Let me start with a couple of confessions: The Bluest Eye is not my favorite book. Beloved was the first Toni Morrison novel I ever read, and with the exception of Song of Solomon, nothing else she has written even comes close to that masterpiece (for me, anyway). So the second thing I need to admit is that when Claudia from The Bottom of Heaven invited me to join this blogger roundtable, I wanted to decline. Reading The Bluest Eye is sort of like digging in an unhealed wound—pulling off the scab and probing the sore, raw flesh beneath. And most days, I don’t want to go there. In part, because most days I already AM there…when am I *not* worried about white supremacy’s devastating effects on black girls? How often do I wrap up an author presentation, ask if there are any questions, and hear a black or Latino girl say, “I like your eyes, Miss.” I tell myself that looking like “the problem” actually enhances my ability to be part of the solution. But some days I’m not so sure…
On Saturday night I forced myself to watch a Shirley Temple movie (The Little Princess) because I thought it might help me write this post; it only annoyed me further, however, and I wondered how many girls of all races were damaged by the construction of Temple as a dear, dainty, devoted angel. I’m with younger sister Claudia when it comes to Shirley: “Frieda and [Pecola] had a loving conversation about just how cu-ute Shirley Temple was. I couldn’t join them in their adoration because I hated Shirley.” What Claudia really hates, of course, are the privileges arbitrarily assigned to cute little white girls; Claudia wants to dance with Bojangles, to be the object of his affection, but such an honor is reserved for that darling girl, Shirley Temple. Little black girls don’t take center stage…
As a child, I eagerly consumed the novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett, and that diet wasn’t so healthy for a plump black girl like me…like many others, I pinned a towel over my Afro and pranced around pretending I had silky hair flowing down my back. It didn’t help that almost all my cousins were blond-haired and blue-eyed, or that my mother always bought me white dolls. I did have a black Barbie; her eyes were like mine, but her hair and body were not. Claudia caught on to the white-doll scheme long before I ever did:
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. Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs—all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured.
Of course, what every girl really wants is to be treasured for who she is. But that can’t happen when those around you have swallowed the messages of worthlessness that society sends to those who are poor, of color, and/or obese. The Bluest Eye reminds me that “hurt people hurt people,” and children are especially vulnerable to adults who have surrendered to this relentless assault:
…it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question. 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, 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.
It wasn’t until I started graduate school that I began to understand the history and ongoing impact of colorism. I could see the signs of self-loathing in my family and in myself. The Bluest Eye was certainly a big part of my education, and I hope it continues to enlighten readers who aren’t aware of the insidious messages embedded in nearly every aspect of US popular culture (including the children’s publishing industry). When Claudia posted a video of Toni Morrison discussing the self-esteem of black girls today, I was stunned; does she really think today’s girls are more confident and self-assured? (has she seen Kiri Davis’ film?) As someone who works with kids, I’d have to say I’m not as optimistic. But that lack of optimism also takes its toll, and perhaps that’s one reason I turn sullen thinking about The Bluest Eye. Can we live in this country—anywhere in this world—and be free of this brutal legacy of yearning and loathing? I teach Dael Orlandersmith‘s Yellowman in my Black Women Writers class; in this play set in the South there are no whites, no Mary Janes, no Shirley Temple—just two young lovers trapped by their parents’ pain and prejudice. Colorism is a conversation that never ends, but we have to keep calling it out…here at home and abroad.
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It breaks my heart to say so, but I do not think that black girls are more confident today. One thing that has not helped at all is the image of beauty that appears on television and movies, and, even worse, music videos. Kanye West is very talented, but I have difficulty in forgiving him for saying that the preferred girls for videos were “Mutts” – biracial girls. For a few brief years at the end of the ’60s and beginning of the ’70s, I thought that this issue would not be a problem for the next generation – after all, didn’t we embrace “Black is beautiful”? Unfortunately, it’s a lot harder to change an ingrained negative self-image than we all thought back then. Pecola is still very much alive.
You’re right, Wilhelmina–there are moments and spaces of resistance, but ultimately white supremacy remains unmoved…even with a black president, even with Gaboure on the cover of Vanity Fair…the Beyonces and Rihannas get thinner and blonder, Kanye and his peers use light-skinned women as props…I see it as a failure of feminism–not that the work isn’t ongoing, but we underestimated the extent to which women subscribe to patriarchy (and will choose to self-objectify) AND white supremacy…the wounds are too deep, reaching back too many generations, to hope for more than incremental change. It’s VERY discouraging, but we persist…
Well, first I have to say a big THANK YOU for not declining the offer! I’m so glad to hear your take on this, especially given your experience working with young girls today.
Your post makes me think about the many sides of colorism that Morrison doesn’t consider as deeply. In the afterword to my copy of TBE, Morrison expresses some regret over her depiction of Maureen Peal. Her main concern, I think, was that her character was too flat and one-dimensional. Do you think Maureen gets treated “fairly” (or maybe “effectively”) in the novel? I mean, even folks like Cholly and Geraldine get a backstory, but it seems clear that Maureen is only there to foreground Pecola’s admiration and the MacTeer sisters’ distrust.
Yes–I just found this quote from an interview Morrison did with Gloria Naylor:
I mean we all know who she is. And everybody has one of those in his or her life, but I was unfair to her. I did not in that book look at anything from her point of view inside. I only showed the facade. . . . And I never got in her because I didn’t want to go there. I didn’t like her. I never have done that since. I’ve always regretted the speed with which I executed that girl. She worked well structurally for the girls and this and that, but if I were doing that book now, I would write her section or talk about her that way plus from inside.
Now, you know I generally try NOT to talk about literary mulattas, but Maureen fulfills her role in this book…just as the mulatta fulfills her role in Tyler Perry films: “I stole your man, bitch! HAHAHA!” She lacks dimension, and that’s one thing I like about Yellowman; the dark-skinned female lead recognizes that her animosity toward the light-skinned girls stems not from their actions, but the lessons she learned from her mother–from the pain she experiences when black boys choose them over her; and then she goes to college and tries to exclude biracial women who want to join the black student union…it’s like Claudia dismembering the white dolls, and then projecting the same destructive desire onto actual white girls. Her ability to hurt white girls is limited, and with Maureen she knows it’s “the Thing” she despises and “the Thing” is what she can’t reach. We use the power we have to wound those within reach…in a moment of intense pain/rage you don’t think to focus on the true source of that emotion; how do you bruise white supremacy? we take aim at whatever flesh we can reach…
Yes this is a sydrome that is very obvious in the interactions between lightskin and dark skin blacks. We light skins are targets of a lot of hate and abuse. It takes a while to figure out why you get treated so bad. When the hate escalates to physical attacks it is clear one has to avoid the source of those bad acts. I have two solutions. Seek friends who will not mistreat you and avoid the haters or become clannish with those where hair and color are not an issue. You don’t anybody the right to abuse you.
I’m so glad you didn’t decline either. This was an excellent post about an on going problem which many people want to ignore but we can’t we must keep going. And your analysis of how we use power to wound those with in reach …is just so raw but is so deep and true.
thanks, Karen…
This was Great! i was thinking on the question if black girls now are more confident. I would have to say, essentially no. the problem with today is that for $20 a girl can go get some blue eyes. A very good friend of mine (who also happens to have dark skin and white parents) had purple contacts for years. She was confident to wear those, but not confident enough to wear what God gave her. I’m guilty as well, I had green ones for a few months, and liked them.
Then going into the whole natural hair thing. I’ve had a perm for years, and for a fee girls these days can buy the blond weave, red, green, pink, and what ever color they want. They’re confident… as long as its not the kinks and curls on their heads….
This is why “The Bluest Eye” is still very much prevalent today as is was 40 years ago. There’s nothing stopping us from buying blue eyes but our own love for what God has given us
All of you made really good points…this is heavy! 🙂
Count me in as one of the people who wonders why Maureen’s character was so one-dimensional. There could have been so much potential in terms of exploring Maureen on a deeper level instead of simply making her this obnoxious girl who picks on dark-skinned girls. Sometimes it’s the other way around. I wish that Toni Morrison could have avoided that stereotype about light-skinned women or at least given Maureen the chance to redeem herself after being so mean to the other girls. But maybe the story would not be as powerful.
As a biracial woman with very fair skin, I’ve always been very sensitive when it comes to issues of race and color. Despite looking nearly white and being relatively slender, I still don’t fit into the white beauty ideal. I have dark brown eyes and big hips.
My hair is long but it is kinky. I have never perceived myself as beautiful. I don’t have blonde hair or blue eyes. I can identify with Pecola in many ways. What Morrison is probably unaware of is that even light-skinned biracial girls can relate to Pecola’s feelings of insecurity, loneliness, and sadness.
“The Bluest Eye” is a book that still leaves me heartbroken whenever I read it. Why? Because I think of all the girls of color, including me, that have never been able to feel beautiful and worthy in this society that believes only white girls can be pretty.
I’ve often wondered why “The Bluest Eye” never became a film or Broadway production. I love “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker. Why didn’t “The Bluest Eye” achieve the same success? It would be simply phenomenal.
Little Black girls need to know that they are beautiful!