Like Morrison, other African American women who happen to be scribes, have had to define themselves through their artistry. So it seems to me that my world did not shrink because I was a Black female writer. I really think the range of emotions and perceptions I have had access to as a Black person and as a female person are greater than those of people who are neither. I simply refused to accept their view of bigger and better. So at first I was glib and said I'm a Black woman writer, because I understood that they were trying to suggest that I was 'bigger' than that, or better than that. Morrison said, ' ''I've decided to define that, rather than having it be defined for me.''In the beginning, people would say, 'Do you regard yourself as a Black writer, or as a writer?' and they also used the word woman with it - woman writer. In 1987, writer Toni Morrison told New York Times reporter Mervyn Rothstein the importance of being an African American woman and writer.
