claim the ban is a protest against common core, the new system schools are adapting to standardized education in the US. regardless of the reason, i decided to read "the bluest eye" and see for myself.
and yes, there is rape and incest in the book. there is also sex. but if that is all one takes from the novel, then s/he completely missed the message and point of "the bluest eye". in fact, by focusing only upon the rape and incest of pecola, s/he commits the same transgression that all the characters of "the bluest eye" are guilty of, making pecola a scapegoat by projecting their insecurities and self-hate upon her.
there was the physical act of pecola being raped by her father in the novel but to label it pornographic as school districts do (which i think says a lot more about administrations then students if they are aroused by it) is wrong. the rape, and i am by no means justifying pecola's father's actions, was not one of lust but rather an extreme example of how individuals disenfranchised based on race often abuse their own race to feel empowered. pecola's father, cholly, was "raped" by white men as a young man. during his first time having sex, cholly and his partner were discovered by two men who had him finish while they watched. his raping of pecola was revenge for what those men did to him versus wanting to be with his daughter. again, i am not trying to pardon on cholly, just giving the context for which the incestual rape occurred. i want to illustrated that if the rape is contextualized for students, which it should be since it is a school lesson, then students would not see it as pornography. furthermore, it is allows a honest discussion about sex for young adults, sex is not just an act of love or lust, it can also be abused as an exertion of control and power. and to not go completely off based but high school kids are at the age of having sex, so reading this should not come as a complete shock to them. they also see worse in movies or hear worse in hip hop and pop songs. as i mentioned in my persepolis post, the topic of sex for education purposes should be find, the real issue is the topic of sex as entertainment, that is what the senator should be concerned with.
back to the novel, the bluest eye was a truly sad story. i felt bad for pecola because all she wanted was to be love and yet the world just caused her suffering. but as toni morrison wrote in the afterward, she did not want to "lead readers into the comfort of pitying her [but] rather than into an interrogation of themselves for the smashing." as readers, of course we will sympathize with pecola, but morrison wanted us to stop being the forces that destroyed pecola. as i mentioned before, pecola, being poor, black, and a female, inferior in terms of class, race and sex, she was labelled "ugly" and became a scapegoat for the characters. instead of dealing with their own insecurities, the characters projected everything they hated about themselves upon this little girl. but where does this self hate come from? in the afterward, morrison explained that this was the reason for her writing the bluest eye.
its difficult because it is so ingrained into american culture but the standard of beauty is based on whiteness. to be white is to be beautiful. i would considered myself an intelligent and self confident woman, proud of my ethnicity but i still am ruled by this standard of white beauty because it was installed before i was so self-aware. growing up i played with white barbies and white dolls, i watched white characters on tv and read about what characters in books, as a kid you don't really thing much of it but subconciously it has its effects. i mean those we know me, know i hate getting too dark of a tan, it happens to me every summer, and goes away every winter, but i still try to prevent myself from becoming too dark. i know its silly but am ruled by this need to stay light.
i think the best example of this subconscious need to be white is that as a person of mixed race often forget that i am not white. for example, when i am out with my friends, i am always extremely critical of asian hipsters, especially foodie asian hipsters, and guess what . . . if you asked the average person to described me, s/he would say a foodie asian hipsters. i mean my friends would too but never to my face. (hipster in my opinion is a misnomer.) where does this hate for foodie asian hipsters come from? i think it had to do with my thinking i am a unique individual and then having to be confronted with the fact that i actually am a stereotype, i do fit into the box that society wants to label me. but i do take pictures of what i eat, and shop at urban outfitters and hold up peace signs in pictures. it horrible to realize that you are stereotypical but better to accept yourself then trying to avoid a label.
this denial of nature to avoid labeling was best exemplified by geraldine, the mother of the demonic little boy who blamed pecola for killing the cat. in the section about geraldine, there is a discussion about colored folks versus n****** (prior to reading this always thought chris rock was clever for his blacks versus n*****, but looks like morrison beat him to the punch(line)). geraldine is so determined to not be labelled a n*****, that she denied the essence that makes her black, she denies who she is. her denial and self-loathing, is then exploded upon pecola, someone she wrongly viewed by her eyes as a n*****. if geraldine accepted herself and not tried to live up to society's standards, she would not have wasted so negative energy on hating her own race.
another example of this race on race hate stemmed by a white standard of beauty was the children making fun of pecola for being black. the irony is that all of the kids were black and yet they singled her out as being the "blackest". as morrison explained that it was the worse insult because one does not have control over their skin color. she went on to explain, "it was their own contempt for their blackness that gave the first insult its teeth." to be told you are worthless or ugly because of your skin color, something you have no control over, fills a person with self-hate. since you have no control over the matter and you are denial about yourself loathing, you focus on someone like you and project your feelings on them. unfortunately, it results in you hating your own race/ethnicity.
i wish i could say that we have professed in terms of accepting all races and ethnicities as beauty however we haven't. we see beautiful people of all ethnicities and races in our media today but they are still treated as an exception versus the rule. i wish i could say that hopefully times will change but i am pretty sure it won't. i mean i am aware of the unacceptance of racial beauty yet i still promote it. it is going to take alot to change the definition of beauty. so it's important that we don't banned books like the the bluest eye to based on its mislabeling as pornographic and connection to unpopular educational systems.
