Bump, Jerome. “Racism and Appearance in The Bluest Eye: A Template for an Ethical Emotive Criticism.” College Literature, vol. 37, no. 2, 2010, pp. 147–170. JSTOR,www.jstor.org/stable/20749587. Accessed 11 Nov. 2020.

• Jerome Bump explores the emotive qualities the come with understanding racism. By explaining the emotions that come with racism these emotions become more accessible which explain the beauty standards experienced by all black girls in the novel. This article specifically looks at the fears that come with judging people based on their appearance in The Bluest Eye and uses Morrison’s literature to help more people identify with racism by starting the battle in the classroom. In my paper I will use this article as a basis to understand racism and to provide a look into why different sections of the black community and society at large view their beauty differently.

Long, Lisa A. “A New Midwesternism in Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye.’” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 59, no. 1, 2013, pp. 104–125. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24247112.Accessed 11 Nov. 2020.

• Lisa Long discusses the white/light skinned perspective in the Bluest Eye by comparing it to other Midwestern books in its cannon. This will be helpful to define the different standards of beauty white people face and the irony that every standard of beauty has a different standard it looks up to making beauty itself unachievable. This article proves that although members in the black community judge each other based on their class and skin tone they are judged more broadly by the white community as a whole and then the subtleties in their skin color doesn’t make much of a difference.

Mahaffey, Paul Douglas. “The Adolescent Complexities of Race, Gender, and Class in Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye.’” Race, Gender & Class, vol. 11, no. 4, 2004, pp. 155–165. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43496824. Accessed 11 Nov. 2020.

• This article solidifies the different beauty standards experienced by different tones of blackness. It also further extrapolates how class relates to beauty with an in depth discussion of Maureen Peal, a light skinned wealthy black girl who thought she was better than Claudia and Pecola calling them black and ugly. This proves the racial hierarchy within the black community where black girls treat other black girls with disrespect because they have a shade lighter skin tone and more money thus conforming to white beauty standards that leave them out from the start.

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye; a Novel. [1st ed.]. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.Print.

• The chapters on Maureen interacting with Claudia and Pecola explain the differences between beauty with different shades of blackness. Using quotes from the novel will solidify the theory that many of the other journalist have wrote about. In addition, movie scenes described by Morrison show societal beauty standards and that even though there is nuance in the eyes of light skinned black girls white society as a whole thinks all black people are black and ugly.

Walther, Malin LaVon. “Out of Sight: Toni Morrison’s Revision of Beauty.” Black American Literature Forum, vol. 24, no. 4, 1990, pp. 775–789. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3041802.Accessed 11 Nov. 2020.

• Malin LaVon Walther discusses beauty standards experienced by all kinds of black people especially women which is helpful as a base for the validity of beauty standards in society. Walther argues that by rejecting white consumer beauty Morrison idealizes the reality of beauty in relation to racial identity and releases Pecola from invisibility. The work Pecola must do to remove herself from white beauty standards strips away every piece of her individuality which proves that black women don’t feel like they can be themselves and be beautiful in a white society.

Zebialowicz, Anna, and Marek Palasinski. “Probing Racial Dilemmas in ‘the Bluest Eye’ with the Spyglass of Psychology.” Journal of African American Studies, vol. 14, no. 2, 2010, pp. 220–233. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41819247. Accessed 11 Nov. 2020.

• Anna Zebialowicz uses psychology to explain the behavior of women in relation to their sex, race and class in The Bluest Eye. Psychology is used as a method of validating the thoughts emotions and behaviors of the characters in Morrison’s novel by comparing their issues to modern issues of race in society. Zebialowicz, argues that this approach will help explore the hybridization of race gender and class in the black community which will help explain how beauty standards affects each facet of the black women in the novel.

When researching this subject, I found many articles related to societal beauty standards in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. I choose to focus on first establishing the validity of beauty standards in the black community and normalizing their change when viewed by difference tones of blackness. I then related this concept to the black community as a whole rather than facets of it to explain how white society imposes beauty standards on all black people even if light skinned, rich black people like Maureen Peal see themselves as superior. By establishing both of these facts I am able to focus on the nuances of societal beauty standards imposed on different shades of blackness while incorporating socioeconomic status to achieve a fuller picture of the psychological experience of the characters in The Bluest Eye.

The first situation Rankine discusses in Section VI of Citizen is the situation of Hurricane Katrina explained with various quotes from CNN. This is called a situation because it is a historical event no one was sure how to deal with at the time. The media and the people on the ground we’re scrambling for a response which made Hurricane Katrina a situation without a solution. The text emphasizes this unknown feeling and situates the reader to view Katrina from the perspective of uncertainty. The major theme of the situation is the helplessness black people feel when subjected to the whims of white society. Black people are at the mercy of the whites’ willingness to help them and are shown that they won’t get the help they deserve. This is reminiscent of the scene in Section I where a black woman is meeting her trauma therapist in person for the first time. When the woman walks down the path and rings the bell she is yelled at immediately in a way that solidified her unworthiness in the eyes of the white therapist. She is not given a moment to add her voice to the narrative which is what the world did when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana in 2005. The world immediately looked at the weather report they didn’t look to the people who were actually being impacted.  The world didn’t see the trauma they were causing by not helping just as the trauma therapist didn’t see the trauma she caused to the black woman by making her feel like a wounded dog. When the therapist finally apologizes it is too late just as when help finally arrives to those victimized by Katrina it is too late because people will go home to their “own dead child.” (Rankine,84). There is a clear feeling of hopelessness on the part of black people living in a white society that Rankine establishes over and over again in her narrative. 

Additionally, Rankine includes the quotes “Where were they? Where was anyone? This is a goddamn emergency.” (Rankine,83) to represent the fear and frustration everyone was feeling at that time. CNN began explaining this frustration as the result of “the classic binary between the rich and the poor, between the haves and the have nots, between the whites and the blacks.” (Rankine,83). This reminds the audience that the reason why there was a disparity in the response and the reason why no one comes to help is because they were coming to help black people. The emergency response agencies like FEMA said it was “unsafe to be there” (Rankine, 84) when in reality “they all want to stay in Texas”. (Rankine,84). The white privileged world forgot their responsibility to the underprivileged black people drowning in difficulty. The film alongside Rankine’s text shows the people drowning in harsh black and white imaging. One can see people on makeshift boats struggling to stay afloat and being forced to leave people behind as their homes crumbled behind them, all without an emergency vehicle in sight. These devastating images are the background of the meteorologist storm report which circles the screen. It is a path of destruction and Rankine and John Lucas allow us to see the destruction is caused. Rankine’s audio over the video states “I don’t know what the water wanted. It wanted to show you that no one would come. “(Rankine,85). The water in the form of the Hurricane proved to the poor black people living in Louisiana and around the world that no one will come in their moment of need. They will be left with only the eerie sounds of the wind blowing calling out to people who aren’t even listening. Watching the visual representation of the effects of Katrina put a huge damper on the progress of the world. America as a country has promised equality and freedom for all but when it comes down to a white man risking his life for a black man they decide to “stay in Texas.” (Rankine, 84). However, Rankine knew how to capture the attention of an audience. By integrating different forms of media into her text she is proving herself as a writer of the 21st century. She knows that many people consume information through visual media therefore to effectively communicate her ideas she makes them accessible through visual and auditory platforms. She knows the advantage she has and the wealth of knowledge at her disposal and uses that to reach the broadest audience possible and try to uplift the black community and squash despair to bring about a solution to the situation. 

Claudia Rankine gave this lecture from her home and the first this I noticed was how beautifully decorated it was. I specifically noticed the painting on her wall which showed me how artists appreciate artists. She began with an excerpt from her book Just Us detailing when she went to a play written by a black woman with her white friend. At the end of the play, the playwright asked white audience members to come to the stage and Rankine’s white friend didn’t get up on the stage. The white man behind Rankine got on the stage but said this is fucked up. She then went through an inner dialogue trying to understand why her friend didn’t go onto the stage. She created so many reasons in her head as to why her friend didn’t go on stage and why she was so preoccupied with it. Afterward, she asked her friend and she replied I didn’t want to which wasn’t enough of an answer for Rankine. When Rankine wrote this essay she gave it to her friend and she was given a chance to respond. The white friend said that she didn’t wasn’t to feel shamed and chastised for being white. Rankine took that response essay and wrote an opening poem to her book. In that poem, she tries to reconcile the outer and inner monologues within herself. This whole excerpt was very interesting to me because most authors want their opinions to be the only ones represented in their work however Rankine wanted to include other people’s narratives into her book because she is interested in sparking a conversation. After she read part of Just Us she took questions from the Hunter Graduate students. The most impactful one was about how she maintains friendships with people who have vastly different opinions from her. Her answer was very powerful because she said that you need to value people in your life and as long as no one is being disrespectful you can have conversations. This is advice I think we as a society need to follow to listen to each other and respect each other’s opinions. I was very grateful to hear Rankine talk about her books and her message because it contextualizes the issues we are reading about in Citizen and gives a bigger picture of what we as a society should be striving towards. 

Bump, Jerome. “Racism and Appearance in The Bluest Eye: A Template for an Ethical Emotive Criticism.” College Literature, vol. 37, no. 2, 2010, pp. 147–170. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20749587. Accessed 11 Nov. 2020.

Long, Lisa A. “A New Midwesternism in Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye.’” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 59, no. 1, 2013, pp. 104–125. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24247112.Accessed 11 Nov. 2020.

Mahaffey, Paul Douglas. “The Adolescent Complexities of Race, Gender, and Class in Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye.’” Race, Gender & Class, vol. 11, no. 4, 2004, pp. 155–165. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43496824. Accessed 11 Nov. 2020.

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye; a Novel. [1st ed.]. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970. Print.

Walther, Malin LaVon. “Out of Sight: Toni Morrison’s Revision of Beauty.” Black American Literature Forum, vol. 24, no. 4, 1990, pp. 775–789. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3041802.Accessed 11 Nov. 2020.

Zebialowicz, Anna, and Marek Palasinski. “Probing Racial Dilemmas in ‘the Bluest Eye’ with the Spyglass of Psychology.” Journal of African American Studies, vol. 14, no. 2, 2010, pp. 220–223. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41819247. Accessed 11 Nov. 2020.

For my research, I relied primarily on the JSTOR database that I accessed through the Hunter College Library because I found it had the most diverse information available When searching on Project Muse, Gale Literature, and others I found significantly fewer resources, most of which. I had already encountered on JSTOR. I began by searching “Bluest Eye” AND Beauty to narrow my search by the term beauty and access general articles about beauty in the novel. I then added Class to my search term to access articles that related beauty with money. I also found articles about whiteness and beauty which explain societal beauty standards in a broad way to validate the concept. I then narrowed my search further to include Maureen Peal who is the example in The Bluest Eye of a light-skinned, rich, black girl who experienced differences in the beauty standards imposed on her versus Claudia, Pecola, and Pauline. Finally, I used the novel itself as a source to give in text citations of the emotions experienced by the women in this novel to give me a stepping ground to begin analyzing.

How do societal beauty standards in relation to race and socioeconomic class in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye affect the outlook of the main characters?