When I Defended Song of Solomon

Toni Morrison

I think it was 13 years ago or so when I read in our county newspaper that a high school student was objecting to a book he had been assigned to read in an Advanced Placement English class. The book was Toni’s Morrison’s Pulitzer-winning Song of Solomon, a book on the Advanced Placement list, and the student was apparently offended by three pages in the middle of the book. Or at least, that’s what the article said. He or his mother apparently went to the superintendent of the schools to complain, and she in turn ruled that, in the future, St. Mary’s County teachers would not be allowed to teach the book in their classes. To justify her decision, she photocopied the three offending pages and submitted them to the Board of County Commissioners, some of whom declared themselves appalled by the book.

I did my little bit to protest. I wrote a long letter to the local newspaper praising the book. I went to see the superintendent but was only allowed to see her assistants. I talked with a Washington Post reporter who had gotten wind of the story and who was bundling it along with two other instances of book banning in the D.C. area, of Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. But nothing came of the objections and, as far as I know, Song of Solomon is still forbidden to St. Mary’s teachers, even as it remains on the national Advanced Placement list of recommended books.

I write about the incident here because I think that the teacher, a former student of mine, was actually being very smart and sensitive in how he had set up his AP class. He had paired Huckleberry Finn and Song of Solomon, seeing them as books that could be made to talk to each other. As I mentioned in my last entry, Huckleberry Finn has been banned in some Washington area schools, which I find no less troubling than the banning of Song of Solomon. By teaching both, the teacher introduces students to a range of images—a big-hearted and forgiving slave in Jim (perhaps a white fantasy although I am unwilling to see such people as existing only in fantasy) and a troubled and lost young black man who discovers who he is after he undertakes a roots quest. Both embark on journeys but the journeys are very different. This is the kind of exploring one wants to see in our high school classes.

What particularly infuriated me about the banning of Song of Solomon is that it can provide young men (not only minorities but white men as well) with positive images that will help sustain them. Milkman, the main character, doesn’t have a sense of purpose in the first part of the book. Under the thumb of his avaricious father, who squeezes every cent out of his black tenants, Milkman lives an aimless, materialist existence and doesn’t treat either women or himself with respect. It is a problem the plagues many young men in our society. However, once he begins digging into his past and learns about the heroism of his ancestors, he gains a sense of self-pride and begins in a whole new way. He becomes accountable for his past sins and treats others with consideration.

The book also makes it clear that to operate out of destructive anger, no matter how justified, is wrong. Milkman has a friend, Guitar, whose rage against racial injustice has led him to join “the seven days,” a group that kills a white in retribution for every black who is killed by whites. Morrison is trying to chart a path between race hatred and race assimilation. There can be black pride, she seems to be saying, without black separatism.  In the process, she also gives powerful insight into the mindset of young terrorists.

In short, the book sets forth a vision that we should be praying our young people encounter.

No one would tell me which three pages were found offensive, but I’m pretty sure I know. Midway through the book, Milkman has left his urban Michigan home and his car has broken down in rural North Carolina or Virginia. There he encounters a black man who takes offense at his urban ways.  Following some explicit trash talk, they have a fight. The talk has some offensive language, and if this were all that one saw of the book, it would come as a shock. Of course, this is how many of our young people talk on the playground (they were talking this way when I was young). Morrison, as they say, is keeping it real. But the point of the passage is that it begins the process of Milkman gaining a new sense of manhood, learning humility and empathy, and growing up.

There is one silver lining in this otherwise dark cloud. After the ruling, the local bookstore could not keep Song of Solomon in stock. Students were reading it who might not even have read it when it was assigned. There’s nothing like a little controversy to boost sales.

But sadly, the bigger message sent was that it’s okay to teach books that have images that blacks might fight offensive (Huckleberry Finn) but not books that whites might find offensive—even books written by America’s most recent Nobel laureate. To the extent that Jim is a white fantasy, the signal had been sent, in the literature that St. Mary’s teachers were allowed to teach, that whites can define blacks but blacks cannot define themselves—or at least, blacks can only offer up such characterizations of themselves as are acceptable to whites. Unfortunately, when such cases happen in mostly white school systems, it only gives censors ammunition for banning Huckleberry Finn in mostly black school systems. Everyone loses.

I have one other thought, however. When a book is banned, it at least means that people are assuming that it can have an impact on lives. In other words, literature still matters. In this respect, I agree with the censors. But I also believe is that teachers can use these books to strengthen their students. The novels provide images that will help adolescents negotiate their formidable challenges.