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Aspects of racism in the bluest eye
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The world is at constant change as the populations views continue to differ. Much like how views on fashion and music has changed, views on race has changed as well. The way society views races such as African American is no different than how they view a race such as white. Although, race seems to determine how a person is viewed and treated no matter what period of time we are in.
Color is a characteristic that humans can notice almost instantly. Whether it is a flower or someone’s skin, color can be very noticeable. A person’s skin tone has been an effective way of knowing how to view or treat a person on earth. In Toni Morrison’s book, “The Bluest Eye” set in the early 1900’s, Morrison writes, “We stare at her…wanting to poke the arrogance
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To some people, race is an important factor to how a person should be identified in society on a social level. Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom support this idea of race being an important factor with, “…in 1944, most blacks lived in the south and on the land as laborers and sharecroppers,” (Thernstrom 6). Black people were such a low class race that people believed they belonged on the land and worked like slaves. Society viewed black people as objects that could be forced to do anything that a white person needed. Just because black people had a darker skin tone compared to a white person, they were simply considered and treated like trash. Black people were not seen as humans but as if they were machines, all because of the race they were born with. Adding on, A’Lelia Bundles describes, “…Native Americans were driven off their ancestral land in the Deep South in the 1830s…” (Bundles 14). People were forced outside of their hometown just because another race that saw themselves as “superior”. Native Americans were viewed as such an inferior race that it went as far as getting kicked out of a land they called their home. These Native Americans were being treated so unfairly and got their own homes taken away because of their race. The race that these Native Americans had waged a factor in whether these people would’ve been kicked out or not. Race, at some point, will always be considered a characteristic that determines how a person is treated and viewed in a
Throughout the 1800’s and 1900’s in the southern region of the United States, all African Americans were treated like they didn’t belong here in this country. Almost all white males that were wealthy owned a plethora of African Americans as their personal slaves. They would work days upon days for their respective owners. Whether it was picking cotton or doing whatever their owner asked of them, they were pretty much treated like they were anything but a human being. They were treated poorly and their living conditions can probably be considered as inhumane. The quality of life for the two races in our beloved country had a huge difference. This era was more commonly known as the Jim Crow era. “Jim Crow describes the segregationist social system
...Americans heads that beauty is to have loight colored skin,”whites expressed ideas that they were the inferioir to blacks and managed to instill in blacks’ minds that the light skin complexion they had, the more they possesd”(Maxwell). As of modern day, nothing has changed. Things even got worse. Society has made it to where that a light colored skin complexion is the way to be. African Americans gave colorism another meaning.They constantly discriminate their own race for not bearing light colored skin and nice straight hair. African Americans have segregated their own race into light colored skin and dark colored skin. Dark colored African Americans are doubloed discriminated by the caucasians and half of their own race. Addittionlly, light and fair colored skin toned Americans receive “special” priviledges and opportunitiesz because of their phyical appearance.
In today’s age, African-Americans are still viewed as the lower race. There are entire ghettos associated with housing only African-American individuals and cities are divided among racial lines. For example, our hometown of Chicago, the north serves as residence to the “whites” while the south end of the city home to “blacks”. There is a wide-spread belief that African-Americans are not as smart as the rest of the population, are in some way related to a criminal background, and/or do not care about their betterment in any way and are lazy. This is because, Mills argues, racial realists associate racial characteristics to the “peculiar” history of that race. This makes argument makes logical sense given the oppressive history of African-Americans in
Toni Morrison's novel "The Bluest Eye", is a very important novel in literature, because of the many boundaries that were crosses and the painful, serious topics that were brought into light, including racism, gender issues, Black female Subjectivity, and child abuse of many forms. This set of annotated bibliographies are scholarly works of literature that centre around the hot topic of racism in the novel, "The Bluest Eye", and the low self-esteem faced by young African American women, due to white culture. My research was guided by these ideas of racism and loss of self, suffered in the novel, by the main character Pecola Breedlove. This text generates many racial and social-cultural problems, dealing with the lost identity of a young African American women, due to her obsession with the white way of life, and her wish to have blue eyes, leading to her complete transgression into insanity.
Since 1619, when the first slaves were brought to North America, race has played an important role in everyone’s life; especially those who are different from what people would consider “American”. According to the textbook, “race is defined as any group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographical distribution” (pg. 59). People are placed into different categories instead of all being considered human beings. Although we do not have slavery, that we know of, in the United States today, this does not mean that race is still not an issue. However, race in this country has taken a turn over time and has now, “taken on a meaning that refers to differences between people based on color” (pg.
The structure of a society is based on the concept of superiority and power which both “allocates resources and creates boundaries” between factors such as class, race, and gender (Mendes, Lecture, 09/28/11). This social structure can be seen in Andrea Smith’s framework of the “Three Pillars of White Supremacy.” The first pillar of white supremacy is the logic of slavery and capitalism. In a capitalist system of slavery, “one’s own person becomes a commodity that one must sell in the labor market while the profits of one’s work are taken by someone else” (Smith 67). From this idea of viewing slavery as a means of capitalism, Blacks were subjected to the bottom of a racial hierarchy and were treated nothing more than a property and commodity that is used for someone else’s benefit. The second pillar involves the logic of genocide and colonialism. With genocide, “Non-Native peoples th...
Race has been one of the most outstanding situations in the United States all the way from the 1500s up until now. The concept of race has been socially constructed in a way that is broad and difficult to understand. Social construction can be defined as the set of rules are determined by society’s urges and trends. The rules created by society play a huge role in racialization, as the U.S. creates laws to separate the English or whites from the nonwhites. Europeans, Indigenous People, and Africans were all racialized and victimized due to various reasons. Both the Europeans and Indigenous People were treated differently than African American slaves since they had slightly more freedom and rights, but in many ways they are also treated the same. The social construction of race between the Europeans, Indigenous People, and Africans led to the establishment of how one group is different from the other.
Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye contributes to the study of the American novel by bringing to light an unflattering side of American history. The story of a young black girl named Pecola, growing up in Lorain, Ohio in 1941 clearly illustrates the fact that the "American Dream" was not available to everyone. The world that Pecola inhabits adores blonde haired blue eyed girls and boys. Black children are invisible in this world, not special, less than nothing. The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you lesser was cultivated by both whites and blacks. White skin meant beauty and privilege and that idea was not questioned at this time in history. The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you less of a person contaminated black people's lives in many different ways. The taunts of schoolboys directed at Pecola clearly illustrate this fact; "It was their contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its teeth" (65). This self hatred also possessed an undercurrent of anger and injustice that eventually led to the civil rights movement.
The Association of Black Psychologist (ABP) (2013) defines colorism as skin-color stratification. Colorism is described as “internalized racism” that is perceived to be a way of life for the group that it is accepted by (ABP 2013). Moreover, colorism is classified as a persistent problem within Black American. Colorism in the process of discriminatory privileges given to lighter-skinned individuals of color over their darker- skinned counterparts (Margret Hunter 2007). From a historical standpoint, colorism was a white constructed policy in order to create dissention among their slaves as to maintain order or obedience. Over the centuries, it seems that the original purpose of colorism remains. Why has this issue persisted? Blacks have been able to dismantle the barriers faced within the larger society of the United States. Yet, Blacks have failed to properly address the sins of the past within the ethnic group. As a consequence of this failure, colorism prevails. Through my research, I developed many questions: Is it right that this view remain? How does valuing an individual over another cause distribution to the mental health of the victims of colorism? More importantly, what are the solutions for colorism? Colorism, unfortunately, has had a persisted effect on the lives of Black Americans. It has become so internalized that one cannot differentiate between the view of ourselves that Black Americans adopted from slavery or a more personalized view developed from within the ethnicity. The consequences of this internalized view heightens the already exorbitant mental health concerns within the Black community, but the most unfortunate aspect of colorism is that there is contention on how the issue should be solved.
Race as a “…social and historical idea, not biological” (Palaita, Lecture 1/25/18), only works because according to Social Construction Theory, “…these categories work because our complacency allows us to presume that the identities are natural and a group’s social status relies on biology, rather than social/cultural circumstances” (Palaita, Lecture 1/25/18). Our unwillingness to challenge these identities has allowed these categories to be used to determine who will be on the advantageous side of the inequality we face here in the United States. If we no longer accepted these conditions, and change the way social groups are viewed and treated, we may create a new norm and close the inequality gap between social
There is still racism all over the world today, against all different people. This may never fully disappear due to people's personal beliefs, which can't all be evaluated equally. However, in America we now have complete legal equality for every individual no matter what race or ethnic background. African- Americans have gotten to a point in history where they no longer are discriminated against and have the same opportunities as everyone else. It took a long time to get to this point, but now that we are here, it can be seen that there are no more issues of segregation or discrimination such as there was in the decades after 1865.
Because of these preconceived notions, the racism found in The Bluest Eye is not whites against blacks. Morrison writes about the racism of lighter colored blacks against darker colored blacks and rich blacks against poor blacks. Along with racism within the black community, sexism is exemplified both against women and against men. As Morrison investigates the racism and sexism of the community of Lorain, Ohio, she gives the reader more perspective as to why certain characters do or say certain things. Morrison provides the reader with a light-skinned black character whose racist attitudes affect the poorer, darker blacks in the community, especially the main characters, Claudia MacTeer and Pecola Breedlove.
Throughout Toni Morrison’s controversial debut The Bluest Eye, several characters are entangled in the extremes of human cruelty and desire. A once innocent Pecola arguably receives the most appalling treatment, as not only is she exposed to unrelenting racism and severe domestic abuse, she is also raped and impregnated by her own father, Cholly. By all accounts, Cholly is detestable and unworthy of any kind of sympathy. However, over the course of the novel, as Cholly’s character and life are slowly brought into the light and out of the self-hatred veil, the reader comes to partially understand why Cholly did what he did and what really drives him. By painting this severely flawed yet completely human picture of Cholly, Morrison draws comparison with how Pecola was treated by both of her undesirable parents.
Throughout The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison includes a number of background stories for minor characters along with the main plotline in order to add dimension to the novel and further convey the intense racial prejudice felt by almost all African Americans. Her main story tells of the outrageous landslide of wounding events that Pecola Breedlove experiences, a young black girl constantly patronized by her peers, and the things that eventually make her go crazy. The struggle for a deep black skinned person can be significantly different from what a lighter skinned black person feels, and Toni Morrison adds secondary story lines to stress that difference, and the extremes that racism can force people into. The back-story of Geraldine expresses the desire to be white supported by social circumstances, the comparison of how much easier whiter life could be on Pecola and her family, but also the poor results that can come from shying away from one’s own nature and history.
In The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, Pecola, a young girl, is driven into madness because of “the effects of the beauty standards of the dominate culture on the self-image of the African female adolescent” (Mbalia 153). Pecola goes unseen in her community not only by her peers but by her mother and father of. Not just one race or one social class that isolates and neglects Pecola either. Pecola’s descent into madness results from isolation and lack of love due to the people’s acceptance of the white standards of beauty.