C2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7 , 2019
Cuarón’s 2006 film.
This isn’t the first time
Hannity has flirted with the
idea of paramilitary forces. In
the aftermath of the 2018
shooting at Marjory Stoneman
Douglas High School in
Parkland, Fla., Hannity took to
the air to denounce the
Democratic politicians,
entertainers and artists in
support of gun regulations. He
then presented his plan, which
he called “not political,” for a
security presence at every
school capable of carrying out
“comprehensive threat
assessment.”
He acknowledged that
Stoneman Douglas already
possessed a school resource
deputy, who never encountered
shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz.
Hannity countered by saying
more guards are needed to
protect the student population.
At the time, he didn’t have an
answer to the financial cost of
his proposal, but argued that
children’s safety was worth
footing the bill.
And, he added, “local FBI
would be happy to help.”
— Travis DeShongFox News Channel host Sean
Hannity recently offered a
solution for the country’s
epidemic of mass shootings:
more guns.
During his Monday night
broadcast, Hannity suggested
surrounding schools and
shopping centers with armed
ex-cops and retired military
personnel. These proposed
security forces would volunteer
15 hours a week of their time in
exchange for paying no state or
federal income taxes.
“They should be on every
floor of every school,” Hannity
said. “We could do that with
stores. We could do that in
malls. We can do that pretty
much anywhere the public is.”
After dismissing the
politicians and celebrities who
spoke out in favor of gun reform
as people looking to “score
cheap, intellectually dishonest
political points,” Hannity urged
his audience to seek out “real
solutions that also respect our
constitutional rights [and] don’t
infringe on the rights of
hundreds of millions of
Americans.”
His plan was quickly
criticized on social media.
“That is the definition of a
police state,” one Twitter user
wrote.
Others promptly brought up
the dangerous and
disproportionate consequences
of heavy policing. “Sean Hannity
has obviously never been to
schools attended by
predominantly Black and Latinx
children,” another user wrote.
“Just makes it more likely that
children will get cuffed &
arrested for being children.”
Some detractors got creative.
“Hannity’s vision of future
schools is a scene right out of
‘Children of Men,’ ” another user
wrote, referring to the dystopian
near-future world of Alfonso
And most dramatically, she
called forth the spirit of trauma
that still haunts this nation, what
she once called “the tenacity of
racism.” Recalling the true story of
Margaret Garner, an African
American woman who killed her
own daughter rather than allow
her to be dragged back into slavery,
Morrison presented America’s “pe-
culiar institution” in terms so vis-
ceral and intimate that no reader
could endure it unshaken. It was
the greatest love wrapped in the
greatest horror.
The scope of Morrison’s accom-
plishments is impossible to exag-
gerate. She published her first clas-
sic, “The Bluest Eye,” at the age of
39, at a time when books by black
authors — no matter what their
subjects or genres — were usually
ghettoized in bookstores and
rounded up in newspaper book
sections like so many curiosities.
The initial response to “The Bluest
Eye” w as, in her own words, “slight,
even hostile,” but fame came, and
she went on to write 10 more novels
— including “Sula,” “ Song of Solo-
mon” a nd “Paradise” — stories that
placed black women at the center,
in the full complexity of their lives.
In 2008, she returned to the earli-
est days of American slavery to
write “A Mercy,” a short, feverish
novel that reminded us of her sty-
listic sorcery. And just four years
ago, at the age of 84, she published
her last novel, “God Help the
Child,” which brought her back to
the tragic themes of “The Bluest
Eye.”
As a professor at Princeton and
elsewhere, she encouraged genera-
tions of students and future writ-
ers to reimagine American litera-
ture and remake it. Before that, as
an editor at Random House — the
first female African American edi-
tor in the company’s history — she
broke down old racial barriers and
welcomed new authors into the
canon. And she remained an in-
sightful cultural and literary critic
who published a new collection of
her essays and speeches just a few
months ago in “The Source of Self-
Regard.”
Some of those pieces are dec-
ades old, but none of them feel
dated. As this summer has demon-
strated so horrifically, the rhetoric
of racial hatred maintains its cur-
rency in America, even from the
highest realms. The words of Mor-
rison’s Nobel acceptance speech
from 1993 still ring with relevance:
“Oppressive language does
more than represent violence; it is
MORRISON FROM C1
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On Monday night, late-night
hosts returned to address a
nation reeling from two deadly
mass shootings that unfolded
less than 24 hours apart over the
weekend. And as John Oliver
told viewers of his Sunday night
show, “Last Week To night,” t he
subject of gun violence has
become all too familiar — a
theme Seth Meyers , Trevor
Noah , Jimmy Kimmel and
Jimmy Fallon reiterated as they
discussed the tragedies in El
Paso and Dayton, Ohio, with
poignant and pointed
commentary.Seth Meyers
Meyers focused on the El Paso
suspect’s alleged white
supremacist views, which he cast
as part of a larger problem
“fueled by racist vitriol, warning
of invasions by immigrants —
language that is frequently
echoed by right-wing media
outlets and, of course, the
president.” The issue, Meyers
said, is compounded by “too
much easy access to weapons of
war that should be outlawed.”
He then criticized Republican
politicians for avoiding reporters
in the aftermath of the attacks,
showing a clip of CNN’s Jake
Ta pper explaining that his show
had requested interviews with
GOP officials from El Paso and
Dayton, as well as White House
officials, but all requests were
declined.
“A nd then when Republicans
did finally speak up, they acted
as if the reasons for these attacks
were somehow mysterious, even
though we know the facts about
the epidemic about gun deaths
and mass shootings in this
country, and we know that the
threat of white supremacist
terrorism is growing and real,”
Meyers said.
The host also directedscathing commentary at those
who blamed video games for the
violence — a group that included
House Minority Leader Kevin
McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Te xas Lt.
Gov. Dan Patrick (R).
“You do know that other
countries have video games,
right? Japan has a huge gaming
culture and very few gun deaths,”
Meyers said. “If video games are
so influential, they should make
one about Congress called ‘...
do something.’ ” (Note that we’re
omitting a word here.)Trevor Noah
“The Daily Show” host took a
unique approach to discussing
the weekend’s tragic events —
spending several minutes
analyzing Neil deGrasse Ty son’s
widely criticized tweet
comparing mass shooting deaths
to deaths caused by medical
errors, influenza, suicide, car
accidents and handgun-involved
homicides.
In addition to being ill-timed,
Ty son’s tweet “fundamentallyLate-night hosts turn somber amid gun violence
Hannity’s shooting solution draws ire
CAROLYN KASTER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Fox News Channel host Sean
Hannityviolence; does more than represent
the limits of knowledge; it limits
knowledge,” s he said. “It is the lan-
guage that drinks blood, laps vul-
nerabilities, tucks its fascist boots
under crinolines of respectability
and patriotism as it moves relent-
lessly toward the bottom line and
the bottomed-out mind.”
The ferocity of that wisdom
di dn’t dampen the joy of her spirit.In 2015 when she accepted a life-
time achievement award from the
National Book Critics Circle in
New York, she radiated delight —
not in herself but in the remarkable
possibilities of this nation.
It’s t hat twining of brutal insight
and determined hope that gener-
ates such energy in “Beloved.” The
novel is packed full with devastat-
ing moments, but one quiet one
sticks in my mind. It takes place in- A black man named Stamp
Paid is tying up his boat on the
bank of a river when he catches
sight of what he thinks must be a
cardinal’s feather. “He tugged,”
Morrison writes, “and what came
loose in his hand was a red ribbon
knotted around a curl of wet woolly
hair, clinging still to its bit of scalp.”
After all the lynchings, the school
burnings, the property thefts, it’s
this tiny scrap of atrocity that final-
ly exhausts Stamp Paid. “What are
these people?” he asks. “You tell
me, Jesus. What are they.”
America is still struggling to an-
swer that question.
“We die,” Morrison said in her
Nobel acceptance speech. “That
may be the meaning of life. But we
do language. That may be the
measure of our lives.”
We’re still plumbing the dimen-
sions of hers.
[email protected]
Ro n Charles writes about books for
The Washington Post and hosts
To tallyHipV ideoBookReview.com.We ’ll remember Morrison because she never let us forget
KATHY WILLENS/ASSOCIATED PRESSCAROLYN KASTER/ASSOCIATED PRESSVINTAGE
TOP: Toni Morrison in
1994, the year after she
became the first African
American woman to win the
Nobel Prize for Literature.
RIGHT: Morrison with
President Barack Obama,
when the “Beloved” author
received the Medal of
Freedom.“Oppressive language
does more than
represent violence; it is
violence; does more
than represent the limits
of knowledge; it limits
knowledge.”
Toni Morrison, in her 1993
Nobel acceptance speechmissed the human element of
what people are fighting for in
America, and that is: trying,”
Noah said.
While the host acknowledged
that many people indeed die
because of medical errors, car
accidents and other causes, he
said the difference comes down
to the efforts taken to prevent
those deaths.
“We ban dangerous cars,”
Noah said, adding that speed
bumps, traffic stops and driver’s
licenses are all ways we work to
“minimize the chance of a person
dying in a car.”
“That’s all I don’t understand
about how people argue the guns
thing. You’re not saying ‘get rid
of guns.’ You’re saying ‘try to
minimize the chances of this
happening,’ ” Noah explained.
“Try to make it as hard as
possible for people to own a gun,
because you only want people
who are willing to work hard to
own a gun, to own a gun. You
only want people who respect
the gun to own a gun.”Jimmy Kimmel
Kimmel spoke frankly during
his monologue. “Too many
people are being shot with high-
powered weapons,” he told
viewers.
The comedian called Senate
Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell an “evil, soulless old
creep” f or not calling the Senate
back into session to vote on a
bipartisan bill that would
expand background checks for
gun purchases and transfers. The
House passed the Bipartisan
Background Checks Act of 2019
in February, but the Senate has
not yet voted on the legislation.
Kimmel also criticized Trump
for praising Colby Covington, a
UFC fighter and supporter of the
president, in a tweet posted less
than 15 minutes after Trump first
tweeted about the El Paso attack.
“A nd this, I think maybe more
than anything, gives you some
insight into how much this man
cares,” Kimmel said.Stephen Colbert
After acknowledging that
“today was a very rough day,”
Colbert told his audience that he
had been watching HBO’s
“Chernobyl” miniseries and
noticed something familiar.
“Over and over again in it, a
scientist or an engineer will tell a
politician, ‘Hey, we’ve got a real
problem here. The nuclear core
is going to melt down and kill
everyone,’ ” Colbert said. “The
politicians refuse to believe it,
because any acknowledgment of
failure threatens their position
of power, and their power is
more important than saving any
lives.”
Colbert reserved his harshest
criticism for McConnell. “Now,
look, you can’t put a price on
human life, but it doesn’t stop
Mitch from trying,” he said.
— Bethonie ButlerSALWAN GEORGES/THE WASHINGTON POST
NBC’s “Late Night” host Seth Meyers was among several TV
personalities to discuss the tragedies in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio.