TONI MORRISON: The Pain Of Being Black

TONI MORRISON, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her gritty novel Beloved, smolders at the inequities that blacks and women still face

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A. They can be teachers. They can be brain surgeons. We have to help them become brain surgeons. That's my job. I want to take them all in my arms and say, "Your baby is beautiful and so are you and, honey, you can do it. And when you want to be a brain surgeon, call me -- I will take care of your baby." That's the attitude you have to have about human life. But we don't want to pay for it.

I don't think anybody cares about unwed mothers unless they're black -- or poor. The question is not morality, the question is money. That's what we're upset about. We don't care whether they have babies or not.

Q. How do you break the cycle of poverty? You can't just hand out money.

A. Why not? Everybody gets everything handed to them. The rich get it handed -- they inherit it. I don't mean just inheritance of money. I mean what people take for granted among the middle and upper classes, which is nepotism, the old-boy network. That's shared bounty of class.

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