Toni Morrison Doesn't Like Commas

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders said this while speaking of the documentary he directed, of whom Morrison was the subject. He also regaled us with tidbits about his process, editing the work, collecting the interviews and compiling everything into the narrative we had just seen. "The Pieces I Am" is being shown in theaters thanks to Magnolia Productions later in June of this year and I cannot more highly recommend it. In short, it was phenomenal. When it finished, my heart was full and I felt blessed to be young, gifted and Black. As Ms. Morrison says, YOU are your best thing. 

Some takeaways from this are that it’s okay to want to escape where you are in order to read. Morrison did this after graduating from high school, going to Howard to get away from home and really live. The following are the rest of my observations and commentary on this documentary about so important a person to the general population's wellbeing.

Morrison spoke extensively and intermittently about value. There is a difference between knowing yourself to be worthy and of value, and only finding value in self through the gaze of your oppressors, whoever that may be, though in Morrison’s case, it’s usually the white gaze. Morrison specifically does not write from the perch of this gaze and I believe it’s for this reason. You need to find value in and of yourself based on your merit and what YOU know YOU are capable of. Your value does not come from your oppressors, their gaze or their validation. Especially considering the fact that these same oppressors have tried so hard, for so long, so consistently, so assiduously, to make sure you, as a person of color working towards greatness, do not succeed. That in and of itself is an accomplishment. After, as a people, having lived through such inexplicable pain and suffering, blunting and stunting ourselves that we might be more palatable, all while still experiencing love.  Being able to live a life and, on coming to the end of it say, “and she was loved. And you were loved. And I was loved.” What more validation do you need?

Validation was also discussed by Morrison, specifically women. She said in the film, “Women always subjugate themselves. I am an editor who also writes, I am a mother who writes. Instead of saying, I’m a writer. We wait for others to validate us in what we do,” and I inherently knew what she meant. Being of woman of color, it’s almost ingrained in us to only see worth in ourselves through what others see as worthy in us. We don’t consider ourselves writers until someone else calls us a writer. I’ve struggled with this myself while I sit here, in a subway car, doing something I love, that comes to me in furious spurts, and often at inopportune moments. Even so, through my procrastination and all the rest, I am a writer. I have Toni Morrison to thank for being able to say that of myself, without awaiting for the validation, praise or being the assignee of worth by another. Morrison says in an interview in the film, “I do not mind being called a Black, woman writer because that’s what I am.”

Embracing self and self-love could never be more important. So again I ask, after being able to say, with gravitas, “and I was loved,” what more could you want from a life? 

xx

PS. Go read "Beloved," "The Bluest Eye," "Sula," and "Song of Solomon." Immediately. That's an order.