“Clinton as the First Black President”
First published in New Yorker magazine, this essay was motivated by Morrison having taken an extended hiatus from watching or listening to the news. Her return coincided with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, prompting Morrison to wonder how this could be such enormous news considering the past transgressions for former Presidents. Her conclusion is that it was the degradation and humiliation the scandal offered on a platter to his opponents, thus stimulating her titular contention Bill Clinton “displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.”
“On the Backs of Blacks”
Published in Time Magazine, this essay references an obscure Elia Kazan film chronicling the history of his Greek ancestry immigrating to America as an accessible example of the way that the denigration of blacks was instrumental in the assimilation of white Europeans coming to America.
“Rediscovering Black History”
New York Times Magazine published this essay in 1974 resulting from an awakening of national consciousness—of sorts—about the seemingly inherent racism in the portrayal of black stereotypes over the past century. Morrison takes a decidedly contrarian view toward actions ranging from the removal of black lawn jockeys to banning book about Little Black Sambo. Her argument is that removal accomplishes nothing whereas informing white society and exposing new generations of black children on the contributions to culture and entertainment represented by these elements would be far more fruitful.
“Memory, Creation and Writing”
Morrison crafted an essay for publication in Thought: A Review of Culture and Idea on the subject of her own goals and desires for how readers respond to her writing. The central goal at work is Morrison’s railing against passive consumption of literature in preference for a more active engagement with it on a level outside the literary one.
“Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in America Literature”
This expansive essay stretches across thirty-four pages in the Michigan Quarterly Review. It is a broad-based—yet highly specific—analysis of where African-American literature fits into the official canon of American fiction, whether there is anything fundamentally recognizable as “black literature” and whether that canon is one which embraces ethnic literature or separates such literature in order to maintain the “protected reserve” of the narrative of white society.
“Black Matters”
This essay began as a lecture delivered by Morrison in 1990, one year after the publication of “Unspeakable Things” and takes up much the same subject. Reduced in length and narrowed in focus, the subject here is a critique of the lack of African-American writing in the official canon of American literature.
“The Dead of September 11”
Vanity Fair published a special commemorative edition two months after the tragic events of the 9/11 terrorist assault on American. Morrison’s contribution was this unusual essay in which she confronts the challenge of trying to directly address the dead in language neutral way since the victims represent cultures and ethnicities from all around the globe.
“A Slow Walk of Trees (as Grandmother Would Say) Hopeless (as Grandfather Would Say)”
The world as it existed in 1976 is the context for this essay published in New York Times Magazine. The kicking off point is predictions made by Ardelia (Morrison’s grandmother) and John (her grandfather) over the future of race relations in America. John speaks from the experience of being swindled out of his property and forced to barely make ends meet working as a carpenter while Ardelia’s prescience is informed by a strong religious belief and deep-seated faith. John sees no hope whatever for American ever being a just place for blacks to live. While admitting the movement has been slow, Ardelia’s prediction for the future is more optimistic on the basis of having already seen incremental progress.
