Research question: how does Toni Morrison represents tensions within the black community in TBE?

• 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, jstor.org/stable/43496824. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

In this article ,the author argues that adolescents are encountering many difficulties on their path to adulthood. He examines how race, gender, and class status affect the young black female. This is relevant to my argument because it discusses how the issues of race that Pecola experiences takes place within the black community starting with her family. It is important because it shows that black communities play a vital role on destroying adolescents’ lives.

• Roye, Susmita. “TONI MORRISON’S DISRUPTED GIRLS AND THEIR DISTURBED GIRLHOODS: ‘The Bluest Eye’ and ‘A Mercy.’” Callaloo, vol. 35, no. 1, 2012, pp. 212–227., www.jstor.org/stable/41412505. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

Susmita argues that TBE concerns itself with the world of black girls like Pecola, Claudia and Freida. This relates to my argument because it discusses how violence and hatred of Breedlove family destroyed Pecola. Also, the article describes that Pecola is disowned by other members of her black community. This is important because it shows that racism exists within the black community and that it affects young girls which leads to self-hatred and deepens the feeling of ugliness.

• Hyman, Ramona L. “PECOLA BREEDLOVE: THE SACRIFICIAL ICONOCLAST IN ‘THE BLUEST EYE.’” CLA Journal, vol. 52, no. 3, 2009, pp. 256–264. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44325476. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

Romana argues how African American children are taught the social and the cultural advantage of whiteness .This is relevant to my argument because it discusses the community that births, nurtures, educates, physically dismantles, rebirths Pecola. This is important because it supports my argument of how tensions represented in Morrison’s novel. And this article is an evidence that black community affects the way Pecola think of whiteness.

• Wallowitz, Laraine. “Chapter 9: Resisting the White Gaze: Critical Literacy and Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye.’” Counterpoints, vol. 326, 2008, pp. 151–164. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42980110. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

Wllowitz argues that it was Morrison’s intent to involve the community in and outside the text in their own interrogation for the “smashing” of Pecola and for contributing “to her collapse”.  It is important for my research because it examines the roots and effects of self-loathing. The author is wondering how the white- controlled media affects the identity formation of adolescent black youth. This is exactly what I am looking for.

• iwari, Neelu. “Decoding the Metaphor of Doll within the Larger Metaphor of White Beauty And Black Ugliness in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENGLISH: LITERATURE, LANGUAGE & SKILLS

The author argues that a class-conflict exists within the African-American community and that its people are doubly marginalized. This is very important because it discussed discrimination within black community, this discrimination was the cause of destroying Pecola’s life. Also, the author discusses how the community rejects the beauty of its own children and encourages them to adopt the idea that beauty means whiteness.

• Mohaisen, Ahmed Ghazi. “Pecola as devastated and secluded character in Toni Morrison’s novel” The Bluest Eye”.” Journal of The Iraqi University 44.1 (2019): 522-529.

Ghazi argues that white beauty standards affect the black community especially black women who seek for beauty to be accepted by their community. This article is important for me because it discusses the absence of solidarity within the black community and how the internalized racial prejudice affects black people all over the world.

After introducing her by the host, Rankine started her meeting by reading a section from “Just Us” called “ethical loneliness” and she defined it. She said that it means “the isolation one feels when one as a violated person or as one member of a persecuted group has been abandoned by humanity or those who have power over one’s life possibilities”. After that, the conversation was open to the general audience for Q&A. One of the questions was if she thought of the audience when she was writing her book. She replied “this question keeps coming out and I think it surprises me a little bit, I feel like every book is for everybody if they’re into it. You don’t know who will find their way into a book. So, I don’t I’m writing for anybody, in particular, I’m writing to the person who is interested in this book and they will only know it if they keep reading past the first five pages. I think because it studies whiteness, people think oh this book is for white people. But that’s not true, the book is about the culture of whiteness which all of us are subject to. In order to look at the culture of whiteness, which everybody including white people is controlled by. I want to talk to some people, but I also talk to black people in the book, I also talk to Asian people, so everybody is there not just white people”. I think her answer was very smart and I agree with her because a book can be read by anyone interested in it. Another question that got stuck on my head was about how Rankine reconcile with white friends, and how she reconciles her personal friendship with their inability to understand racism structurally rather than as a character form. Rankine answered “that she thinks that people are complex and that friendships are complex. She thinks that if you value people in your life no matter who they are, as long as they’re not being disrespectful to you, I think you can have those conversations. I think that the ability to have those conversations is the first indication that the negotiation and management of these issues can happen. If I can have a conversation then I can manage the differences, I’m not trying to make people into me, I’m just trying to be able to have a process with them that allows me to be me and to broaden the knowing of what is between us ”. Her answer is like a lesson to me that I will always remember. It was an honor to attend this event because I learned a lot about Rankine as an author and as a person.

In her book “Citizen the American Lyric” Rankine uses another form of visual art to give the reader a closer look at some situations that she chose to share with her audience. It is called a situation because it represents the plight of disadvantaged people. Those events are related to racism whether because of religion, poverty, or race. In each situation, Rankine becomes one of the victims and speaks out to make the reader feel the pain of those victims. She also uses “he/she” to reflect on everyone’s tough experience.
In “situation 3” the video was about Hurricane Katrina, Aug 29, 2005. In this situation, Rankine was reading her text along with the video that shows black people drowning because of Hurricane Katrina, both the text and the moving images go hand in hand. In the text, she was describing the struggles that blacks were going through and how they were waiting for help from national relief organizations, but no help was provided. At first, when I read the text, I focused on reading the words and try to understand and picture the situation. After I saw the video that was accompanied by the text, I felt like I was one of the victims, crying for help and trying my best to survive. I felt very sad and angry about what happened at that moment because of racial prejudice. I felt angry because black lives were expendable in this situation. Also, hearing the author’s voice along with the video made me feel like I am having a private conversation with one of my friends and I think that is one of Rankine’s goals. It gave the textual content more value and it grabs the reader’s attention. For me Supplementing printed text this way shows that Rankine is aware of the importance of including real stories to convey her point of view about social problems. She is also aware that some words can be forgotten but images cannot. For example, in this situation, she provided the audience with actual statements to reflect on the racism of all its kinds. She showed how blacks felt helpless in a country that is rich but can provide help only to privileged people.
The major themes in this situation are poverty and racial segregation. It shows the situation of the members of a black neighborhood who were “standing where the deep waters of everything backed up, one said, climbing over bodies, one said, stranded on the roof, one said, trapped in the building, and in the difficulty, nobody coming and still someone saying, who could see it coming, the difficulty of that” (Rankine, 83). Waiting and waiting but no one showed up to provide help. Sadly, but not surprisingly, some republican officials were praying for such a catastrophe like this to take place. I still remember when the Republican representative Richard H. Baker said, “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did”. This situation strongly relates to the rest of Rankine’s text. It emphasizes the idea that American citizens are treated differently based on their skin color or social class. Including those situations in her book proves that segregation still exist although slavery had ended a long time ago, not only in the US but all over the world.

    I remember when I was a child, I always loved to read books with pictures, and the reason was very simple because they made me feel happy. But as an adult, looking at images while reading might clarify the content of the text or confuse me more. Many writers choose to use images or videos because they see that it is a great way to invite the audience to read their work. Scientifically it was proven that we humans are more attracted by visual arts. The first image that grabbed my attention is the one on the cover of the book. When I saw this image, I remembered Zora Hurston’s words when she said, “I feel more colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background”. In this image, we see a picture of a black hood and the background is white. Later, we saw those words written in bold black ink because she wants everyone to see and feel the deep meaning of these words. These words destroyed and still destroying the lives of blacks. I think that Rankine was inspired by Zora when she chose the image of the cover of her book. The combination of black and white in the image strongly illustrates the title of the book. Since the hood is in black and also a symbol related to African Americans, I think that Rankine wants to tell whites that “hey, yes we are blacks and we are American citizens as you” have the same rights and obligations. In other words, a citizen is an “American lyric” not a “white lyric”. The same picture might be interpreted conversely by others. Some might think that Rankine used this picture to scare whites since the hood is a symbol of protest.

The second image that I would like to talk about is the one that represents a beautiful peaceful suburban neighborhood that has a sign of Jim Crowe road. We see how the neighborhood is clean, with well-cut grass, and big white houses for white residents. Jim Crowe represents an era when African Americans were executed, and segregation laws were released. This picture illustrates the situation when the character felt invisible by her teacher. The teacher did not care that Mary Catherine was copying her answers and she was wondering what would happen if she was copying Mary Catherine. This picture is the first one in her book, I think there are two reasons for that. The first reason is that she wants to hook the reader’s attention. The second one is to give the reader a hint about the theme of her book. She wants to convey to the audience that racism still exists although slavery had ended a long time ago. This relates to the situation because the character claimed that she was invisible and having this sign of Jim Crowe sign in the neighborhood is like telling blacks that they are invisible and we do not care what you would think of this sign. It is a message to blacks that segregation still exists and we deserve the best (which is the beautiful neighborhood in the picture). Some readers might not even pay attention to that sign and will focus on the beauty of the neighborhood.

Rankine is aware of the importance of the use of images to tell more about different social problems that words cannot tell. Human beings are more likely to remember pictures and videos more than words, especially those days because of technology. Rankine knows that the use of this kind of visual art complements the textual content and hooks the reader’s attention.

How does Toni Morrison represents tensions within the black community in TBE?

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 15 Nov. 2020.

Roye, Susmita. “TONI MORRISON’S DISRUPTED GIRLS AND THEIR DISTURBED GIRLHOODS: ‘The Bluest Eye’ and ‘A Mercy.’” Callaloo, vol. 35, no. 1, 2012, pp. 212–227., www.jstor.org/stable/41412505. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

Hyman, Ramona L. “PECOLA BREEDLOVE: THE SACRIFICIAL ICONOCLAST IN ‘THE BLUEST EYE.’” CLA Journal, vol. 52, no. 3, 2009, pp. 256–264. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44325476. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

Wallowitz, Laraine. “Chapter 9: Resisting the White Gaze: Critical Literacy and Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye.’” Counterpoints, vol. 326, 2008, pp. 151–164. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42980110. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

iwari, Neelu. “Decoding the Metaphor of Doll within the Larger Metaphor of White Beauty And Black Ugliness in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENGLISH: LITERATURE, LANGUAGE & SKILLS

Mohaisen, Ahmed Ghazi. “Pecola as devastated and secluded character in Toni Morrison’s novel” The Bluest Eye”.” Journal of The Iraqi University 44.1 (2019): 522-529.

First, I would like to thank the librarian because she provided us with very interesting information on how to use Hunter Library to find articles for our research. For the research process, I first logged into Hunter College libraries using my CUNY account. Next, I typed the whole question of my research project in the ONESEARCH  engine but there was no results. Then, I clicked on Advanced Search and Typed The Bluest Eye AND Black Community and i got a lot of results that were not relevant to my question. Last, I went back to Advanced Search and typed The Bluest Eye AND Black Community AND Tensions then many relevant articles were found. I mostly relied on JSTOR to find my articles. I also used Google Scholar.