Newsnight Review in New York
Newsnight Review will be coming from New York this week. Ahead of this special edition, Kirsty Wark interviewed Toni Morrison, author of 'A Mercy'
Toni Morrison's new novel 'A Mercy' is set in America in 1690 when the country was in chaos - different states belonged to different countries - religions jostled with each other, slavery was growing but not yet institutionalised and indentured servants of all nationalities were bound to gentry, and bought and sold too. 'A Mercy' follows the fate of a group of mainly women - African, American, Native American, mixed race and white - under the ownership, one way or another, of a Dutchman.
When I interviewed Toni Morrison here in New York for Friday night's Newsnight and Newsnight Review special, she explained that she had carried out extensive research and even she was shocked by some of old papers related to the slave trade - that the trade encompassed so many races in the 17th century. She also read passages from the novel. Toni Morrison is regarded as the unofficial keeper of the historical African American experience, but with this book she explores the dense and tangled roots of modern America.
She is a wonderful interviewee - thoughtful, moving, and always with a twinkle in her eye. She also talks about next week's election, and the fact that she supports Obama as a 'post racial candidate'. I put it to her that she was ahead of the curve on that, and she volunteered something that surprised me, that for some African Americans the fact that Obama was not of a slave family, and that he was raised by a white mother and grandmother was an issue. She also discussed the economy and says there will have to be a fundamental change in the way Americans lead their lives - fewer things and the return of thrift.
Kirsty.
Comment number 1.
At 28th Oct 2008, MarkW wrote:Hello.
You might like to mention Nate Silver's site
fivethirtyeight.com which has the best election statistics out there. An interview would be better (MSNBC and Colbert have interviewed him).
And please, the race isn't tightening.
Pew Research Center 10/23-26/08;
1,198 LV, 3%
Mode: Live Telephone Interviews
National: Obama 53, McCain 38
(It's probably an outlier, though).
Also, John Zogby's model assumes the number of self identifying Democrats and Republicans are the same. They are not
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Comment number 2.
At 1st Nov 2008, keepreal wrote:Newsnight Review from America tonight was the best for a very long time, with thoughtful articulate, well informed, stimulating and sometimes profound contributions from all the members of the panel.
However, it is a great pity that as well as the interview with Oliver Stone, you have not also made available the interview with Toni Morrison on your website.
What she had to say about Barak Obama makes him a better candidate to lift America out of the racism of the past and give a strong positive message to the whole world, if he can rise to the occasion. After all, not being from a slave background, nor having been in the Civil Rights Movement it will be easier for him to steer a balanced course and, as importantly, to be seen to do so without undue bias.
Having seen the programme about Obama on Panorama a few weeks ago, I have been having some slight doubts as to his the man and his methods from his political beginnings. However, regardless of that, he is in the right place and at the right time to heal a lot of past injustices and give a message of hope and optimism to America and the developed world. Sometimes in the political world
the rhetoric is what makes the difference as was the case with Winston Churchill in Britain during the war.
Getting back to Toni Morrison, can we please have a video or a transcript of the whole interview with her? What one member of the panel quoted about "greed [not] being good" and she said about consumerism being immoral are for me the most important starting points in finding the way forward from where we all find ourselves today. To make a start with healing a broken planet the excesses on Wall Street and elsewhere in the financial centres and the banks of the developed world in the past ten years have to be put behind us. With a charismatic leader in the White House such as JFK was seen to be by many, and now again with Barak Obama, November 4th 2008 could be a turning point.
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Comment number 3.
At 1st Nov 2008, keepreal wrote:Newsnight Review from America tonight was the best for a very long time, with thoughtful articulate, well informed, stimulating and sometimes profound contributions from all the members of the panel.
However, it is a great pity that as well as the interview with Oliver Stone, you have not also made available the interview with Toni Morrison on your website.
What she had to say about Barak Obama makes him a better candidate to lift America out of the racism of the past and give a strong positive message to the whole world, if he can rise to the occasion. After all, not being from a slave background nor having been in the Civil Rights Movement, it will be easier for him to steer a balanced course and, as importantly, to be seen to do so without undue bias.
Having seen the programme about Obama on Panorama a few weeks ago, I have been having some slight doubts as to his the man and his methods from his political beginnings. However, regardless of that, he is in the right place and at the right time to heal a lot of past injustices and give a message of hope and optimism to America and the developed world. Sometimes in the political world the rhetoric is what makes the difference as was the case with Winston Churchill in Britain during the war.
Getting back to Toni Morrison, can we please have a video or a transcript of the whole interview with her? What one member of the panel quoted about "greed [not] being good" and she said about consumerism being immoral are for me the most important starting points in finding the way forward from where we all find ourselves today. To make a start with healing a broken planet the excesses on Wall Street and elsewhere in the financial centres and the banks of the developed world in the past ten years have to be put behind us. With a charismatic leader in the White House such as JFK was seen to be by many and as the acting president Ronald Reagan most certainly was - now again hopefully with Barak Obama - November 4th 2008 could be a turning point.
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Comment number 4.
At 1st Nov 2008, keepreal wrote:Something went wrong - please cancel the message from me at 00:25 am which I did not intend to send, but not the second!
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Comment number 5.
At 3rd Nov 2008, JadedJean wrote:keepreal (#2) "What she had to say about Barak Obama makes him a better candidate to lift America out of the racism of the past and give a strong positive message to the whole world, if he can rise to the occasion."
Here's the problem. Smart people learn pretty early in life that words not anchored to reality come cheap and whilst great for la-la land industries, they're worse than hopeless when it comes to getting things that matter done. What human resources (never mind economic) does he have?
It's Obama's fondness of aspirational talk which should have people worried.
The racism of which you speak is that Hispanic on Black or did you have in mind?
Like many others, I've invested a considerable amount of time looking for evidence upon which to based effective policy, but to date, the . Those who assert that this is somehow a symptom of racism or that all will sort itself out if we just will it to and talk positively don't seem at all to me. Do they to you?
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