For a long time I was convinced that the conflict between Jewish people and black people in this country was a media event.
Interpretation
Toni Morrison reflects on her initial belief that societal conflicts are exaggerated by the media.
In this quote, Toni Morrison expresses her past conviction that the tensions between Jewish and black communities were largely fabricated or amplified by media narratives. This statement reveals a critical perspective on how societal issues can be perceived and understood, suggesting that what may appear to be a media event could have deeper, underlying truths. It invites reflection on the complexities of racial and cultural conflicts, and how they are represented in public discourse.
In practice
In a discussion on race relations during a community meeting, one might reference this quote to illustrate the role of media in shaping perceptions.
There is a certain kind of peace that is not merely the absence of war. It is larger than that. The peace I am thinking of is not at the mercy of history's rule, nor is it a passive surrender to the status quo. The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one -- an activity that occurs most naturally, most often in the reading/writing world we live in. Accessible as it is, this particular kind of peace warrants vigilance.
You looking good." "Devil's confusion. He lets me look good long as I feel bad.
What do you say? There really are no words for that. There really aren't. Somebody tries to say, 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.' People say that to me. There's no language for it. Sorry doesn't do it. I think you should just hug people and mop their floor or something.
An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and therefore untrustworthy. No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence, even if it did wilt rows of angel trumpets and cause them to fall from their vines.
Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself
One of my kids was born in 1968. There were going to be political difficulties, but they were never going to have that level of hatred and contempt that my brothers and my sister and myself were exposed to.
If the meanest man in the republic is deprived of his rights,then every man in the republic is deprived of his rights.
A hallucination is a species of reality, as capable of teaching you as a videotape about Kilimanjaro or anything else that falls through your life.
The nakedness of the indigent world may be clothed from the trimmings of the vain.
I am not responsible for what other people think. I am responsible only for what I myself think, and I know what that is. No idea I've ever come up with has ever struck me as a divine revelation. Nothing I have ever observed leads me to think there is a God watching over me.
Everything gives way before the recurring torment and festivity of passion.
By comparison with other less hectic days, the city is unconfortable and inconvenient; but New Yorkers tempramentally do not crave comfort and convenience - if they did they would live elsewhere.
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