Racism Is No Less Prevalent Here

Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, centers her novel around two things: beauty and wealth in their relation to race and a brutal rape of a young girl by her father. Morrison explores and exposes these themes in relation to the underlying factors of black society: racism and sexism. Every character has a problem to deal with and it involves racism and/or sexism. Whether the characters are the victim or the aggressor, they can do nothing about their problem or condition, especially when concerning gender and race. Morrison's characters are clearly at the mercy of preconceived notions maintained by society. Because of these preconceived notions, the racism found in The Bluest Eye is not whites against blacks. Morrison writes about

Throughout Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye, she captures, with vivid insight, the plight of a young African American girl and what she would be subjected to in a media contrived society that places its ideal of beauty on the e quintessential blue-eyed, blonde woman. The idea of what is beautiful has been stereotyped in the mass media since the beginning and creates a mental and emotional damage to self and soul. This oppression to the soul creates a socio-economic displacement causing a cycle of dysfunction and abuses. Morrison takes us through the agonizing story of just such a young girl, Pecola Breedlove, and her aching desire to have what is considered beautiful - blue eyes. Racial stereotypes of beauty contrived and nourished by

Self-hatred is something that can thoroughly destroy an individual. As it was fictitiously evidenced in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, it can lead an individual to insanity. Toni Morrison raises the idea that racism and class can detrimentally influence people’s outlook on themselves.

“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, is a story about the life of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who is growing up during post World War I. She prays for the bluest eyes, which will “make her beautiful” and in turn make her accepted by her family and peers. The major issue in the book, the idea of ugliness, was the belief that “blackness” was not valuable or beautiful. This view, handed down to them at birth, was a cultural hindrance to the black race.

The desire to feel beautiful has never been more in demand, yet so impossible to achieve. In the book “The Bluest Eye”, the author, Toni Morrison, tells the story of two black families that live during the mid-1900’s. Even though slavery is a thing of the past, discrimination and racism are still a big issue at this time. Through the whole book, characters struggle to feel beautiful and battle the curse of being ugly because of their skin color. Throughout the book Pecola feels ugly and does not like who she is because of her back skin. She believes the only thing that can ever make her beautiful is if she got blue eyes. Frieda, Pecola, Claudia, and other black characters have been taught that the key to being beautiful is by having white skin. So by being black, this makes them automatically ugly. In the final chapter of the book, the need to feel beautiful drives Pecola so crazy that she imagines that she has blue eyes. She thinks that people don’t want to look at her because they are jealous of her beauty, but the truth is they don’t look at her because she is pregnant. From the time these black girls are little, the belief that beauty comes from the color of their skin has been hammered into their mind. Mrs. Breedlove and Geraldine are also affected by the standards of beauty and the impossible goal to look and be accepted by white people. Throughout “The Bluest Eye” Toni Morrison uses the motif of beauty to portray its negative effect on characters.

Racist ideology is institutionalized when how people’s interactions reflects on an understanding that they share the same beliefs. However, in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the topic of racism is approached in a very unique way. The characters within the novel are subjected to internalizing a set of beliefs that are extremely fragmented. In accepting white standards of beauty, the community compromises their children’s upbringing, their economic means, and social standings. Proving furthermore that the novel has more to do with these factors than actual ethnicity at all.

Toni Morrison highlights this best in her novel “The Bluest Eye”. “Except for an occasional and unaccountable insurgent who chose a black, they married “up” lightening the family complexion and and thinning out the family features”(Morrison 168). Throughout the book Morrison depicts the differences in treatment of the lighter end and the darker end of the African American race. In Morrison’s book there was a character by the name of Maureen Peal and because Peal was a biracial child both black people and white people adored her, they didn’t abuse her with their words or actions. Peal was safe from the violence against her race and believe she was not black because of it, as though being black was a curse that should feared. Similar to Maureen Peal we are introduced to another character in her same position, her name was Geraldine. With Geraldine readers are able to see the economic differences between black people. Morrison describes the light skinned woman's house as being beautiful and large in contrast the the main character Pecola’s clothes described as “dirty and torn”(Morrison 89-91). This division has carried through the 21st century; today people are still characterising others by the complexion of their skin. Things have improved

Race often plays an important role in how an individual is viewed based on societal standards and quality of life. A vast majority of the characters in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye attribute the difficulties they face and the outcome of their lives to being African American in an era when people with dark pigmentations of skin were viewed as second class citizens. Morrison’s novel focuses on the different spectives of African Americans, both male and female, who differ in the standard by which they live their lives based on their experiences with racism following the depression era of the twentieth century. The issue of race and class is essential in understanding the mindset and actions of characters such as those in The Bluest Eye, the lengths the characters were willing to go to in order to conform to society, and how consequential decisions they made in order to endure and to survive had a lasting impact on the quality of their lives. Race and class defined how characters throughout the novel dealt with elements such as beauty, self awareness, ethnic identity, morality and the idea of society’s opinions.

Slavery, segregation, and discrimination are commonly viewed as some of the primary struggles African Americans contended with. However, in Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eyes, it reveals struggles not commonly discussed about, such as internalized racism within black society and the internal conflict with one’s own blackness. Throughout the novel, characters repeatedly try to consume whiteness as a mean to escape their own blackness. They submerge themselves with the notion that the white, Eurocentric culture is the superior culture, and being white means being beautiful and powerful. In doing so, they gradually disconnect and disassociate themselves from their own African American heritage.

BibliographyBelton, Danielle. "Fear and Self-Loathing in Black America." The Black Snob. Blogspot.com. 9 Sept. 2008. Web. 30 Oct. 2009. Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Penguin Group, 1994. Print.

When people are growing up they are considered as being the most vulnerable. This is the part of life where they absorb negativity like sponges, if exposed to it, and the seeds of how they will react to it are planted. The Bluest Eye is a book by Toni Morrison, which attacks what and who is considered beautiful and “good”. Therefore, it is a book that opens a conversation about the effects white people have had on the United States on black Americans. Through examining the relationships black characters have with white ones, the audience is exposed to how much of an effect the white population has had on black Americans.

In addition to the societal favoritism of white beauty, there was a subsequent prejudice against features that were associated with the African American physical appearance. The internalized racism present in the novel has an incredibly damaging effect on its characters. The Bluest Eye presents two significant effects of internalized racism—low self-esteem and jealousy.

Racism is wide spread throughout the world. In particular it hits home here in the United States. All my life, living here in the south, I have dealt with racism. I was never a minority and never experienced the negative side of racism until I was much older. From the time I was born to until I was 18 I was raised in a small country town with a mostly white population. In the starting years I never knew what racism was or what negative effects it would or could have on someone. As I grew older I realized that only small minded people were intolerant of other people’s cultures and ethnicity’s. The topic of racism is particularly important to me because I am one who overcame racism and has strived to smother out racism so we can all be a united people. I reflect back on to my earlier years and really see how harsh and upsetting it was to be so closed minded when all of the world is striving to become more global. Not only do I strive for equality but I also strive for understanding. Understanding not only for the ethnicity’s of others, but their cultural values as well. To me you cannot truly get to know anyone, little lone a whole race or ethnic group without getting to know their cultural values or beliefs. I have chosen the topic of “Racism in America” not only because of the listed reason above, but also to maybe help educate myself further and to possibly be able to persuade other people to become more globally minded and help them realize that we are

The Bluest Eye concentrates on the key contemporary American issues: racial and sexual politics. More distinctly, the novel centres on the impact that socially constructed views of race have on gender relations within the black community. As Butler-Evans highlights, “race rather than gender had become the overriding sign for the oppression of black people” and Morrison’s novel responds to this political issue by focusing on this in correlation with the Eurocentric society setting of the novel. The racial oppression suffered by the black community shape ideas of black masculinity based on male feelings of inferiority and consequent sexual oppression of black females. Morrison systematically explores the relationship between the racial oppression of black males and sexual oppression of black females. The main focus of this essay will be an exploration of how racial oppression experienced by black males, specifically Cholly and Junior, relate to the sexual oppression they enforce on black females.

In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison shows that one’s family determines a character’s feeling of self-worth. According to Morrison, the world is teaching little black girls that they are not beautiful and unworthy of love. The world teaches this by depicting white people and objects that resemble them, as symbols of beauty. In this world, to be worthy of love you must be beautiful. Morrison shows that if a little black girl believes what the world is telling her, her self-esteem can develop low self-esteem and they may yearn to be white. Even in the absence of economic and racial privilege, Morrison suggests that a little black girl can look to her family to build up her self-esteem. For Morrison, having a family is