Growing up I learned to find the negatives with my appearance before I could find a positive. Not because there was not a positive to find but because I was allowing my mind to be oppressed like the minds of those before me. Though in some ways I have grown out of it in my quest for truth and se
lf love, some of my views are still tarnished because the answer to the question; what is true beauty for women of color has been lost, lost through generations of misguided views.
The protagonist of Morrison’s novel Peacola Breedlove a young black girl living in the 1940’s idealizes whiteness. It is her standard of beauty to have blue eyes. She believes that this beauty brings peace. The first time I read this book I decided to do research on the time setting. I came to find that many of the advertisements for beauty products in this time period were pale white women with blue eyes and blonde hair. Much like many of the advertisements that we find today, so it isn’t hard to see why people would believe one color was better than the other. If they were equal they would have both received the same publicity.
Through my research I also came to find that American’s were not the only ones that had this standard of beauty during this period of time. The Aryans also known as Nazi’s had the same ideal, blonde hair and blue eyes were superior they believed that this was the true standard of beauty and anyone that was different did not merit the same treatment as the superior race. While the Nazi’s used violence to have a society that was beautiful by their standards the American people used the media and continue to do so today. It is these internalized white beauty standards that have deformed the lives of black girls and women, the implicit message that white is superior then and is still prevalent now.
The character that influenced me the most was Claudia, one of the narrators in the novel. Through her telling of the story one can surmise that she knows something was wrong with this ideal. She didn’t like the dolls she received for Christmas as they didn’t look like her, they were white. “From the chuckling sounds of adults I knew that the doll represented what they thought was my fondest wish…. What was I supposed to do with it? Pretend I was its mother?”(pg 20). She had no desire to love this doll, she did what I often did with my dolls take them apart. I used to think I was just a tomboy but after reading the novel I began to wonder if I had been doing the same thin
g Claudia was doing. Trying to find out “…of what it was made to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me,”( pg 20). “Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window sign - all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured. 'Here,' they said, 'this is beautiful, and if you are on this day "worthy" you may have it'" (pg 20-21).
This is not where her curiosity of white superiority stops; she also had a disliking for Shirley Temple. Peacola and her sister loved Shirley Temple and thought that she was “cute” she “couldn’t join them in their adoration because” she “hated Shirley” (pg 19). She goes into something deeper in the next few lines, explaining that she didn’t hate Shirley because she was cute but rather because she dance with Bojangles, a pioneer and pre-eminent African American tap dancer/performer; “who was my friend, my uncle, my daddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing it and chuckling with me” (pg 19 I). understood her so well, and questioned how she was the youngest yet possessed more knowledge of truth, beauty and self love than all the others. It saddened me when she too conformed because it reminds me of my own experience. “I learned much later to worship her…even as I learned that the change was adjustment without improvement” (pg 23). 
I believe that Morrison wrote this line offering the reader some hope that because Claudia knows her new belief is not fully right one day she’ll seek her own truth again.
My own Claudia experience began at the age of six. My mother decided it would be best to relax my hair, she had her hair relaxed my older siblings had their hair relaxed, every black person I knew personally or on TV had their hair straightened. I was told that it would be easier to maintain because my natural God given texture was too ‘nappy’ to uphold, and that I would love my new long ‘pretty’ hair. I cried that day while getting my hair relaxed because I would no longer be able to put my hair in puffed out pony tails, I wouldn’t be able to wet my hair in the shower or run in the rain. I couldn’t run and play with my friends for fear of sweating out the perm. These were the rules I had to follow with my new hair. Yet I couldn’t understand why if this was so easy did I have to give up the things that made me happy, who said it was easy and who did they deem it easy for? Those questions soon disappeared. Having my hair relaxed became the norm. I even forgot what my natural hair texture was. Soon the relaxed hair wasn’t enough for me. While playing house I would often place a towel over my head to exaggerate the length of my hair. Why? Because all the older women I knew had long hair and that meant that longer hair came with age, it is what made one woman. I was excited to get my first extensions I would be beautiful now, I could swing ‘my’ long hair around and let it blow freely in the wind. It got to the point where I would not allow anyone to see me without my extensions in, because I didn’t see myself as beautiful without them, even if you told me otherwise I would not believe you, my true beauty lied in having the long hair.
Peacola had a similar issue, she didn’t see herself as beautiful without her blue eyes, and without her blue eyes her life would never be perfect. "Long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike"(pg. 45).
In the beginning of the novel, Morrison begins with the story of Dick and Jane, the idealized middle class white family. Though we are never told that the family is white, it is what we assume. This is the life that Peacola wanted, the perfect family. Morrison is repetitive in the narrations of Dick and Jane, first writing it without errors then progressing to a block of what looks like scrambled letters, just hectic, it correlates with the ending of the book paralleling how hectic Peacola’s life has become due to her distorted views. I suppose that Morrison wanted the reader to see that there is no perfect family, there is no perfect life. Although we cannot see it this way because of the impact of the social constructions of truth, beauty and self love that has been placed on us not only by others but by ourselves.
Despite the fact that I have never wanted
blue eyes, I can admit that after reading this book I could now catch myself wondering how life would be different if not better if I were a another race. My parents are immigrants, neither having the equivalent of a high school diploma. But what if we were white and living in America was our right, would life be better or different? As I would find myself doing this I would evaluate the mentality behind these views, many of them were based without merit. Others were based on what I had been taught; life was not easy for me because I was black. Not only black but dark black with kinky hair, full-size lips, a proud nose, high cheekbones, and born the child of Haitian immigrants, the worse kind of black.
Most women of color have been taught in some way that lighter skin, lighter hair and lighter eyes are better. Just as the girls in the novel believe that Maureen Peale the new girl at school is beautiful despite her protruding canine teeth, she is beautiful because of her fair skin, light eyes, long hair and clean clothes. She is accepted by both black and white kids. Her quick friendship to Peacola almost makes Peacola’s life seem perfect. Until she brings her back to reality with her harsh words, "'I am cute! And you ugly! Black and ugly black e mos. I am cute!'" (pg. 73) It is what we see on TV, what we see in our daily lives, how can we not see it as truth? Many of the black prominent figures that we see on the television have altered their appearance to conform yet younger girls aspire to be what they see, the superficial. As a communications major I can not count the number of times that I have heard about the way cameras pick up color, it’s as if they are subliminally stating that it is better to avoid putting dark things upfront because it is harder to light and less pleasing to the eye. Which now that I pay attention to the people on TV, I begin to realize that even though it’s not 1940 anymore they still do not look like me. The media distorts every concept of race and natural beauty; the truth that they should portray is that there is beauty in each race, white though beautiful in its own right is NOT the ideal. If we continue down this path we will commit a non-violent genocide of race. We’re moving towards all looking the same, rather than loving our differences.
Peacola’s desire for blue eyes, while exceedingly out of reach, is based on one correct imminent theme in her world. Everything negative she’s experienced is connected to the way she is seen by others. If she had beautiful blue eyes, she sees in your mind's eye, people wouldn’t treat her the way she is treated, and her parents wouldn’t argue in front of her, she would be loved. She would have the perfect Dick and Jane lifestyle. The exactness of this insight is confirmed by her experience of being teased by the boys Frieda and Claudia come to her defense but it isn’t until Maureen comes to the rescue that the boys actually cease their teasing. “Maureen appeared…and the boys seemed reluctant to continue under her springtime eyes so wide with interest. They buckled in confusion, not willing to beat up three girls under her watchful gaze” (pg. 66-67). 
It is also true that she is mistreated because she happens to have black skin, there is merit behind that analysis she wants to see things differently just as much as she wants to be seen differently. She is on a journey to find her truth just as Claudia was on a quest for her truth in the 
beginning. The difference is that Claudia’s quest was to find out why no one believed black is beautiful while Peacola’s mission is to find what is beautiful if black is not. Both girls find their truth, love and beauty; however Peacola’s truth destroys her. Her delusion causes her madness and results in her alienation from other black girls; she no longer has the ability to see herself and the world around her accurately. On page 190 of the novel Claudia states:
"I thought about the baby that everyone wanted dead, and saw it very clearly. It was in a dark, wet place, its head covered with O's of wool, the black face holding, like nickels, two clean black eyes, the flared nose, kissing-thick lips, and the living, breathing silk of black skin. No synthetic yellow bangs suspended over marble-blue eyes, no pinched nose and bowline mouth. More strongly than my fondness for Peacola, I felt a need for someone to want the black baby to live - just to counteract the universal love of white baby dolls, Shirley Temples, and Maureen Peals."
We are all on a quest for truth, beauty and love I am no longer that six year old girl that could not see the beauty in relaxed hair which hindered my freedom. Yet I am no longer that girl that hides behind long hair. The transition to loving myself for the same features I had been taught made me less than, different even has been a slow process. While finding truth and letting my hair return to its natural state of beauty at times I still hid behind the insecurities that I’d been taught. Now, fully natural I wear my crown of wool proudly rejoicing in the beauty that my ancestors lost sight of.
Works Cited Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. Haskins, James; Mitgang, N. R, Mr. Bojangles: the biography of Bill Robinson (New York: William Morrow, 1988)
This isn't my final draft; that was saved on another PC so there might be a couple errors!
1 comment:
i havent seen that one pic...with u in the brown. hotsie !
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