Stephanie Li

Performing Intimacy Using Race-Specific,

Race-Free Language: Black Private Letters
in the Public Sphere

The 2008 presidential victory of Barack Obama

promises to fulfill Toni Morrisons conception

of home as a-world-in-which-race does-not-matter.1 Morrison explains that such a home does
not aim to banish race and thereby form a colorblind utopia, where difference does not exist.
Rather, she seeks a way to convert a racist house
into a race-specific yet nonracist home, asking
How to enunciate race while depriving it of its
lethal cling? (Home, 5). In her quest for racespecific, race-free language (ibid., 9), Morrison
admits that her thoughts are aesthetically and
politically unresolved (ibid., 5), suggesting that
such writing is very much a work in progress.
These explorations served as the basis for her
1997 novel Paradise, in which Morrison employs
race-free prose that is nonetheless fraught with
racial signification.2 By not specifying the race
of the outcast women of the Convent but hinting relentlessly at it, Morrison gestures toward
the possibility of a home in which race is not
primarily decided by identity. The women of the
Convent succeed in creating an environment in
which race is incidental and ambiguously significant to how they interact with one another.
They are each defined by strong character traits
South Atlantic Quarterly 109:2, Spring 2010
DOI 10.1215/00382876-2009-037 2010 Duke University Press

340 Stephanie Li

and key experiences. Racial identification is only made when the men from
Ruby arrive at the Convent, suggesting that the physical violence they
inflict is intimately tied to their need for racial classification. However, the
women of the Convent are not without race; they do not simplistically transcend distinctions of color, class, and culture. They have race-specific backgrounds, but such differences do not determine the entirety of their identities or how they relate to one another. Similarly, in her only short story
Recitatif, first published in 1983, Morrison describes the friendship of two
girls, one white and one black, but the text does not specify which is which.
Although the characters refer to racial difference, their various prejudices
and assumptions about the race of the other can be applied to either blacks
or whites.3 The race-specific, race-free language of Paradise and Recitatif imagines the possibility of race without racism, while also exploring the
tension inherent to maintaining difference without hierarchy.
These two works of fiction by Morrison are provocative literary experiments that demonstrate how language can both express and occlude racial
difference. However, there is something almost too clever in their execution. Who is the white girl shot in the first sentence of Paradise? Is Twyla,
the narrator of Recitatif, white or black? These are not trivial questions.
Racial identity fundamentally shapes the majority of Morrisons characters;
Pecola of The Bluest Eye, Milkman of Song of Solomon, Sethe of Beloved, all
these characters not only are but must be black.4 Their identities are inextricably linked to African American history and lived experiences of oppression, survival, and resistance.
As indicated by the opening sentence of Paradise, one of the women in
the Convent is white, and the reader is left to gather vague clues to determine which one she is. The exercise is maddening, though we may also
understand that this search, like the one in Recitatif, is little more than
a trap. To assign Twyla a racial identity is to concede to stereotype. One
may conclude that Twyla is black because she waitresses for a living, while
Roberta marries a rich widower. Or is Twyla white, because of the two
friends, she is the one who arrives in the shelter able to read, while Roberta
is illiterate? Either interpretation depends on stereotypes about race and
the intersection of racial identity with certain class characteristics. Is attendance at a Jimi Hendrix concert more likely for a young white or young
black woman? Which girl has the Bible-thumping mother? To read race
into the text is ultimately to enact a type of racism; it makes the reading
of race a material practice.

Performing Intimacy Using Race-Specific, Race-Free Language 341

In literature, the danger of creating a a race-specific yet nonracist home

lies in presenting characters who, though well delineated in terms of personality traits and basic values, are ultimately faceless. The point of Morrisons story may be to underscore that racial categorization is far less important to Twyla and Roberta than the history they share. One is white, the
other black, but both have been abandoned by their mothers; both struggle
to understand their responsibility to Maggie, the mute worker at the childrens shelter; and both find joy, at least for a time, in the company of the
other. By not specifying the race of the two women, Morrison poses critical
questions to her readers: Why is racial identification important? Does the
story change if we read the narrator as black or as white? However, race is
not incidental to Twyla as she waits on tables at the Howard Johnson and
counters protests to have children bused to schools outside of their own
neighborhoods. So then why must it be invisible to readers?
Using a language that is race free to describe characters who live in a
highly charged racial world poses serious problems of interpretation. The
effect is to make racialized references a type of insider knowledge that can
leave readers confused and alienated. How is this the home Morrison has
promised? Racist language may be gone, but a new type of divide is created, one between those who can read the clues and those who cannotor
between the knowing author and the ignorant reader. This critique is not
meant to deny the complexity and provocative consequences of Morrisons
writing; in fact, this is precisely what literature should dopose difficult
questions and explore unsettling dynamics. What I mean to suggest is that
home is better conceptualized not as a-world-in-which-race does-not-matter (Home, 3), as Morrison suggests, because race always matters, even
if it is left unarticulated. Instead I would like to posit the possibility of a
home that utilizes race-specific, race-free language (ibid., 9), because the
race of those involved is already known. Morrison has certainly employed
this type of prose in her novels. For example, in Beloved she describes how
Paul D and Sethe step aside for a group of oncoming women. The reader
knows the women are white because of the deference required by Paul D
and Sethe and because the text has already made clear that the latter are
both black. Whereas the ambiguous language of Recitatif makes racial
identity a guessing game, here the prose need not be race specific because
the novel has already established Paul D and Sethe as characters inextricably bound to a certain historical and social context. Consequently, race is
evident in action, not expressions of color.

342 Stephanie Li

The development of race-specific, race-free language has important

consequences in the public sphere, especially with regard to Barack Obama.
Because the race of participants on the national stage is already known,
this type of language operates apart from the experimental ambiguity of
Paradise and Recitatif. Instead we can explore the ways in which such discourse both preserves and elides racial difference. Morrisons letter endorsing Obamas candidacy stands as a critical example of how such prose can
effectively operate, and it models an increasingly ubiquitous form of communication between black intellectuals and politiciansthe shared private epistle. Although Morrison states that her support for Obama was not
derived from racial preference, because of her vexed history with the term
black president, her letter has deep racial significance.5 As an example of
the shared private epistle, it illustrates the fundamental friction of racespecific, race-free language, while also demonstrating the utility of such
language to reach out to audiences of all races. Such prose creates a new
division between insider and outsider, a split that Morrison capitalizes on
by positioning her audience as spectators to a private correspondence. By
acknowledging that those who read the letter, regardless of their race, are
outside this direct exchange, Morrison creates a space in which the language of race can be disregarded because it is already known. Her audience
is thus left to read race not as a series of identity categories but as an intimacy that renders its specific reference obsolete.
Who Is Our First Black President?
In January 2008, while then senator Barack Obama and then senator Hillary
Clinton were engaged in a fierce battle for the Democratic nomination for
the presidency, Morrison publicly issued a letter, addressed to Senator
Obama, in support of his candidacy. The letter made national news and
was printed in its entirety on various Web sites. Morrison begins by stating
that this act represents a first for mea public endorsement of a Presidential candidate. She explains that she was motivated by the hope that
her support may encourage others to vote for him; moreover, due to the
multiple crises facing us . . . this opportunity for a national evolution (even
revolution) will not come again soon, and I am convinced you are the person to capture it. Morrison is unclear as to what constitutes this national
evolutionan evolution from white to black leadership? From Republican
to Democratic control of the White House? From a series of baby boomer

Performing Intimacy Using Race-Specific, Race-Free Language 343

presidents to a man who has now spawned his own Obama generation?
Here, as elsewhere in the 495-word letter, Morrison avoids specifically
racialized language; that is, she does not directly name race. The ambiguity
concerning the nature of this imminent national evolution invites speculation and suggests that while race is a major factor in the historic nature of
Obamas presidency, it is not the only significant feature of his compelling
candidacy. Consistent with the nature of race-specific, race-free language,
we may read a racial meaning here, but that interpretation falls on readers.
Race is thus both present and absent, fully dependent on how the reader
understands Obamas significance.
The interpretive range of race-specific, race-free language recalls
W. E. B. Du Boiss characterization of double consciousness, which he
described as this sense of always looking at ones self through the eyes of
others.6 Morrisons elusive reference to a national evolution encodes a
double consciousness of race; it is both there and not there, or there only for
those who, as Du Bois wrote, are gifted with second-sight in this American
world, namely, the Negro.7 Morrisons prose performs a form of double
consciousness by making race apparent only to the discerning reader. Race
consequently functions here as a type of interpretative understanding, not
as an avowed category of identity.
Morrisons endorsement likely did little to increase individual support
for Obamas campaign, especially as it was announced the same day that
three members of the Kennedy family backed the Illinois senator over
Hillary Clinton. Obama was collecting weekly endorsements from figures
of far greater political influence than Morrison, and there is little precedent
for a literary figure to publicly support a presidential campaign. The week
before, Maya Angelou published a poem titled State Package for Hillary
Clinton in the British newspaper the Observer, but Angelous endorsement
failed to make national headlines in the United States. Why, then, did Morrison issue her letter? And more important, what insight does the letter
provide into how black intellectuals communicate in the public sphere?
Morrisons opening description of her long admiration for Senator Clinton must be understood as a way to establish recognition of her well-known
esteem for former president Bill Clinton. Like Georgia congressman John
Lewis, who switched allegiance from Clinton to Obama, stating that he did
not want to be on the wrong side of history,8 Morrison may also have been
motivated by a desire to publicly support the man who would become the
nations first indisputable black president.

344 Stephanie Li

Morrison famously referred to Bill Clinton ten years earlier as our first
black president in a short essay published in the New Yorker.9 Her controversial claim was premised on the assumption of guilt applied to Clinton at the start of the Monica Lewinsky investigation as well as on Morrisons observation that Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness:
single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing,
McDonalds-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.10 Obamas impressive candidacy and Kenyan heritage threatened to demolish Morrisons
claim that Clinton was blacker than any actual black person who could
ever be elected in our childrens lifetime.11 Obama was well on his way to
making the impossible possible and to bringing an inarguable blackness
to the White House. Morrisons characterization of Clinton as black would
now be read as no more than a convoluted bit of sophistry, the worst kind
of intellectual handiwork.
A presidential contender who defined himself as a black American12
was about to secure the nomination of the Democratic Party even as the
echo of our first black president was still attached to Bill Clinton. Significantly, other prominent African Americans continued to apply this
term to Clinton. These included former Atlanta mayor and civil rights icon
Andrew Young, who declared in 2007 that Clinton was every bit as black
as Obama.13 Young told a public audience that he knew this because he
had seen the former president moonwalk like Michael Jackson. Given such
powerful and long-lasting associations, might Clintons wife be perceived
as an appropriate substitute, a woman black enough for African American
voters or at least sufficiently sensitive to black culture as to make race incidental? Irrespective of the specific merits of the two competing senators,
Morrisons declaration of Clinton as the first black president might suggest that race was not an issue because both candidates have substantial
connections to the African American community. Moreover, Morrisons
New Yorker piece adheres to a pessimism concerning the possibility of black
achievement. Was Bill Clinton really the best that black America could do
in our lifetime, in the lifetime of our children? While Obamas call for hope
and change was galvanizing the country and inspiring supporters of all
races, Morrison was about to be caught among those without the courage
and conviction to make a black presidency real. Like Congressman Lewis,
the only African American Nobel laureate was in danger of being on the
wrong side of history.
It is impossible to read Morrisons letter to Obama apart from her New

Performing Intimacy Using Race-Specific, Race-Free Language 345

Yorker essay, especially as they chart a movement from deeply raced language
to one nearly stripped bare of direct racial references. Morrison injected
race into national discussions of Bill Clinton and his treatment following
the Lewinsky scandal, but with Obama, minus her opening avowalnor
do I care much for your race[s]race is neatly elided. Morrisons use of
brackets in this phrase indicates that she recognizes Obama as a possibly
multiracial figure. The brackets perform ambiguity; readers can choose to
understand Obama as someone with one race or with many. By allowing
for both interpretations, Morrison seemingly disregards the importance
of race. Whatever race Obama may be is incidental to the grounds of her
endorsement. Whereas Bill Clinton was proclaimed black, Obamas race
is more uncertain and presumably less important. Its very ambiguity serves
to defuse the significance of race altogether.
Following this brief reference, Morrison avoids specific mention of race.
Theres no need to name it when Obamas race is so obviously a factor in
his biography. This difference between Morrisons comments on President
Clinton and her letter to Obama indicates that race requires discussion
when it remains the unrecognized element in national discourse. Such was
the case with Clintons treatment during the Lewinsky scandal and with
the two other occasions in which Morrison entered national discourse. She
edited two collections of scholarly essays, one on the Clarence Thomas
Anita Hill hearings and another on the O. J. Simpson trial. In these two
widely scrutinized trials, race was the factor that should not matter; both
Thomas and Simpson deserved objective hearings as citizens, not as black
men publicly indicted for crimes that play on tropes with long racial histories. But as Morrison argued in the introductions to both books, racial
stereotypes fundamentally shaped public perspective and the very nature
of national spectacles situated upon black bodies.14
Between the publication of her New Yorker piece in 1998 and her endorsement of Obama, Morrison was notably silent on public issues, making it
almost imperative that the two pieces are read together rather than as discrete interventions. Obamas impressive rise offers yet another case in
which race should not matter; Obama should be judged on his merits, not
by his race. And yet, while Morrison focuses intently on defining blackness
and its attendant tropes in the New Yorker essay, her letter to Obama praises
qualities in the young senator that operate apart from race: in addition to
keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something
that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something

346 Stephanie Li

I dont see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination

which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. Morrison supports Obama
not because he is the black candidate, but because he possesses wisdom.
And what defines this noble quality? Morrison goes on to explain, Wisdom
is a gift; you cant train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the
workplacethat access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom. Apparently, one cannot provide examples of it either, because beyond
this stirring description, Morrison does not cite moments in Obamas biography that exemplify this most important quality. Morrisons conception of
wisdom suggests that it is an innate quality, something bestowed rather
than acquired and, hence, something biological rather than social. Though
Morrison is not voting for Obama because he is the black candidate, she
supports him because of some inherent aspect to his being. Wisdom, if not
race, is an essential quality and is the basis of Morrisons endorsement.
Typically, wisdom is associated with old age and experience, both traits
that Obama at forty-six and, at the time of the letters publication, with less
than a full term in the U.S. Senate, was notably lacking. The concern here
is not to determine if Obama is wise or not but instead to examine what is
at stake in Morrisons characterization of him as such. By disavowing race
as a consideration yet affirming the oddly innate quality of wisdom, Morrison sidesteps allegiance based on race alone while also expressing some
essential attraction to his candidacy. However, by referring to Morrisons
previous comments on the nature of wisdom, we may glean further insight
into this characterization.
In Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation, Morrison outlines key
qualities of black literature, noting, I dont regard Black literature as simply
books written by Black people.15 Instead she describes narrative and thematic characteristics that are key to black literature, extrapolating in particular on the presence of an ancestor. She explains that ancestors are not
just parents, they are sort of timeless people whose relationships to the characters are benevolent, instructive, and protective, and they provide a certain
kind of wisdom.16 Morrisons purpose in this essay is to distinguish the
unique attributes of black literature, and thus the ancestor comes to signify
a specifically African American figure. The wisdom that Morrison perceives
in Obama suggests that he has internalized an ancestral presence, and thus
he is rooted to a fundamental and necessary part of black identity.
Morrisons reference to wisdom in her letter to Obama is not to be read as
a synonym for blackness, but it does signify the slippery tension that exists

Performing Intimacy Using Race-Specific, Race-Free Language 347

when black intellectuals enter the public sphere. Morrisons letter is notable
as an example of how the language of race is elided in public discourse even
as it operates as a driving force. This articulation of race-specific, race-free
language is emblematic of the continued friction between black intellectuals and the black community. Morrison has long stated that she writes
fiction for a specifically black audience, but her readership includes the
entire world. And when rallying support for a presidential candidate during
a time of national upheaval, the widest audience must be addressed.
Although Morrison emphasizes her hope to inspire others to support
Obama, her letter does not directly appeal to those anonymous voters.
Instead she writes to Senator Obama and describes the qualities she sees
in him that best suit him to become the next president of the United States.
Because Obama hardly needs to be convinced of the case for his own candidacy, there is an obvious dissonance in this address; Morrison leaves out
the very people she seeks to move. Instead, they must read as outsiders to
a private exchange. For a writer who has long emphasized the practice of
participatory reading in which literature should make you feel something profoundly . . . to behave in a certain way, to stand up and to weep and
to cry and to accede or change and to modify,17 Morrisons specified audience, Senator Obama, does not actually represent the readers she intends
to address. This evasive rhetorical move highlights the abiding conflict of
the black intellectual, that is, the relationship between the black intellectual and the black community. In his widely cited essay, The Dilemma of
the Black Intellectual, Cornel West claims that the choice of becoming a
black intellectual is an act of self-imposed marginality; it assures a peripheral status in and to the black community.18 According to West, the AfroAmerican who takes seriously the life of the mind inhabits an isolated and
insulated world.19
Superficially, Morrisons address to Obama seems to secure her peripheral status because she does not directly name the black community in
her letter. However, I would like to argue that Morrisons letter changes the
terms of Wests dilemma in important ways. Morrison seems to specifically
embrace Wests isolated and insulated world of the intellectual by crafting
her letter as a singular address to Obama. This is not to suggest that she
remains within her self-imposed marginality. Rather, by publishing her
letter, she welcomes others into her Arendtian life of the mind even as
she upholds its borders. Morrison effectively inverts Wests formulation;
while as a black intellectual she indeed chooses a life apart from others,

348 Stephanie Li

she allows readers access to that world. However, this access is notably
thirdhand. Readers of Morrisons letters are figured as outsiders to a private
correspondence. The letter is not for them. It is for Senator Obama, and
consequently, they are quiet intruders to this exchange. As such, the letter
remains firmly within the black community, both addressed to and written
by notable black public figures. Importantly, the audience for the letter is
not limited to the black community at large, thus revealing the ways in
which black intellectuals communicate to a racially mixed audience.
Morrisons strategy in her letter to Obama has precedent in her fiction.
The opening line of The Bluest Eye, Quiet as its kept, there were no marigolds
the fall of 1941,20 divulges a type of secret knowledge. The narrator speaks
in a hushed voice to an audience that is figured as a confidant, someone
who is worthy of the trust necessary to comprehend the tragic story of a
little girls demise. As with Morrisons letter to Obama, the reader of The
Bluest Eye intrudes on a private affair. In Unspeakable Things Unspoken,
Morrison elaborates on the tone she sought to capture in this opening sentence: First, it was a familiar phrase, familiar to me as a child listening
to adults; to black women conversing with one another; telling a story, an
anecdote, gossip about some one or event within the circle, the family, the
neighborhood. . . . In some sense it was precisely what the act of writing
the book was: the public exposure of a private confidence.21 Morrison here
explains that the use of the phrase quiet as its kept is racialized. It is
meant to refer specifically to the private conversations of black women,
and yet Morrison does not use the language of color to make this association. Race is encoded in the text without obvious reference to black culture
or community life; here again we have race-specific, race-free language,
though, as in the previous example from Beloved, the text makes blackness
obvious.
The public exposure of a private confidence is precisely what Morrison effects in her letter to Obama. In both texts, readers are invited to
listen in on intimate black speech. Audience members can be of any race;
in neither work is there a direct appeal to African Americans. The racial
openness of the intruding reader underscores how the epistolary form
capitalizes on race-specific, race-free language. The effect is inclusive,
allowing readers of all races to feel in on things. Morrison may operate
in Wests self-imposed marginality, but she allows all of us to read her
private correspondence. Within this sphere of intimacy, reference to race
is not necessary and would actually be intrusive, even as race is critical to

Performing Intimacy Using Race-Specific, Race-Free Language 349

the foundation of this exchange. Moreover, this approach reveals the latent
didacticism of Morrisons fiction. She explains in the afterword of The Bluest Eye that her objective in the novel was to lead readers into an interrogation of themselves for the destruction of Pecola Breedlove.22 To this end,
she does not condemn readers for maintaining damaging conceptions of
beauty or identifying blackness with inferiority, but instead she exposes
how Pecola becomes convinced of her own ugliness. That process is to
serve as the means by which readers are to consider their own culpability
in Pecolas tragedy. As in her letter to Obama, Morrison seeks to persuade
through indirection and the construction of shared intimacy.
Significantly, though her letter is figured as a private correspondence,
Morrison imparts no private information to Obama. He already knows he
is a worthy candidate and her endorsement has value only in the public
realm. Instead the confidence that is passed is one between text and audience. By entrusting readers with such private matters, she constructs them
as therefore worthy to make the right decision about which candidate to
support. Morrisons letter enacts a type of performed intimacy. Her address
to Obama is a rhetorical ruse made to create the illusion of private correspondence. But in fact we are not intruders on a confidential exchange;
the letter is for the public. This subterfuge allows Morrison the freedom to
employ race-specific, race-free language. This is the language of home,
the language of intimacy, the language that makes readers of any race feel
like insiders.
Blackness Revealed: Private Epistles Made Public
Morrison is not alone among black intellectuals in her use of the epistolary
form as a way of gaining a broad national audience that simultaneously
preserves black community identity. James Baldwin opens The Fire Next
Time with a dedicatory letter to his nephew and namesake James, titled On
the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation, which advises the
young boy to accept and love white people because they are still trapped
in a history which they do not understand.23 The letter is thick with condescension, but by addressing his words to his nephew, Baldwin forgoes a
direct attack on ignorant and misguided whites. They are as much his audience as is his nephew, because Baldwin was always convinced that meaningful social change would come only from the efforts of both whites and
blacks.

350 Stephanie Li

Recently, there has been a spate of private letters made public by black
intellectuals and politicians. In an op-ed titled Jesse Jr. to Jesse Sr.: Youre
Wrong on Obama, Dad, published in December 2007, Jesse Jackson Jr.
responds to his fathers condemnation of Obama for ignoring the primary
concerns of African Americans. Harold Ford Jr., the current chairman of
the Democratic Leadership Council who lost a close Senate race in 2006
due to flagrant race-baiting, published an essay in June 2008 called, Go
Meet Them, Senator, which urged Obama to meet with rural and workingclass people. Alice Walker offered her own endorsement of Obama in
March 2008 as a public address to my sisters who are brave, as well as a
November 2008 letter to Brother Obama, which provides advice to the
new president. The book Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women Write
to the New First Lady collects advice and reflections from scholars, activists,
artists, and other publicly engaged black women.24
Why is the epistle the preferred form for black intellectuals and politicians to communicate ideas to and about Obama? What is at stake in
making private correspondence public, especially when all of these letters
come from and are addressed to members of the black community? The
example of Jesse Jackson Jr.s letter to his father exemplifies the intimate
dynamics at play here and the critical need to affirm contrary opinions
among African Americans. There is no single black voice, suggests Jackson Jr.; Jackson Sr. should not be understood as the mouthpiece of the African American community, because there is dissension even within his own
family. These letters read as adamant claims to the diversity of black opinion. Obama does not simplistically represent the group. There are voices
of opposition and criticism even as they also articulate support and hope
for his endeavors. These letters also make use of Morrisons race-specific,
race-free language because there is no need to reference race when both
the sender and the recipient are black. Race thus becomes the context, not
the subject of the exchange.
The use of race-neutral language was key to Obamas success in the 2008
presidential campaign. He has repeatedly de-emphasized race and racial
identification in favor of a broader perspective on national issues and voter
constituencies. For example, he was significantly criticized for not attending the 2008 State of the Black Union, and in a public letter to conference
host Tavis Smiley, Obama explained that he was most needed on the campaign trail, where he was speaking to voters about the causes that are at
the heart of my campaign and the State of the Black Union forum such as

Performing Intimacy Using Race-Specific, Race-Free Language 351

affordable healthcare, housing, economic opportunity, civil rights and foreign policy. Obama emphasized that he is committed to touching every
voter, and working to earn their voteevery voter, but perhaps not every
black voter.25 Obamas use of the epistolary form again demonstrates the
broad scope of his audience. He was writing to a group that included far
more than Tavis Smiley, a readership of all the voters he had yet to win.
Obamas success depended on his ability to inspire and mobilize white
voters. He, like the young black politicians Gwen Ifill describes in The
Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, understood that the
black vote was simply insufficient to guarantee him elective office. Ifill
explains, As countless new black leaders have discovered, the key to breaking through often lies in just such a crossoverputting whites at ease without alienating blacks.26 Throughout his campaign, Obama largely elided
racialized language until he was forced to confront the issue directly following the widely publicized clips of Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr.s incendiary remarks. In A More Perfect Union, his March 2008 speech on race,
Obama denounced Wright and noted the nations racial stalemate but
ultimately emphasized his campaigns central themes of hope and change.27
Scholars of Obamas rhetoric note how he commonly evokes race without
specifically mentioning color or ethnicity. As Michael Eric Dyson observed
after listening to one of Obamas campaign speeches, If you werent familiar with black culture, most of what he said and how he said it went right
over your headand beyond your ears.28
Dyson identifies the key to Obamas campaign as mastering how to wink
at black America while speaking to white America.29 Dysons description
is apt, as it suggests the importance of employing race-neutral language
while highlighting an unstated intimacy between public black figures and
the black community. There is a critical divide here between insider and
outsider, between those who catch the wink and those who only hear the
words or, to return to Du Bois, between those gifted with double consciousness and those who are not. This divide does not rest entirely on
race but instead emphasizes the importance of understanding the multiple
codes embedded in Obamas speech. Zadie Smith commends Obama for
his ability to speak in tongues, noting, This new president doesnt just
speak for his people. He can speak them.30 She wonders if his audience
understands the complexity of his language and demonstrates her own
multilingual sensitivity by carefully reading Obamas line, We worship an
awesome God in the Blue States, and we dont like federal agents poking

352 Stephanie Li

around our libraries in the Red States.31 According to Smith, in a single

line Obama moves from the Midwest to the South, from the church to the
kitchen table, and blurs blue and red into a single America; race is in all
these places but depends entirely on the perspective of the listener. Does
it matter if not everyone perceived Obamas adept rhetorical appeal or only
heard the appeal that rang true for them alone? Race-specific, race-free
language allows for multiple interpretations, such that race is there if you
look and absent if you do not or even cannot see it. While employing this
type of language in fiction makes characters elusive, in politics, it gives
readers and listeners the ability to occupy multiple positions. Morrison
allows Twyla of Recitatif to be either black or white, but more powerful
for the mobilization of voters and the development of public support is an
audience that can be black or white and still feel an intimate connection
across any racial divide.
Alice Walkers November 2008 letter to Obama is unique in that it
explicitly deploys the language of race. As the author of the first and bestknown African American epistolary novel, The Color Purple, Walker is especially attuned to the literary effects on eavesdropping readers. Writing to
Brother Obama in Newsweek, Walker begins by stating, You have no idea,
really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of
the Southern United States. Walker presumes Obamas ignorance of this
profundity, despite conceding that, You think you know, because you are
thoughtful, and you have studied our history.32 Apparently such knowledge is impossible for Obama because he is not a black person of the South.
Do blacks of the North feel the profundity of this moment less than those
of the South? Walkers unnecessary categorization of black people of the
Southern United States only serves to question Obamas racial authenticity. He cannot know of the significance of his victory because he did not
participate in Southern history. As Walker explains, But seeing you deliver
the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after
decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the
flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear.33 That
Walker was hardly a witness to centuries of oppression does not exclude her
from claiming this history as rightfully hers. Regardless, it certainly does
not belong to Obama.
Walkers identification as writing from an us defined as the black
people of the Southern United States demonstrates the pitfalls of utilizing
race-specific but not race-free language in the public sphere. The effect is

Performing Intimacy Using Race-Specific, Race-Free Language 353

divisive. Race creates obvious and insurmountable barriers, an us and them

that makes history and legacy sites of exclusive possession. The fact that
Walker uses such language to address Obama, a black man, indicates that
specifically racialized language functions problematically both within and
between racial communities. Nonetheless, Walkers support for Obama is
fundamentally based on her trust in his ability to speak with others. In her
March 2008 letter of endorsement of Obama, she praises his ability to converse with anyone: I can imagine Obama sitting down and talking, person
to person, with any leader, woman, man, child or common person, in the
world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their
talks.34 Walker ultimately envisions Obama capable of a type of freedom
to speak with others that she apparently does not possess herself, as the
baggage of the past mars her own conception of how Obama understands
the profundity of his election. And yet Walker recognizes that it is Obamas
talent for communication that has enabled his success and his use of language that affirms both difference and inclusion, language that is both race
free and race specific.
Obama: Citizen, Father, Son
In addition to his 2008 missive to Tavis Smiley, Obama offered his own private letter made public in January 2009. On the Sunday before his inauguration, Obama printed a letter addressed to his daughters, Malia and Sasha,
in Parade. Obama begins by explaining why he decided to run for president,
noting that the turning point of his life was their birth: I soon found that
the greatest joy in my life was the joy I saw in yours. And I realized that
my own life wouldnt count for much unless I was able to ensure that you
had every opportunity for happiness and fulfillment in yours. In the end,
girls, thats why I ran for President: because of what I want for you and for
every child in this nation.35 These comments provide an easy segue into a
description of Obamas vision for Americaincreased educational opportunities, ample employment, health care, a cleaner environment, and international relations based on diplomacy, not war. Obama urges his daughters
to embrace his commitment to the United States, reminding them that
with the great privilege of being a citizen of this nation comes great responsibility. They are bound to follow his example of public service not just
because you have an obligation to give something back to this country that
has given our family so much . . . But because you have an obligation to

354 Stephanie Li

yourself. For Sasha and Malia Obama to achieve their true potential they
must dedicate themselves to something larger than themselves.
As in Morrisons letter, Obama avoids the language of race and instead
connects with his daughters through the notion of citizenship. As citizens
of a country that has provided opportunities for their diverse family members, they are obligated to nurture such opportunities for others. Citizenship
is a category without race, and as Obama invokes his white mother who read
the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence to him, it is shown to
be an identification that is transferable across race. He explains: She helped
me understand that America is great not because it is perfect but because it
can always be made betterand that the unfinished work of perfecting our
union falls to each of us. Its a charge we pass on to our children, coming
closer with each new generation to what we know America should be.36
Obama envisions an America with imperfections that are necessary because
they provide a critical opportunity for unity across all social boundaries.
Once again, race is implicit in his words, but his emphasis lies on more critical modes of self-definitionas citizen, son, and father. As with all these
private epistles made public, there is an element of subterfuge here. Obama
addresses his daughters, but he is effectively writing to the nation. Through
this letter of paternal advice and expectation, race becomes incidental; all
may relate to and admire the values this exemplary father imparts to his children. Blackness has no secrets, the letter suggests; intimate black exchange
does not harp on race, does not seethe with anger and hostilityit is familiar. And yet the reader remains an outsider. White, black, or something else,
we are listening in on this exchange. Obama, Morrison, and other black public figures refuse to identify their true audience in these letters, not because
we are without race but because we embody them all.
Notes
1 Toni Morrison, Home, in The House That Race Built: Black Americans, U.S. Terrain, ed.
Wahneema Lubiano (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997), 312, 3; hereafter cited parenthetically by page number as Home.
2 Toni Morrison, Paradise (New York: Knopf, 1997).
3 Toni Morrison, Recitatif, in The Before Columbus Foundation Fiction Anthology: Selections
from the American Book Awards, 19801990, ed. Ishmael Reed, Kathryn Trueblood, and
Shawn Wong (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), 44564.
4 Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (New York: Plume, 1994); Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
(New York: A. A. Knopf, 1997); and Toni Morrison, Beloved (New York: A. A. Knopf,
1987).

Performing Intimacy Using Race-Specific, Race-Free Language 355

5 Toni Morrison, letter to Obama, January 28, 2008, http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/

archive/2008/01/28/614795.aspx.
6 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Dover Publications, 1994), 2.
7 Ibid.
8 Tavis Smiley, interview with Rep. John Lewis, Tavis Smiley Late Night on PBS, August 28,
2008.
9 Toni Morrison, The Talk of the Town, in What Moves at the Margin: Selected Nonfiction,
Toni Morrison, ed. Carolyn C. Denard (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2008),
14953.
10 Ibid., 152.
11 Ibid.
12 Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (New York: Three
Rivers Press, 2004), xvi.
13 Andrew Young quoted in Gwen Ifill, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of
Obama (New York: Doubleday, 2009), 34.
14 Toni Morrison, Introduction: Friday on the Potomac, in Race-ing Justice, En-Gendering
Power, ed. Toni Morrison (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), viixxx, xii; and Toni Morrison, The Official Story: Dead Man Golfing, in Birth of a Nationhood: Gaze, Script, and
Spectacle in the O.J. Simpson Case, eds. Toni Morrison and Claudia Brodsky Lacour (New
York: Pantheon Books, 1997), viixxviii, ix.
15 Toni Morrison, Rootedness; The Ancestor as Foundation, in The Norton Anthology of
African American Literature, 2nd ed., ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay (New
York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 22862290, 2288.
16 Ibid., 2289.
17 Ibid., 2287.
18 Cornel West, The Dilemma of the Black Intellectual, Cultural Critique 1 (Autumn 1985):
10924, 110.
19 Ibid., 109.
20 Morrison, Bluest Eye, 5.
21 Toni Morrison, Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature, in The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, 22992322,
2313.
22 Morrison, Bluest Eye, 211.
23 James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (New York: Vintage International, 1993), 8.
24 Jesse Jackson Jr., Jesse Jr. to Jesse Sr.: Youre Wrong on Obama, Dad, Chicago Sun-Times,
December 3, 2007, www.suntimes.com/news/678092,CST-EDT-vox03.article; Harold
Ford Jr., Go Meet Them, Senator, Newsweek, June 2, 2008, www.newsweek.com/
id/138511; Alice Walker, Lest We Forget: An Open Letter to My Sisters Who Are Brave,
Root, March 27, 2008, www.theroot.com/views/lest-we-forget-open-letter-my-sisterswho-are-brave; Alice Walker, White House Advice, Newsweek, January 19, 2009, www
.newsweek.com/id/180457; and Barbara Seals Nevergold and Peggy Brooks-Bertram, Go,
Tell Michelle: African American Women Write to the New First Lady (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 2009).
25 Barack Obama, Sen. Barack Obamas Letter to Tavis Smiley, Chicago Sun-Times, Febru-

356 Stephanie Li

26
7
2

28

29
3 0
31

32
33
34
35

36

ary 14, 2008, http://blogs.suntimes.com/mitchell/2008/02/sen_barack_obamas_letter_

to_ta_1.html.
Ifill, The Breakthrough, 18990.
Barack Obama, A More Perfect Union (speech delivered on March 18, 2008, Constitution Center, Philadelphia); available at http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/
hisownwords (accessed October 5, 2009).
Michael Eric Dyson, His Way with Words Begins at the Pulpit, Washington Post, January 18, 2009, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/16/AR20090
11602312.html.
Michael Eric Dyson quoted in Ifill, The Breakthrough, 66.
Zadie Smith, Speaking in Tongues, New York Review of Books, February 26, 2009, www
.nybooks.com/articles/22334.
Barack Obama, Keynote Address by Barack Obama to the Democratic Convention on
July 27, 2004, in Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (New York: Three
Rivers Press, 2004), 44553, 451.
Walker, White House Advice.
Ibid.
Walker, Lest We Forget.
Barack Obama, What I Want for Youand Every Child in America, Parade, January 18,
2009, www.parade.com/export/sites/default/news/2009/01/barack-obama-letter-to-mydaughters.html.
Ibid.

1
Abstract for Stephanie Li, Performing Intimacy Using Race-Free, Race-Specific
Language: Black Private Letters in the Public Sphere (SAQ 109:2)

In the 1997 essay Home, Toni Morrison explores her attempt to create race-specific,
race-free language, asking How to enunciate race while depriving it of its lethal
cling? I propose that Morrisons conception of language that encodes race without
racism represents a new way of talking about race in the political and public sphere.
Morrisons letter endorsing Barack Obamas presidential candidacy stands as a critical
example of how such prose can effectively operate, and it models an increasingly
ubiquitous form of communication between black intellectuals and politiciansthe
shared private epistle. Although Morrison states that her support for Obama was not
derived from racial preference, because of her vexed history with the term black
president, the letter has deep racial significance. As an example of the shared private
epistle, it illustrates the fundamental friction of race-specific, race-free language while
also demonstrating the utility of such language to reach out to audiences of all races.
Such prose creates a new division between insider and outsider, a split that Morrison
capitalizes on by positioning her readers as spectators to a private correspondence. By
acknowledging that those who read the letter, regardless of their race, are outside this
direct exchange, Morrison creates a space in which the language of race can be
disregarded because it is already known. Her audience is thus left to read race not as a
series of identity categories but as an intimacy that renders its specific reference
obsolete.

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