“Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.” Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture.
As I attempt to reflect on our theme ‘Violence, Isolation, and Dislocation in Oppressive Times’ I am called to notice the upheaval of our current collective life. From the isolation of a Pandemic to the violence of the rising oppressive governments and wars, we encounter each other in a world radicalized by extremes in which language may become a powerful tool for alienation and violence. More than ever, we need to recover the radical power of words to define the protective boundaries around us. Toni Morrison’s reflection on the impact of language and its disruptive power invites us to consider how what we say or write re-create the world around us and may limit our knowledge or inflict violence. Toni Morrison is a compelling presence, soft yet strong, committed, bold, and audacious. In “The pieces I am” she describes her father reading and re-reading a Bible, the only book he was allowed to read as an African American. She also tells us of her mother reacting to the word she and her sister wrote on the sidewalk, making them erase it without ever explaining its meaning. Through those early experiences, she tells us she realized early in life that “words have power.”
Watch Toni Morrison’s documentary was a disruptive, emotional, and awe-inspiring experience. She tells us stories of resistance. By refusing to be ens-laved by white gaze domination in her writing and life, she slowly shows us how to not lose contact with our private and public sense of worth and power. The backbone that brings up change questions the status quo and defines and opens up the space beyond oppression. She never gave up. She carried us all into the eye of the storm.
Writing is disruptive, it is an act of freedom. Or at least, it should be if one refuses the social jails that oppressively control and define what could/should be thought or not. Morrison invites us to not give up, to wake up with the dawn and find our most truthful and raw voices. She shows us how in the face of oppression, you say NO, without hesitation, fear, or self-doubt. And she kept writing beautiful, deeply touching, ultimately moving, painful, and disruptive novels.
Critica invited reflections on violence, oppression, and isolation in this issue. We imagined we would be flooded with essays and reflections, only to realize that the invitation was not an easy one. What does psychoanalysis have to say? Words have power, maybe more so when they deconstruct meaning through poetic language and disrupt the reader. How to speak/write about violence and oppression without evoking disturbing feelings? Impossible task.
It makes me think of Pecola, our beloved character from “The Bluest Eye”. In one of the scenes described in the book, the reader accompanies Pecola in her journey as the beauty of the dandelions is de-constructed by the dehumanizing interaction with the Blued-Eyed Mr. Yacobowsky while she buys three Mary Janes. As she leaves the store, the dandelions and herself have been transformed into weeds. At the same time, she is involved by “the inexplicable shame ebb.” (Morrison, 1970, p.50). In Morrison’s writing, we encounter the poetic, the resistance, and the invitation to the unspeakable, which she presents to us and involves us with fearless courage.
Was that our invitation? Is that our necessary, always precarious, and endlessly fleeing search for a story where violence and oppression may be conquered and transformed? Where dandelions may hold on to their inherent beauty without being colonized and deconstructed, pulled out as weeds, lying flat in the trash can? Psychoanalysis must acknowledge being born from the womb of our complex collective reality and engage with it in its fullness. This collective field embraces and defines us, destroys and erases many of us. Like Morrison, we must never submit or give up. Psychoanalysis needs to reflect on the ways it has abused its power. Psychoanalysis must free itself.
This issue was only possible with many volunteer hours from our Editorial Team. I have no words to thank them for their active and engaged presence, their precision in revising our submissions, their enthusiasm in considering our flow and layout, and their courage to reflect on our current collective experience. Without them, Critica would not exist. I would like to extend a special thanks to our graphic designer, Aimée Mancilla, who worked to redesign Critica’s layout and branding. She created a visual experience, inviting and disruptive while still elegant. Very fitting with our current overarching theme. We hope you appreciate her work and presence as much as we did.
As always, I am grateful to our contributors who invited us all to contend with, reflect, observe, and question, but mostly to be touched by the claws of alienating violence and oppression.
Only by being touched can one build a place of resistance and freedom.
References:
Greenfield-Sanders, T. (Director) (2019). Toni Morrison: The pieces I am. [film]. Magnolia Pictures.
Morrison, T. (1970). The Bluest Eye. New York, NY: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston.
Morrison, T. (1993). Nobel Lecture. [Speech Audio Recording].
https://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/?id=1502
