Toni Morrison explains that 'first black president' thing

It's a statement that has been quoted, misquoted and misunderstood for a decade. Toni Morrison allegedly called Bill Clinton the "first black president." But the context behind Morrison's famous remark has not been explained as often as the quote has been mentioned.

Until now. In a new interview with TIME magazine, Morrison explained what she meant by that quote. "People misunderstood that phrase," she said. "I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him." 

Morrison has been challenged by critics for using the phrase to describe Bill Clinton, and some recent observers have pointed to Clinton's behavior in the 2008 South Carolina primary to discredit Clinton's theoretical black heritage. But Morrison said she never meant to describe Clinton's heart as much as his experience. "I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race," she told TIME.

It all started in an October 1998 article for the New Yorker when the Nobel Prize-winning Morrison offered some insight into the pending impeachment proceedings facing then President Bill Clinton. In so doing, she compared Clinton's fall from grace to the experience that black men endure on a regular basis.

"African-American men seemed to understand it right away. Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President," she wrote.

Morrison wrote that Clinton was "blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime."  After all, she wrote, "Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."

She continued: "when the President's body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and bodysearched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear "No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, sent away in disgrace, and--who knows?--maybe sentenced and jailed to boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your expletives belong to us." 

All that may be old news now that a black man is within reach of the Democratic nomination for the presidency. In January, Morrison broke her own tradition and endorsed Barack Obama for president. She cited his "keen intelligence," integrity," "rare authenticity" and "wisdom" as reasons for her first-ever presidential endorsement.

In a letter to Senator Obama, Morrison wrote: "There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for this time."