“I felt that nobody wrote about those black people the way I knew those people to be. And I was aware of that fact, that it was rare. Aware that there was an enormous amount of apology going on, even in the best writing. But more important than that, there was so much explanation…the black writers always explained something to somebody else. And I didn’t want to explain anything to anybody else! …If I could understand Emily Dickinson—you know, she wasn’t writing for a black audience or a white audience; she was writing whatever she wrote! I think if you do that, if you hone in on what you write, it will be universal…not the other way around!”
Toni Morrison's quote dismisses the idea of "writing for" a specific racial group by claiming that good writing can be understood by anyone and that writers should not have to explain themselves in order to get their points across. This quote gives insight as to why Toni Morrison was inspired to write in the first place. It seems that she grew frustrated seeing other black writers try to explain what life is like and not simply writing in order to write. She also was frustrated that the image of black people in literature was not "the way [she] knew those people to be." Her allusion to Emily Dickinson is important, because Dickinson stands as the model for good writing in the eyes of Morrison. I agree with Morrison that when people write novels or stories, they should focus on their own ideas before contemplating the ideas of their audience. While centering your words around your audience can be a beneficial way to write when trying to be persuasive or relatable, when you restrict or alter your word choice in order to fit the audience's preference, the ideas backing the writing has been lost. Writing should be universal, so tailoring a work to a specific group will only lessen the strength of the piece.
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