Mini-post: Toni Morrison articulating better than I ever could the way that I see myself as a black African woman
Posted on: 21 December, 2009
- In: Literature | Reflection | Women | Writing
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I’m in the middle of writing a paper for my Jazz and American culture – the last of the 5 papers that have defined my finals period (no exams, hamd’llah). I was flicking through Morrison’s novel “Jazz” for a quote to use to describe some concept I’m trying to articulate (I won’t bore you with details) but this quote stood out for me. Ponder, and enjoy. I’ll be writing more on the other side of the Atlantic:
“Black women were armed; black women were dangerous and the less money they had the deadlier the weapon they chose. Who were the unarmed ones? Those who found protection in church and the judging, angry God whose wrath in their behalf was too terrible to bear contemplation… Who else were the unarmed ones? The ones who thought they did not need folded blades, packets of lye, shards of glass taped to their hands. Those who bought houses and hoarded money as protection and the means to purchase it. Those attached to armed men. Those who did not carry pistols because they were pistols; did not carry switchblades because they were switchblades cutting through gatherings, shooting down statutes and pointing out the blood and abused flesh. Those who swelled their little unarmed strength into the reckoning one of leagues, clubs, societies, sisterhoods designed to hold or withhold, move or stay put, make a way, solicit, comfort and ease. Bail out, dress the dead, pay the rent, find new rooms, start a school, storm an office, take up collections, rout the block and keep their eyes on all the children.”
The Young and Disenchanted 
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