Children are most delicate and vulnerable to the legacies of racism and sexism, they will often find their life opportunities limited or destroyed if the racist oppression internalized within families and communities continues unabated. Black women are mostly represented as unattractive, uneducated, and their inherent value as human beings faces constant attacks from a Eurocentric ideal of beauty that doubly oppresses black men and women. In most cases, the children are not protected from the realities of their environment, and their parents are, in fact, a direct cause of the traumas they experience. The young women are exposed to physical, emotional and sexual abuse from a very early age.
Immediately after rape, victims report shock, fear, extreme stress, and embarrassment. Sexual abuse of children, when an older person engages with sexual activity with a child, is relatively frequent. Sexual child abusers are in most case a relative. The most vulnerable age for being molested is around 10 years old. The consequences of childhood sexual abuse are serious. Effects may include destruction and self destructive behavior, anxiety, feeling of isolation and stigma, poor self esteem, and difficulty in trusting others. The most damaging ways of sexual abuse are those involving fathers, genital contact and use of force.
In the novel “The Bluest Eye”, Toni Morrison highlights the necessity of recognizing the dehumanization and objectification of children, specifically black girls, who are often most vulnerable to problems in society due to poverty, gender, and racial identity. Pecola Breedlove, a paradoxical surname due to her parents’ inability to breed love for themselves and their own children, is the victim of all of society’s ruthless treatment of the poor, the black, the female, and the youth. Blacks, whites, children, and adults, in addition to her parents, reinforce her own negative self-perception by valorizing whiteness and the beauty it entails. Pecola was the victim of child sex abuse by her father at the age of 11 and experienced a loss of innocence. This act led to the very serious psychological problems in Pecola’s life. It was the final act which led to Pecola’s absurdity. She was sexually violated by the very man who should have protected her. The consequences of "fall from innocence" are further abuse, and for Pecola, having a child of her own.
Pecola is abused by everyone in her life. Not only does she suffer from r racial harassment by the white people, but also she is subjected to experience it from African Americans. In her eyes, her skin is too dark, and the colour of her skin makes her think that she is ugly. She thinks that she can avoid this only if her eyes were blue. This story is about tortured life of young girl. It is not a story you can like and enjoy. While reading, you feel like it is one of yours worst nightmare. It disturbs your mind with its vivid pictures. One should have a strong stomach to get through this novel. But, this is just what makes the book a masterpiece that Ms. Morrison can bring out such powerful feelings from readers. This book takes us to the world most didn't know existed and arouses almost unbearably strong emotions.
The feminist critique of black men in this novel can also be found in later Morrison novels, and justifiably so since the patriarchal, misogynist definitions of black masculinity continue to serve white hegemony at the expense of embracing a universal aesthetic of inherent value and beauty in human life. Perhaps if society could become more like children, untouched by the forms of oppression adults persist in passing on to future generations, then maybe the relevancy of “The Bluest Eye” to contemporary gender and race relations will no longer matter. Morrison’s message of self-love for black women is still relevant, regardless of the popularity of the Black is Beautiful era in the Civil Rights Movement and contemporary feminist circles.
This novel about Pecola Breedlove illustrates the cruelty of white, middle class American images of beauty. Pecola felt invisible in society because of her ugly appearance and corrupt family. Pecola Breedlove is the main character of the novel. She, along with the rest of the Breedlove family, had small eyes set closely together under narrow foreheads: "Shapely lips, crooked noses with insolent nostrils and heavy eyebrows decorated their faces" (Morrison 38). In addition to racial oppression internalized by blacks, Pecola, Claudia and Freida are suppressed for being children. The novel begins by focusing on the relationship between Claudia and her mother. Children are expected to obey, accept lies from adults, and unthinkingly receive the blows, curses and unthinkingly absorb the internalized oppressions their parents bear. Moreover, this novel shows how the dehumanizing of children has violent and adverse consequences for the parents, whose abuse of their offspring only fuels their own delusional beliefs in white and male superiority. For example, the self-loathing Soapherd Church releases his frustration at his own blackness by sexually abusing young black girls, whose vulnerability and innocence attract him. For the children, the consequences take the form of physical and sexual violence, and inevitably, the preservation of racism and sexism. Therefore, Morrison declares the importance of changing one’s relationship with children to reflect true compassion, understanding, and a relationship based in parity rather than authoritarian parenthood to escape white hegemony, which must begin in families and communities before pervading across society. Morrison also highlights the importance of changing adult-child relations with the aforementioned case of Claudia, whose own desires are not sought by her parents when she is given a white doll for Christmas. Claudia, who only wanted to listen to her grandfather play the violin, has her parents impose a Euro-American standard of beauty on her against her wishes. Children, though always under the influence of their parents’ moral values and standards, often find their own independent, and developing worldview restricted by their parents, which is detrimental to human progress because children often have better solutions to oppression because of their uncorrupted philosophy. Indeed, Jesus Christ asserted this when he urges men and women to be like children, soft and innocent, which is unsurprisingly adopted by Morrison, who often uses Biblical themes in her novels.
The Painting depicts the problems that black children have to face due to racism. We can infer from the picture that a black African family might have shifted to another place due to extreme torture but the local children are amazed to see the black children and it seems that they are going to face the same discrimination again. We can also understand that racism was widespread in America and it might have been very difficult for Matin Luther King and peoples of America to remove the strong footholds of racism from America. We can also see that the black children have a white pet cat and the whites have a black pet dog, this shows that they do not distinguish between animals but when it comes to humans, discrimination rules. This also portrays a sense of optimistic feeling that there is a chance that those kids would soon understand what true beauty is and they will accept the black kids as they have accepted the dark animals because everything is the creation of god and how does it matter if one is black or white.
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Works Cited
King, Martin Luther Jr. I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World. Ed. James M. Washington. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1992. Print.
Morrison, Tony. The Bluest Eye. New York: Vintage Books. A Division of Random House, Inc., May 2007. PDF file.
Unfortunately, I could not find the page from the website your teacher gave to you. I will send you a template how it should be cited. Maybe you have this page saved at your computer. The works should be cited alphabetically. Besides, you should also note that to avoid plagiarism you should mention which part of the text contains borrowed information and put it-text citation after this part, for example, (Author page).
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Yves. “Slavery Days Is Over: “Tell that white bitch to get her own damn pie!” The World is Robert. 11 Jun. 2011. Web. 29 Nov. 2014. ‹ http://ryfigueroa.blogspot.com/2011/01/slavery-days-is-over-tell-that-white.html /›.
