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She read “Tar Baby,” “A Raisin in the Sun,” and books by Sista Souljah and Iceberg Slim but also Ayn Rand and even “Mein Kampf.”

In the tale of the tar baby, the tar captures those who touch it; if Br’er Rabbit is read as a Black American, a Black person is both captivated by the figure and captured in turn.

Sometimes, he is himself hoodwinked, as in the famous Tar Baby fable — which has antecedents in oral traditions from around the globe, including India and Africa — in which Br’er Rabbit’s pride gets the best of him.

Taken perhaps at its simplest reading, though, the tar baby, catching and trapping all who get too near, is a warning that no one involved in slavery can escape its horrors.

In Morrison's novel "Tar Baby," the protagonist is a model who's depicted as the "Copper Venus" in a magazine spread.