Steve Jonas for BuzzFlash: Why Republicans Opposing Toni Morrison Books in Schools Epitomizes Racism
Mural dedicated to Toni Morrison in Baltimore (Elvert Barnes)
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, Aug., 2018)
Toni Morrison (1931-2019) was one of the best known and highly honored U.S. novelists of the 20th century and into the 21st. Indeed, she won both the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes. As her Wikipedia entry says , "Morrison's works are praised for addressing the harsh consequences of racism in the United States." As is well-known now she is very much back in the news, for her perhaps most famous work, "Beloved," is back in the news. (So much so, in fact, although hardly what the racist-users of the book for propaganda intended, the title was, at this time of writing, among the 50 top sellers on Amazon's novels list.)
The novel has some very graphic scenes of the particular horrors of one of the two leading horrors of U.S. history, slavery (the other of course being the genocide of the Indigenous Peoples). Some years ago, the book was assigned as reading in a last-semester high school advanced placement course in a Virginia school. (That was in 2012.) One student took great exception to it. (To what exactly, one doesn't know: --- slavery; its depiction; violent acts inflicted directly or indirectly on slaves; or perhaps it was teaching about a central element in U.S. history that he either didn't want to know about or was being presented with differently than the "Lost Cause" narrative to which he might have been exposed in his racist [see next paragraph] home, which featured slavery as one just happy time for everyone involved).
At the time, the student's mother took great exception to the book being included in a high school course, even an advanced placement one (much like college), and with one or more Republican candidates, made a big political issue of it. The current GOP candidate for Governor of Virginia, Donald Trump, oops I mean Glen Youngkin, is making an issue of it again, and is using an ad (or a remake of it) featuring the outraged-that-her-son-should-be-exposed-to-the horrors-of-slavery mother in his campaign. Youngkin, like any modern Republican going back to Goldwater, always has race and racism in his back pocket (see: "Xenophobia and Racism: They're in the Republican Party's DNA"). Trying to hide them just a bit during the campaign, now he has his racism cards openly on the table. And they may very well win for him, especially because he is not running against a particularly strong candidate (but that's another story).
Interestingly enough, back in 1995, Toni Morrison spelled out in some detail just how a progression to fascism could occur in the United States, using racism as the point of the spear. I used her description of racism as it had been and was being used politically, in my 1996 "future history," The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022, republished in 2013 under the title: The 15% Solution: How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S.: 1981-2022. This "history-from-the-future" was purportedly published in 2048 on the 25th anniversary of the "Restoration of U.S. Constitutional Democracy" at the conclusion of the Second Civil War. It retails the progression of the United States to an apartheid state, called The New American Republics, driven by a Republican Party which has racism, and then Christian Nationalism, at its core.
And here then are the words of Ms. Morrison, which I used in the book as part of the fictional history it was retelling, eerily describing just how the process would take place. While the book is fiction, it is based on the facts about the Republican Party and its policies as it was known at the time (I wrote it in 1994-96). I drew the text below from an article that was published by Ms. Morrison in The Nation magazine, "Racism and Fascism" (May 29, 1995, p. 760). It appears in Chap. 2 of the book, "Fascism in America: An Overview."
"Let us be reminded that before there is a final solution, there must be a first solution, a second one, even a third. The move toward a final solution is not a jump. It takes one step, then another, then another. Something, perhaps, like this:
"1. Construct an internal enemy, as both focus and diversion.
"2. Isolate and demonize the enemy by unleashing and protecting the utterance of covert and coded name-calling and verbal abuse. Employ ad hominem attacks as legitimate charges against that enemy.
"3. Enlist and create sources and distributors of information who are willing to reinforce the demonizing process because it is profitable, because it grants power and because it works.
"4. Palisade all art forms; monitor, discredit or expel those that challenge or destabilize processes of demonization and deification.
"5. Subvert and malign all representatives of sympathizers with this constructed enemy.
"6. Solicit, from among the enemy, collaborators who agree with and can sanitize the dispossession process.
"7. Pathologize the enemy in scholarly and popular mediums; recycle, for example, scientific racism and the myths of racial superiority in order to naturalize the pathology.
"8. Criminalize the enemy. Then prepare, budget for, and rationalize the building of holding areas for the enemy especially its males and absolutely its children.
"9. Reward mindlessness and apathy with monumentalized entertainments and with little pleasures, tiny seductions: a few minutes on television, a few lines in the press; a little pseudo-success; the illusion of power and influence; a little fun, a little style, a little consequence.
"10. Maintain, at all costs, silence.
"In 1995 racism may wear a new dress, buy a new pair of boots, but neither it nor its succubus twin fascism is new or can make anything new. It can only reproduce the environment that supports its own health: fear, denial and an atmosphere in which its victims have lost the will to fight."
I have to tell you that in the writing of this column, I of course re-read Ms. Morrison's text very closely. All I can say is: "Wow. Did she get it right."
In this particular analysis from 1995, Morrison also retrospectively described the development of German Nazism in the 1930s based on the then on-coming book, "The War Against the Jews" (Davidowicz). And then, in my book (remember, originally published in 1996) I noted that in the text above Morrison also chillingly and accurately prophesied the coming of fascism to America.
In my fictional history (again, published originally in 1996), I had it arriving in the early 21st century through a series of events which in the book I called collectively "The War Against the Peoples of Color." It then ultimately led to the establishment of the projected Fascist/Apartheid state of the New American Republics (White, Black, Indian, Hispanic; see chap. 15 of the book).
In my book it would all eventually grow out from what we can clearly see now as Republican policy totally, so eloquently described and predicted in 1995. by Toni Morrison.
Steven Jonas, MD, MPH, MS is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at StonyBrookMedicine (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-editor of over 35 books. In addition to his position on OpEdNews.com as a “Trusted Author,” he is a regular contributor to BuzzFlash.com, and on occasion to Reader Supported News/Writing for Godot and From The G-Man. His own political website, stevenjonaspolitics.com, is an archive of the 1000 or so political columns he has published since 2004, with the current columns being added to it as they appear. He was also a career triathlete, 36 seasons, 256 multi-sport races, and writer on the sport (books and articles). He now is officially retired from racing.
He has a blind-copy distribution list for his columns. If you would like to be added to it, please send Dr. Jonas an email at sjtpj@aol.com.