticity in her

writing. I have not granted myself enough permission to be authentically myself in all spaces of

my life. Morrison does not have the same safety with being black and a female in the United

States as she does with her own community. The novel is a perfect example of why we need to

create a more integrated society to make room for black people. We need to create a land that

acknowledges indigenous populations, gives them reparations and sovereignty, and learns from

them. We need to accept people as they are and demolish the desire and the hatred for the other.

Everyone that is part of the LGBTQ+ community is valid and deserves to feel loved, especially

since so many people have moments where they believe they are wrong and invalid.

Toni Morrison speaks to her experience and does an incredible job doing so. When

interacting with or leading across cultures it is crucial to have a basic understanding of their

experiences, even if you haven’t lived them. The United States is built on stolen land,

colonization, and slavery, and we must not forget this history. We cannot erase identities because

they all bring unique perspectives that could help us break down the one-sided narrative that we

have become accustomed to. I have aspirations for working with Spanish speakers within and

outside of the United States and have found Morrison’s book useful for understanding the black

experience as well as the value in identity. I will continue these conversations whether through

readings or talking with other individuals and hope to grow in my cultural competency.