"Every book I read about young Black girls, they were props. Jokes. Topsy. No one took em seriously, ever. I wanted to read a book about that and nobody was writing a book about that... Even when I wrote The Bluest Eye, I was really writing a book I wanted to read. I hadn’t seen a book in which Black girls were centre stage. I wanted to read a book that had no codes, no little notes explaining things to white people. And I had a major major question in my mind at that time, which was: how does a child learn self-loathing, where does it come from, who enables it, how is it infectious and then what might be the consequences?" - Toni Morrison (Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am)
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