The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.

Morrison’s line frames socialization—especially within the family—as a coercive process that can erase individuality. The “murder” is metaphorical: not physical harm but the slow extinguishing of a person’s authentic desires, imagination, sexuality, or nonconformity under the pressure to be “acceptable.” The detail that it happens “with smiles” underscores how this violence can be normalized and even presented as love, protection, or good upbringing. The quote aligns with Morrison’s broader countercultural stance: suspicion of bourgeois respectability, hostility to conformity, and a romantic belief in an inner, truer self that society trains us to betray.