The Bluest Eye Racism

Slave labor is the foundation that the nation was built on and is a crucial part of United States history, from the colonization of Jamestown up until present day. African Americans, more often called blacks, were viewed in society as the defective, secondary race and it negatively impacted the lives of millions of African Americans living in America. The concept of racism is extremely prevalent in the novel The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, and provides the characters in the story justification for many of their thoughts, actions, and problems. The main character, Pecola, is an eleven year old girl growing up with low self-esteem due to her abusive parents, discrimination of her skin, hair, and eyes. Morrison develops the idea that the character’s judgement and perception is clouded by race: the characters see it as not only a cause of their problems, but also as a justification for their
Claudia, Pecola’s friend, was extremely racists towards white people and would destroy white baby dolls that she would receive. She used words such as “dough-white face” (Morrison 30) and “big blue-eyed baby doll” (Morrison 20) to describe her dolls, although she did not mean these words to be positive. In return though, her classmates were extremely racists towards her, but Claudia had a stable, loving family, so she was able to handle this torment better than Pecola was. Additionally, wealthy black people discriminated against impoverished black people by differentiating that “colored people were neat and quiet; n****** were dirty and loud.” (Morrison 87) Discrimination partitions all citizens living in the United States: black, white, rich poor, and many other labels that were given to people living during this time. There was one little girl that fit many labels: white, little, and