Relire Toni Morrison et mieux comprendre l’exclusion

Dans le prologue de The Bluest eye, L’oeil le plus bleu, Toni Morrison explique les raisons qui l’ont conduite à écrire son premier roman en 1970 sur cette enfant noire qui rêvait d’avoir les yeux bleus. Edifiant….

« There can’t be anyone, I am sure, who doesn’t know what if feels like to be disliked, even rejected, momentarily or for sustained periods of time. Perhaps, the feeling is merely indifference, mild annoyance, but it may also be hurt. It may even be that some of us know what is like to be actually hated – hated for things we have no control over and cannot changed. When this happens, it is some consolation to know that the disliked or hatred is injustified- that you don’t deserve it. And if you have the emotional strength and/or support from family and friends, the damage is reduced or eraised. We think of it as the stress ( minor or disabling) that is part of life as a human.

When I began writing the bluest eye, I was interesting in something else. Not resistance to the contempt of others, way to diflect it. But the far more tragic and disabling consequences of accepting rejection as legitimate, as self-evident. … »

Merci Toni Morrison