In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the way Pecola values herself directly correlates with what white society considered beautiful at the time. The impact white society has on the self-assurance of minorities, especially minority women, is not only evident in Morrison’s novel, but also the way it continues to affect women of color today. The Bluest Eye effectively criticizes the way white society pressures and molds the personalities and self-value of African-American women directly and through the use of American pop culture and media.
In the foreword to The Bluest Eye, Morrison speaks about why she began writing the novel, the root of prejudice, and how to understand and combat the self-loathing effects it has on minority female youth. Morrison states, “The assertion of racial beauty was not a reaction to self-mocking, humorous critique of cultural/racial foibles common in all groups, but against the damaging internalization of assumptions of immutable inferiority originating in an outward gaze” (11). African- American women had to reclaim their own beauty in a society that not only told them that they weren’t beautiful, but also in one that loathed them completely. The dampening of the African-American woman’s self-value did not originate in
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The role of children’s literature is one of the firsts that must be inclusive for the benefit of not only minority children, but for white children as well. While there is a growing number of literature for young POC children, the narrative of the character is also important. Minority children must not only see themselves represented, but also widely represented in different occupations and stories. Often enough, historical books about African-Americans are mostly concentrated around athletes of civil rights leaders. It is necessary that black children see themselves as scientists, novelists, pilots, etc at an earlier