Racial supremacy has been an issue through the world. It has been demonstrated by slavery in America and the genocide by Hitler in World War 2. Racial supremacy was a big thing in America where white people were seen as the right people and the only people and the other people were just minorities. In the novel The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison racial supremacy is shown by a young girl named Pecola who wants blue eyes so she could have better life. White culture has been the dominant culture for many people who are brought up thinking that it is the perfect lifestyle. White dominance was a lifestyle for the white people in America. It was a lifestyle that every race wanted a tried to get but were never allowed to have. Whites are the …show more content…
In the book A Class Divide by William Peters, he wrote about a teacher whose name was Jane Elliot where she conducted an experiment based on blue eye dominance. She conducted the experiment by dividing the class into two sections, the blue eyed children and the brown eyes children. She started this experiment by saying, “What I mean is that brown-eyed people are better than blue-eyed people. They are cleaner than blue-eyed people. They are more civilized than blue-eyed people. And they are smarter than blue-eyed people.” The blue-eyed people were in control at one point and now they are not. The brown eyed people are now in control so they now get the advantages. So all that was happening in the past has reversed and the minority is now the superiority. Instead of using skin color and race she used eye color because her class was mostly white American. The brown eyed people were in control they had extra privileges at the class. “The brown-eyed children would have five extra minutes of recess. They would go first to lunch, could choose their lunch-line partners, and could go back for seconds. The blue-eyed children could do none of these things.” This statement explains how the brown-eyed people were getting advantages that the blue-eyed people do not have those advantages. It shows the different ranking of the
Women. When hearing that word alone, you think of weakness, their insignificance, and how lowly they are viewed in society. Females can be seen as unworthy or nothing without a man if they are not advocating them and are constantly being treated differently from men. However, in the book, “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, they live up to their reputations for how they view themselves. Specifically, being focused on women like Pecola, and Claudia. They are often questioning their worth from society’s judgement of beauty. Though one character, Frieda embraces it despite being black. With having everything temporary, the desire of grasping and having something permanent increases. The women desires to be of
In, The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison, the author, uses many examples of cruelty throughout the novel to reveal that when someone is victimized, they turn to be the perpetrator for another someone else.
On the first day of the experiment, the blue-eyed children, or the in-group, were told they were superior to the brown eyed children, the out-group. On top of being told they were better and smarter than the brown-eyed children, the out-group was not allowed to drink from the same fountain, play together at recess, or go back for seconds at lunch-time. The brown eyed children received less recess time, had to wait to go to lunch, and wore collars for easy recognition.
On the first day she told the children that those with blue eyes were better than those with brown eyes. She said that blue eyed individuals were smarter and better than brown eyed people and they were given extra privileges. For example, the blue eyed students were allowed to leave for lunch first and could get seconds, but the brown eyed students were not. The superior group was given five extra minutes at recess and was allowed to play on the playground equipment. Just like the blacks were forced to use segregated restrooms and water fountains, the brown eyed children could not use the water fountains instead they were given cups. The brown eyed students were also required to wear a collar around their necks so they could easily be told apart from the blue eyed
In a powerful experiment we were able to see through the eyes of a kindergarten children prejudice dynamics. In a famous experience by Jane Elliot she separated her class between blue-eyed and brown-eyed students. Professor Elliot had separated her students by making one eye group inferior to the other making them have certain benefits and better treatment than the other group of students. Eventually, the students were switched the following day. This experiment have showed this group of kindergarten students how colors and discrimination affected the minority population. After this successful experiment with the kindergarten student’s professor Jane Elliot had done many other experiments using adults using the a similar technique blue-eyed
“A Class Divided”: When asked the question, “do you think you know how it feels to be judged by the color of your skin”, a few felt that they did. Initially the children were excited to participate in the blue-eyed/brown-eyed experiment, until they realized they would be the people being judged. Once the teacher announced that the blue-eyed people are the “better people” than the brown-eyed children, immediately voiced their disagreement. One blue-eyed boy stated, “My dad has brown eyes and he’s not stupid.”
As stated before, it is based or should one say inspired by the life of the slave Margaret Garner, who was an African American slave . She attempts to escape in 1856 Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio, which was a free state. A mob of slave owners, planters and overseers arrived to repossess her and her children under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which gave slave owners the right to pursue
The Bluest Eye, written by Toni Morrison, demonstrates the internal struggles that plagued the African American working class due to the socioeconomic conditions during the early 1940s. These external pressures shaped the lifestyles of the characters both in their internal struggles and their physical surroundings. Pauline Breedlove unknowingly displays her own internal conflicts through the way in which she keeps her own home. Additionally, she further demonstrates her battle with acceptance and her obsession with beauty in the way she cares for the home of the Fishers. Another character, Geraldine, keeps her home clean with an obsessive determination. However,
She broke the kids up by brown, and blue eyes giving the kids with blue eyes special treatment over the brown eyes students. This allowed the brown eyed kids to feel how colored kids are treated. The teacher put the blue eyed kids on a pedestal while treating the brown eyed kids with disgust, and unfair treatment.
"White supremacy is a system designated to maintain economic, legal, political, and social privilege for white people based on a belief of racial superiority" (Amy Lively qtd. White Supremacy). This is what Lively have stated in her article on white
She told her students that the blue-eyed students were superior to their brown-eyed friends. Within minutes, the way the two groups of students acted towards one another changed. Ms. Elliot, their teacher, started calling the blue-eyed division of the group “better and smarter” than their brown-eyed equivalents. She continued this by giving them more opportunities than the brown-eyed students. For example, they recieved seconds at lunch, as well as, extra time at recess. A blue-eyed student also went on to say, “You better keep the art stick close, [Ms. Elliot] in case you need to use it.” He meant to use it to punish a brown-eyed classmate. Once the teacher changed her views, the students did too. The students did not want to be different, so they followed their leader's example. Even though this part of the experiment only took place for a day, it seemed like it had occurred for a while. This is a great example of how once a leader changes his/her point of view, it’s followers will do the same, so they will not be seen as different or an
If I were a participant if one of Jane Elliott’s exercises, I would have expressed a variety of emotions. I would have felt frustrated by the way she belittled us and with the rules that she enforced. She enforced rules so that the blue eyed people would fail and for the brown eyed people to succeed. I would have also felt humiliated by the way she mocked the blue eyed people. I would have felt angry with her too for treating and talking to me as iI would have benefitted from participating in a similar activity, because of the lessons that were taught in it. The most important lesson is to treat others fairly and to not be ignorant. She makes this very clear when she says that she won’t feel sympathetic towards the blue eyed people, because there are people in this world who face this kind of treatment on a day-to-day basis.
Some say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however, this could not be farther from the truth. From a historical perspective, beauty has been shown to be in the eye of the conformer. Society sets the standard of beauty and, either willingly or unwillingly, people obey. One may ask what happens to those who do not fit the standard, and the answer is simple: they become invisible. The narrator in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Pecola Breedlove in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and Claireece Precious Jones in Push by Sapphire, are all examples of how societal standards blind the acquiescent and cloak the divergent.
In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison strongly ties the contents of her novel to its structure and style through the presentation of chapter titles, dialogue, and the use of changing narrators. These structural assets highlight details and themes of the novel while eliciting strong responses and interpretations from readers. The structure of the novel also allows for creative and powerful presentations of information. Morrison is clever in her style, forcing readers to think deeply about the novel’s heavy content without using the structure to allow for vagueness.
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