525 www.thecreativelaucher.com Vol. II & Issue VI (February – 2018) ISSN -2455 -6580 The Creative Launcher An International, Open Access, Peer… [609802]

525 www.thecreativelaucher.com Vol. II & Issue VI (February – 2018) ISSN -2455 -6580
The Creative Launcher
An International, Open Access, Peer Reviewed, Refereed, E – Journal in English
UGC Approved

Colour as Identity: Colorism in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

Seema Bashir
Research Scholar
Department of English
University of Kashmir ,
Hazratbal, Srinagar , India

Abstract
While Racism traces its roots back to the subjugation of the non -white communities by white
‘masters’, Colorism emerges as an offsho ot of Racism. Colorism, or the discrimination amongst
individuals, solely on the basis of skin colour is practiced not only by the members of a different race,
but also by the members of the same race towards each other. Toni Morrison, in her novel, The
Bluest Eye, reveals how colorism is embedded in the psyche of African -American peop le. She
demonstrates how “ Black People ” are not also subjected to Racism, but also Colorism by their own
people. Morrison portrays a nuanced version of Racism, where the characters have internalized the set
notions of Superiority and inferiority viz a viz race. This internalization creates a cycle of
victimization and oppression which in turn strengthens the dominant cultures’ oppressive standard of
beauty. Though Colorism stems from Racism, it acquires a life of its own. This paper seeks to show
how Morrison’s novel, besides addressing the issue of raci sm, also tackles the issue of Colorism in the
novel and shows the twin forces of racism and colorism are used by and against the members of the
same community.

Keywords – Colorism, Colour, Discrimination, Race, Identity, African -American

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Introduction
The person who is most often credited with first using the word colorism is the Author and
Activist Alice Walker. Walker defined Colorism as ‘prejudicial or preferential treatment of same -race
people based solely on their colour ’ in her 1983 book, In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens. Colorism
in not only a characteristic feature of the African American communities, but is also found in other
non-white cultures such as Asian, Hispanic or Middle Eastern. The Root of Colorism is not only
Racism, bu t the internalization of the racist ideas. Rather than accepting the skin colo ur they are born
in, they spend their lives in idealizing a white standard and subsequently trying to come near to that
standard. As a result, the non -white communities spend the ir entire lives trying to correct the non –
standard. The mixed races or the colored people take pride in their white lineage and try to repress the
black side of their persona. Straightening of hair and strategic makeup are thus seen as corrective
measures adopted by them in order to differentiate themselves from the Black people. A major
contributing factor to colorism in America has also been the Hollywood. Movie stars, who often
became role models for the people were white and thus they eternalize the notions of white beauty.
The lack of any black female or male leads failed to provide an icon with whom the young black folk
could relate to. As a result, the Hollywood stars they saw on the screen were always an antithesis to
who they were, in their own lives. One of the key concerns of the novel is the concept of beauty. The
African -American Society in America has, over the years of exploitation , come to accept the
European Standards of beauty and thus they hold an apologetic view about themselves. Appropriation
to the white ideals is desired. The closer a person comes to the white standard, the more beautiful that
person is deemed in the eyes of the society. Young Children like Claudia and Frieda are brainwashed
into thinking that white is beautiful from their early childhood. They are given white porcelain dolls
as birthday gifts. Their mothers, who have themselves grown up with the idea of whit e superiority
perpetuate the same over their daughters. Black women not only adore young white girls but also
inculcate among their daughters a fascination border lining on love for whiteness. A young black
girl’s love of Shirley Temple, a white icon, as A nne Anlin Cheng argues, can be ‘read not merely or
primarily as a gesture of social compliance but rather a response to the call of the mother, as a
perverse form of maternal connection’ Black girls can only be like their mothers ‘by learning to love
little white girls’ (Cheng 200).
The most brutal form of Colorism in the novel is shown t hrough the character of Pecola
Breedlove , a young black girl in Lorain Ohio, in the 1940’s who, after being shunned by the members
of her community, believes that the society as well as her family would come to love her only if she
loses her some of her ‘blackness’ or consequen tly, have deep ocean blue eyes. Pecola is a part of a
dysfunctional family where love and acceptance find no place. Her family consists of an Alcoholic

527 www.thecreativelaucher.com Vol. II & Issue VI (February – 2018) ISSN -2455 -6580
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father, an embittered mother and an indifferent brother. Pecola is bullied at the school for being black
by young boys who themselves belong to the same race as her. They see as blackness as ugly while
being complacent in the thou ght that they are no t as ‘black’ as her or even as contempt for their own
skin Color :
It was their contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its teeth. They
seemed to have taken all of their smoothly cultivated ignorance, their exquisitel y
learned self -hatred, their elaborately designed hopelessness and sucked it all up into a
fiery cone of scorn that had burned for ages in the hollows of their minds —cooled —
and spilled over lips of outrage, con suming whatever was in its path (Morrison 65)
Pecola’s mother disapproves of her own daughter. She hasn’t the tiniest bit of affection
towards the child that she gave birth to. She shuns the child whom she is supposed to love, only
because that child isn’t beautiful by her ideals. She has spent her w hole life obsessing over film stars
and failing to achieve what she so earnestly wanted, she looks at her daughter as a symbol of failed
expectations and desires. Marriage to Cholly and bearing children made her bitter and unable to love
her own children. Pecola represents, to her, the unachievable dream of desired beauty . Having
idealized actresses like Jean Harlow her entire life, Pecola is the anti -thesis of that standard. She
recoils at the sight of her own daughter and prefers to soothe the daughter of her white mistress over
Pecola when there is a commotio n at the house where she works . She is never symp athetic toward her
daughter , she almost loathes very presence :
I used to like to watch her. You know they makes them greedy sounds. Eyes all soft
and wet. A cross between a puppy and a dying man. But I knowed she was ugly.
Head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly (Morrison 126)
Maureen Peal, a lighter skinned girl is fed with a sense of superiority right from her
childhood. Though she is not whit e, she thinks of herself as being superior to other girls in the school
on the account of being closer to the white standard. The farther a girl is from the Black colour , the
more beautiful she is. This notion is not only harboured by Maureen Peal, but als o by the other girls in
the school, who by default, accept Maureen’s superior posit ion and willingly submit to it .
She enchanted the entire school. When teachers called on her, they smiled
encouragingly. Black boys didn’t trip her in the halls; white boys didn’t stone her,
white girls didn’t suck their teeth when she was assigned to be their work partners;
black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sink in the girls’ toilet, and their
eyes genuflected under sliding lids (Morrison 62)
Geraldine, a colored woman is the prime example of Cultural appropriation. She tries to
suppress the black part of her personality and makes desperate attempts at making herself and her son

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look less black. She explains to him the difference between the colored people and the “niggers’ and
how he must stay away from “niggers’ She gets her son’s hair trimmed close to the scalp so that the
rough texture of his curls is less evident. Sh e rubs lotion into his skin to make it look less ashy.
Geraldine’s attempts arise from a need to feel important and worthy in a society where colour is a
pivotal part of self worth. Their loathing of the black community seeks to bring them closer to the
white community and steer them away from the black community. Colored Women like Geraldine
strive, their whole lives, to su ppress the ‘funk’. They straighten their h air, wash themselves with soap,
soften their skin with Lotion, try to hide their ‘black’ features by not applyin g lipstick to their entire
lips, for the fear that they might seem to o big and Black. “Wherever it erupts, this Funk, they wipe it
away; where it crusts, they dissolve it; wherever it drips, flowers, or clings, they find it and fight it
until it dies. They fight this battle all the way to the grave ” (Morrison 82)
Morrison’s novel provides a deep insight into the idealized notions of beauty, where White is
the standard which becomes a measuring scale for beauty. Both Black and Mixed Race women have
internalized these set notions and everything they view is coloured by this sc ale.
Though these notions of beauty stem from racism, where the dichotomy between the white
master and the black serva nt gave rise to the concept of the White as beautiful and Black as Ugly,
they acquire a new dimension while operating in a single Race or community. Colour itself becomes a
major factor in discrimination and it is eviden t in the treatment of Pecola by her own mother. Because
of deeply entrenched racism, that dark skin is a synonym for ugliness and white skin is a coveted trait.
While Colore d women like Geraldine take pride in differentiating themselves from the Niggers and
make every a ttempt at suppressing the ‘funk’ , the African -American community instead of embracing
the race they are born in, are engaged in a continual process of distancing themselves from
‘blackness’ As a result, Pecola, a dark skinned girl is abused throughout her life, her mother prefers
her white skinned mistress over her own daughter, white skinned Shirley temple is idealized and
lighter skinned Maureen Peal i s considered to be more beautiful than the other girls in her school.
Morrison shows the inhumane side of an exploited race. Morrison shows the basest and the crudest
form of rejection and self hatred in the novel. She gives a painful portrayal of a young innocent girl
who is hated and despised for something she had no control over. In the words of Morrison herself,
while writing the novel, she wasn’t interested in ‘resistance to the contempt of others’ but ‘the tragic
consequences of accepting rejection as legitimate’. Pecola collapses into madness and accepts her
doom as her inevitable fate. As a vulnerable young female, she is crushed under the p ressure of all
those around her ; her indifferent parents, the disapproving society, the contemptuous young boys , the
haughty colored women. It is interesting to note that Morrison doesn’t project white people as demons
who victimize the black community. Instead she shows, how, after having internalized the white

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ideals, they victimize their own selves. Also, the ch aracters who are responsible for Pecola’s
predicament are themselves caught in the web of same racial profiling. Her mother Pauline, after
having lost her tooth is despised by other black women, she is treated like an animal by the white
doctors at the hos pital when she is pregnant with Pecola . She is made to feel wanting in beauty and
she projects that frustration into despise for her little girl. Pecola’s father is subjected to humiliation as
a young man and he carries that bitterness to his fatherhood. T he young black girls in the Society
make Pecola a scapegoat for their own beauty standards, as they think of themselves as beautiful
when compared to her. The only form of near acceptance that Pecola receives in her life is at the
hands of Claudia and Frei da, but this acceptance is also short -lived as she is stripped of any possible
affection after her own father violently rapes her. Morrison draws a painful picture of the devastation
that racial contempt causes and offers a striking critique of colorism an d how it works as a double
edged sword, destroying the lives of young vulnerable black girls in America, who remain subjugated
as ever. These girls are not only victimized racially, but also sexually. The doubly marginali zed
women, on the basis of both race and color as well as gender form the lowest rung of the society.
Gloria Gyles notes how these subjugated women form the lowest tier of the society, characterized by
powerlessness :
There are three major circles of reality in American Society, which re flect degrees of
power and powerlessness. There is a large circle in which white people, most of the
men, experience, influence and power. Far away from it there is a small circle, a
narrow space, in which there are the black people, regardless of sex, exp erience,
uncertainty, exploitation and powerlessness. Hidden in this second circle is a third, a
small dark enclosure in which black women experience pa in, illation and
vulnerability. These are the distinguishing marks of black womanhood in white
America.

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Works Cited
Walker, Alice. In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens . Mariner Boo ks; Reprint edition. 2004
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye . Vintage Books, New York, 2007
Morrison, Toni. Preface to The Bluest Eye . Vintage Books, New York, 2007
Cheng, Anne Anlin “Wounded Beauty: An Exploratory Essay on Race, Feminism, and the Aesthetic
Question”, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature , Vol. 19, No. 2, 2000 pp. 191 -217.
Gyles, Gloria Wade. 1984. No. Crystal Stair: Visions of Race and Sex in Black Women Fiction.
Pilgrim Press, New York, 1984.