Tara Moyer
Dr. Sharleen Mondal
ENG 314 OL: Literature and Gender
October 04, 2015
The effects of internalized racism on African American girls in The Bluest Eye
In Kari Davis’s 2005 documentary A Girl Like Me, African American young girls are shown discussing society’s white values, standards of beauty and parental encouragement to physically change their appearance resulting in internalized racism of black teenage girls. Influenced by Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye that conveys young African American girl’s self-image. Davis referenced her material based off of the novel that depicted the same relevant significance seen in her documentary are also seen throughout Toni Morrison's 1970 novel, The Bluest Eye. Morrison’s novel follows the story of two adolescents Pecola Breedlove, as witnessed by Claudia, as they convey whiteness as a privilege and therefor beautiful. It also looks at the heart wrenching effects of young African American girls through the early 1940s. Morrison’s novel was inspired by a conversation she once had with a classmate who wished to have blue eyes. The novel movingly shows the emotional wreckage of a young black girl, “Pecola Breedlove”, who pursues love and approval in a world that rejects and diminishes people of her own background. As Pecola’s psychological state gradually unties, she is presented with prevalent images and societies white values of beauty norms. Pecola despondently longs to have the conservative American principles of female attractiveness, specifically, “white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes.” The Bluest Eye has fascinated substantial thoughtfulness from literary critics. Morrison’s provides a portrait of African American female identity and its perceptive analysis of the internalized racism produced by American social characterizations of attractiveness, associated with characteristic white privileges of whiteness and beauty norms.
Literary critic Jerome Bump author of Racism and Appearance in The Bluest Eye: A Template for an Ethical Emotive Criticism (2010) uses his article to argue that ethical emotive criticism connects feelings to thought, or a psychological model of racisms, stigmatism, judging by appearance, and emotions in “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison (1970). Morrison has captured the essence of internalization of racism, discrimination, victimization and oppression against African American’s, especially toward black women. Bump, J. (2010) examines the challenges of how emotions generally evoke reform of race, class and gender inequities. The truth is emotional as well as intellectual, he goes on to explain that emotion is the foundation of knowledge and ideology. In Bumps article “Racism and Appearance in The Bluest Eye: a Template for an Ethical Emotive Criticism” he explores and encourages readers to completely identify with the characters in The Bluest Eye. “One must be capable of feeling compassion and sympathy to cross an individual barrier between ourselves and another person.” (p. 150) By crossing through these barriers, one can see the distinct privileges and capture the victimization of discrimination and oppression of African Americans.
In Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye depicts white privilege and captured the victimization of discrimination and oppression that affected African American individuals especially black women in the 1940’s. The characters in this novel express internalized racism and their desire to become what society’s perception as a whole considers beautiful. Which is that one must remain pure and free of “funkiness” and or free from the stigma of ugliness. Whiteness exists purely on a spectrum, race is not only defined by the color of one’s skin, the shape of one’s features, or the texture of one’s hair, but also by one’s place of origin, socioeconomic class, religious and educational background. Bump (2010) is effective in explaining white privilege and societal expectations of beauty and the emotional and psychological destruction of oppression among young African American women.
Morrison parallels the life of each African American character in her novel and the way they experienced and fell victim to racism and oppression in the world in which they lived. The media has long built a misconception of beauty, which eventually emotionally and psychologically destroy the characters in Morrison’s novel showing that they do not fall into society’s standards in which beauty is measured. Beauty dwells within us all whether it's visible or not, it is society that has branded individuals with this demeaning label of ugliness. Beauty is something we all want, but when it is not visible according to society’s standards it can have lasting damaging effects. Beauty is what brings great and irreparable pain to those who do not hold it or believe in it therefore enveloping feelings of internalized racism within a certain race. Morrison’s claim is stating that black people can never be loved through their imitation of white culture, but only through authentic admiration and nurturing of their own culture. While Bump, J. (2010) examines the challenges of how emotions generally evoke reform of race, societal class and gender inequities.
In Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye human relationships and acceptance revolve around the experience of society’s privileged look and one’s place of origin in society. Assumptions of the outside of a person reflects the flaws that they have inside, our fears of being rejected because of our appearance. Pecola was abandoned and left homeless and made the scapegoat as she did not meet society’s perception or standards of beauty. Pecola came from “ugliness” and her lack of femininity that became a stigma that transmitted through familial lineages that contaminated all members of the family. Morrison’s novel reflects the history of racism as witnessed by white dominance and supremacy and society’s influence of beauty norms within the African American race. Society’s image of beauty was found in entertainment, advertising and approving glances. “You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction.” “The master had said, “You are ugly People.” They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict the statement; saw, in fact, support for it leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, and every glance. “Yes,” they had said. “You are right.” And they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it.” (p. 39) To disengage and hide from society’s external vision of racism and poverty they used this as cloak to protect themselves from the harsh elements of the world.
There was a clear presence of African American oppression through society’s vision of beauty norms and in attempts to avoid being branded with the demeaning label of “ugly”, African American’s associated cleanliness with whiteness and value, therefor took measures to improve oneself through cleanliness and minor changes of appearance. Shirley Temple was sacred and was the epitome of society’s white norms, Claudia sincerely adored her because she stood for everything that society considered beautiful and she wanted that too. “I learned much later to worship her, just as I learned to delight in cleanliness, knowing, even as I learned, that the change was adjustment without improvement.” (p. 23) Society’s associated whiteness and beauty with goodness, cleanliness, and value, while being black is associated with immorality, dirtiness, and worthlessness. In reality people only saw what they saw with their own eyes and attempting to change their appearance was not going to change who they were and the color of their skin. In Kari Davis’s Documentary, A Girl Like Me the young girls were given the option to choose from a white or black baby doll, a young black girl stated in the film that she wished she was like her white Barbie doll with long straight blonde hair. Similarly paralleling Pecola who equates beauty with whiteness as she prayed for Alice and Jerry blue storybook blue eyes in order to change the way she sees the world. “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights-if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.” (p. 46) Pecola believed her own assumptions of inferiority that internally damages her self-esteem merely from an outside gaze of herself and what others saw. Ultimately the racist white society that shames, devalues and traumatizes African Americans has been portrayed as the enemy.
Morrison uses Maureen to demonstrate the gradations of race within the black community and how those with lighter skin people are treated with more respect. Even amongst the black community and their own kin, one is graded upon the color of their skin thus encouraging internalized racism among young black women. “There was a hint of spring in her sloe green eyes, something summery in her complexion, and a rich autumn ripeness in her walk. She enchanted the entire school. When teachers called on her, they smiled encouragingly. Black boys didn’t trip her in the halls; white boys didn’t stone her, white girls didn’t suck their teeth when she was assigned to be their work partners; black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sink in the girl’s toilet, and their eyes genuflected under sliding lids.” (p. 62) White privilege and oppression was evident by teachers and the white children’s approval and mere preference over lighter skinned African Americans by a mere glance and they disapproved by being associated all together with the black children. Outside pressure of white beauty violence and aggression does not bind the black community together and blacks can begin to identify the differences even amongst themselves based on societal standards of white beauty that they have adopted and thus racism develops among and between blacks themselves within the black community. Even amongst the black community The Breedloves experienced black oppression and they were viewed as outcasts. “The Breedloves did not live in the storefront because they were having temporary difficulties adjusting to the cutbacks at the plant. They lived there because they were poor and black, and they stayed there because they believed they were ugly.” (p. 38) The Breedlove’s accepted societies view of them and because through familial linages, and their own self-hatred that they were ugly therefore they were unworthy and undeserving of love, materialistic treasures and the label of beauty.
Morrison offers several different idealisms of beauty norms such as trying to physically change appearances in order to fit society’s image of beauty. The characters in the novel established their own self-worth believing that their beauty or ugliness defined their value within society, their community and family that had devastating and damaging effects on their lives. In the novel Claudia wanted to tear down society’s expectations of beauty and by dismembering the white doll she had hoped to find out what made whiteness beautiful and privileged. “I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me.” (p. 20) Claudia had only one desire when it came to playing with dolls. Instead of caring for the doll as society expected her to do, she wanted to dismember it. By dismembering the doll, Claudia therefor tore down society’s expectations of beauty and female gender roles.
Beauty and ugliness in and of themselves are not destructive or dangerous, instead it is the internalization of the idea of what makes beauty that holds immense destructive power. Bestowing blue eyes was the reoccurring metaphor in this novel as the blue eyes represent beauty and power in the white culture. “Maybe they’d say, “Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn’t do bad things in front of those pretty eyes.” (p. 46) Pecola desires the bluest eyes because she wants to be the most beautiful and the most loved; but she can never be beautiful because she is black. Therefore, she believes without blue eyes, she can never be loved. Pecola believed that to be accepted by society whiteness and bestowing blue eyes is beautiful and that her own blackness is inherently ugly. Pecola was a direct result of parental self-hatred and rejection of racial identity and viewed as ugly and worthless, she felt that if she was perhaps prettier or someone different one of a different class her parents would love and nurture her, they wouldn’t argue and fight in front of her; they would be more loving towards her.
African American’s in the 1940’s experienced racism and oppression in every glance and every promotion from the racist white society that set them apart from the rest of the human race. “The grey head of Mr. Yacobowski looms up over the counter. He urges his eyes out of his thoughts to encounter her. Blue eyes. Blear-dropped. Slowly, like Indian summer moving imperceptibly toward fall, he looks toward her. Somewhere between retina and object, between vision and view, his eyes draw back, hesitate, and hover. At some fixed point in time and space he senses that he need not waste the effort of a glance. He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see.” (p. 48) Pecola was not seen as a beautiful child much less being seen as another human being. African Americans were not considered or accepted by the white society as human, they were devalued and invisible. “The total absence of human recognition, the glaze of separateness.” (p. 48) The Mary Jane candies to Pecola were kind of a salve to her wounds, they are sweet and allow Pecola to not only feel connected to the white society but to actually consume the white culture that makes her feel inferior. “Each pale wrapper has a picture on it. A picture of little Mary Jane, for whom the candy is named. Smiling white face. Blond hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking at her… To Pecola they are simply pretty. She eats the candy…To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane.” (p. 50) This was only temporary, therefore addictive, and actually reinforce her sense of inferiority. They provide a strength that is not otherwise inside her, which is not her own, and so she is dependent on white culture to soothe the pain that it instills in her. “She would see only what there was to see: the eyes of other people.” (p. 47) It was a vicious cycle.
In Morrison’s novel white privilege and societal standards of beauty in addition to patriarchal male oppression has lasting emotional and psychological effects on the self-esteem and self-worth of African American teenage girls ultimately leading to internalized racism and their desire to alter their appearance to gain some self-worth in themselves. Men in the novel used sex as a means to oppress and demoralize the women in their lives. The ugliest of secrets was the destructive force of Cholly’s internalized racial self-hatred when he raped his daughter Pecola. This brutal act of violence and oppression against Pecola demonstrates the silencing effect of male oppression over women. The first words of the novel “Quiet as it’s kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941. We thought, at that time, that it was because Pecola was having her father’s baby that the marigolds did not grow.” (p. 3) Leaving a devastating lasting effect on Pecola’s psyche’ she believes that she deserves the abuse and neglect she experiences at home and from the community based on her own self-perceived ugliness and worthlessness that lead to her ultimate demise.
Pecola’s story is unique and her own, but it is also centuries of cultural mutilation of black people in America. Racism is an issue that exists collectively and remains bigger than any single racist individual. Claudia states, "All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us." (p. 205) Pecola’s beauty was stolen and her image was changed by those around her by putting a negative spot light upon her, and so that no one could see the truth behind what truly has transpired. Others looked down upon her to only selfishly bring themselves up, she was the scapegoat for others self-hatred. Bump, J. (2010) acclaims that anger and hatred are not enough to fight racism, they are secondary emotions, driven in turn by shame and fear. Shame is identified as the basic emotion in this novel, anger is better than this shame. Anger laps up the dredges of Pecola’s shame, her shame is replaced by anger. She does not understand why she is ugly, why people think she is ugly, and why she feels shameful for something she has no control over.
In conclusion, Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” is considered by contemporary literary critics as possibly one of the first modern-day female novelist that traces the development of a character from childhood to adulthood, in pursuit of searching for her own identity that leads her to maturity. Critics later claimed that her work was unfamiliar at the time, thus, “The Bluest Eye” was not recognized when it was first published. Over time, this has change and it has become a principle classroom read for all ages. Her ability to focus and replicated the African American speak and musical paces caused her critics to approach her novel in the framework of the rise of African American writers. This in turn brought significance to a revision of American history and their own traditional backgrounds. Morrison’s honest portrayals of African American childhood and its forthright images of interracial racism among African American community brings forth considerate behavior of the emotional precociousness of young girls.
Works Cited
Morrison, T. (1970). The Bluest Eye. New York: Random House Inc.
Bump, J. (2010). Racism and Appearance in "The Bluest Eye": A Template for an Ethical
Emotive Criticism; College Literature2010, Vol. 37 Issue 2, p147-170. 24p
A Girl Like Me. Dir. Kiri Davis. Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, 2005. Vimeo. Web.
https://vimeo.com/59262534. Retrieved October 5, 2015