Journal of Negro Education

Racism and Fascism

Author(s): Toni Morrison
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 64, No. 3, Myths and Realities: African
Americans and the Measurement of Human Abilities (Summer, 1995), pp. 384-385
Published by: Journal of Negro Education
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2967217 .
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Racism and Fascism
Toni Morrison,Department
ofCreativeWriting,
PrincetonUniversity*

Inthisaddress,givenatHowardUniversityduringits1995Charter
Daycelebrations,
Morrison
spokeeloquentlyabouttheoriginsandsocialsignificance
ofHowardandother Black
historically
institutions
ofhigherlearning,abouttheeducation
andmiseducation ofAfricanAmericans,and
abouttheaberrant societal
tensions
wrought byracismandfascism.In thisexcerpt,
shedescribes
thepersistentfallaciesthatemergewhenracialand genderissuesconnect and intersect,
and
discussesthetendency ofsometofocuson a narrow sectorrather
thanthefullrangeofhuman
abilities
to differentiate,
and mostoftendisparage,
members ofminority and underrepresented
groups.
... Let us be remindedthatbeforethereis a finalsolution,theremustbe a firstsolution,
a second one, even a third.The move toward a finalsolution is not a jump. It takes one
step, then another,thenanother.Something,perhaps, like this:
(1) Constructan internalenemy,as both focus and diversion.
(2) Isolate and demonize thatenemyby unleashingand protectingtheutteranceofovert
and coded name-callingand verbal abuse. Employ ad hominem attacksas legitimate
charges against thatenemy.
(3) Enlistand createsources and distributorsofinformation who are willingto reinforce
the demonizingprocessbecause it is profitable,because it grantspower and because
it works.
(4) Palisade all artforms;monitor,discreditor expel those thatchallenge or destabilize
processes of demonizationand deification.
(5) Subvert and malign all representativesof and sympathizerswith this constructed
enemy.
(6) Solicit,fromamong the enemy,collaboratorswho agree with and can sanitize the
dispossession process.
(7) Pathologize the enemy in scholarly and popular mediums; recycle,for example,
scientificracism 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 arenas forthe enemy-especially its males and absolutelyits children.
(9) Reward mindlessness and apathy with monumentalizedentertainmentsand with
littlepleasures,tinyseductions,a few minuteson television,a few lines in thepress,
a littlepseudo-success,the illusion of power and influence,a littlefun,a littlestyle,
a littleconsequence.
(10) Maintain,at all costs, silence.

*This is an excerptfroma speech delivered at the CharterDay celebration,Howard University,March 3,

1995. Ms. Morrison,a formerHoward facultymember,won the Nobel Prize in Literaturein 1993 forher novel,
Beloved.She is presentlythe RobertF. Goheen Professorof Creative Writingat PrincetonUniversity.

JournalofNegroEducation,Vol. 64, No. 3 (1995)

384 Copyright? 1996,Howard University

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 In 1995 racismmay wear a new dress,buy a new pair of boots, but neitherit nor its
succubus twin fascism is new or can make anythingnew. It can only reproduce the
environmentthat supports its own health: fear,denial and an atmospherein which its
victimshave lost the will to fight.
The forcesinterestedin fascistsolutions to national problems are not to be found in
one political party or another,or in one or anotherwing of any single political party.
Democratshave no unsullied historyofegalitarianism.Nor are liberalsfreeof domination
agendas. Republicans may have housed abolitionistsand white supremacists.Conserva-
tive,moderate,liberal;right,left,hard left,farright;religious,secular,socialist-we must
not be blindsided by these Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola labels because the genius of fascism
is thatany political structurecan become a suitable home. Fascism talks ideology,but it
is reallyjust marketing-marketingforpower.
It is recognizableby its need to purge, by the strategiesit uses to purge and by its
terrorof trulydemocraticagendas. It is recognizableby its determinationto convertall
public services to private entrepreneurship; all nonprofitorganizationsto profit-making
ones-so thatthe narrowbut protectivechasm between governanceand business disap-
pears. It changes citizensintotaxpayers-so individualsbecome angryat even thenotion
of the public good. It changes neighborsinto consumers-so the measure of our value
as humans is not our humanityor our compassion or our generositybut what we own.
It changes parentinginto panicking-so that we vote against the interestsof our own
children;against theirhealth care, theireducation, theirsafetyfromweapons. And in
effectingthese changes it produces the perfectcapitalist,one who is willing to kill a
human being for a product-a pair of sneakers,a jacket, a car-or kill generationsfor
controlof products-oil, drugs, fruit,gold.
When our fearshave all been serialized, our creativitycensured,our ideas "market-
placed," or rightssold, our intelligencesloganized, our strengthdownsized, our privacy
auctioned; when the theatricality, the entertainment value, the marketingof lifeis com-
plete,we will findourselves livingnot in a nationbut in a consortiumof industries,and
wholly unintelligibleto ourselves except forwhat we see as througha screen darkly.

TheJournalofNegroEducation 385

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