It’s easy to believe that because it is 2017 and not 1917, racism does not exist, everyone lives in harmony, and anyone and everyone can be who they want to be. Of course when hundreds of years of institutionalized slavery and tragedy in the community are factored in, no one can look away. In Toni Morrison’s, “The Bluest Eye”, Morrison follows a young girl in her pursuit for the bluest eyes. At the foundation of this pursuit is internalized racism at the hands of white oppression. As the story unfolds, the reader is introduced to different families, specifically the Breedloves and the MacTeers who offer insight to the struggles in the black community at the time. Apart from financial struggle, mental/emotional struggle, there is the race conflict. Everpresent was the color of their skin, whether they were proud of it or not. Racism affected each family and family member differently through the course of their lives, based on their experiences. The umbrella thought over Morrison’s book is that specific conflict. Their reactions were the only differing piece. Just as Morrison's book chronicled that conflict, Kendrick Lamar wrote about his own experience as a black man in America. Lamar’s experience is that of conflict except now there is the strength to overcome. It is the works of two different generations speaking on racism and their place in it, one with the message of endurance, or the attempt, and the other with the message of understanding and rising.
Racism is oppressive and it is especially destructive when it enters the home. Morrison depicts internalized racism through the Breedlove family. A family set of four, where each of the family members learn they are imperfect because white America has told them so.
Cholly, the father, hates himself because he feels like he is an inferior man. Furthermore, he is mentally unstable because of a horrendous event. Two white men forced Cholly to do something he was not comfortable doing and it forever scarred him. After Cholly is forced to finish having sex, the narrator says, “For some reason Cholly had not hated the white men… other humiliations… could stir him into flights of depravity that surprised himself.” This is important because it shows us Cholly’s anger and it gives us insight to his inferiority complex. Cholly’s instability is attributed to him bottling his feelings; his hatred is directed towards someone else. White society has influenced Cholly not to hate white people for they are powerful and, therefore, cannot be hated. As a result of this helplessness and powerlessness, he blames the woman he was with. This misdirection of energy and lack of emotional competence makes Cholly an emotionally and mentally unstable person. In the end, this misdirection and instability is the reason he rapes Pecola.
Mrs. Breedlove, the mother, grew up a lonely life. The Narrator states, “incomprehensible: why there were no funny jokes and no nicknames; why there were no funny jokes and anecdotes about funny things she had done…” This is significant because it shows her disassociation in society. No one spoke to Pauline, as a result she blamed her leg for the cause of her isolation. As a result, this translated to her taking refuge in the silver screen as an adult. The Narrator tells us , “she developed a hatred for things that mystified or obstructed her… and harked back to simpler times for gratification.” Before, Pauline lives in isolation, but a satisfying one, which is why she takes refuge the memory later. We learn that Pauline learns hatred and racism from the cinema, disturbing her perceptions and isolation. She then takes what she learned and applied it to her day to day life. She internalizes the racism and bias seen on screen, taking in the beauty standards. She then judges people accordingly, including her family.
Pecola’s hatred stems from certain actions that influence her to believe being white is the true way to live life. The narrator states, ”She eats the candy, its sweetness is good. To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes… Be Mary Jane.” She is nourished by the Mary Janes, becoming the little white girl on the wrapper when eating the candy. She learns about these famous white people and finds herself wishing she could be white, because of the ever present beauty standards. Pecola has learned how to love another race but she doesn’t learn how to love herself, as a result she feels worthless and self-loathes. This is backed up by what Claudia says later on, “the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would only see what there was to see: the eyes of other people.” This is important because it reveals that she has no self-esteem because she is not a blue eyes white girl. Pecola’s internalized racism comes from a white society, Pecola’s hatred based on her self concept: ugliness in the eyes of society, their blue eyes.
Morrison does not depict any internalized racism in the MacTeer family as she does in the Whitcomb and Breedlove family, instead she depicts hope for a better future. The MacTeers are a metaphor for black resistance against white oppression in a struggle time for all African-American families.
Claudia is the youngest MacTeer, yet she shows the most rebellion out of the entire family. In Autumn, Claudia was with Frieda, her older sister, and Pecola. Claudia said, “Frieda and she had a long conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was. I couldn't join them in their adoration because I hated Shirley.” This is important because it demonstrates a sense of self-love toward her black self while she rejected beauty standards set by girls like Shirley Temple. It shows that Claudia isn’t white washed by society and she doesn’t hate herself for not being like the white girls. Claudia is young but she knows she is hated for her skin color in society. After Claudia breaks her christmas gift of a white baby doll she says, “But the dismembering of the dolls was not the true horror. The truly horrifying thing was… little white girls. What made people look at them and say, "Awwwww," but not for me?” She learns that white dolls, white people, white little girls her age are more preferred over her skin tone, and therefore are more privileged. Therefore, when Claudia doesn’t want to be like the white girls she is rebelling against the Master Narrative. However, because of her youth and innocence, she does want to know why she’s hated by white culture in society.
The other example of internalized racism, and in this case the misguided future of generations as a result of internalized racism is Soaphead Church, and his family. This specific example of such deep seeded ignorance produces the perfect environment for men like Soaphead to manifest. He is a perverted misanthrope who finds himself making a living on the naivety of others. But, for Soaphead to even exist, his family must foster the ideas for which he lives by. His family “washed away traces of Africa”, decided to “marry up”, and was “proud of its academic accomplishments and its mixed blood–in fact, they believed the former was based on the latter”. The internalized racism and utter brainwash present in this family is so obvious and helpless. It encomasses everything Morrison talked about with the other families, but to the extreme. Pecola wants blue eyes, and the Whitcombs are practicing incest to get them. Claudia wonders why everyone loves little white baby dolls, and the Whitcombs are the living representation of “Because the white race is the superior race.” It’s disgusting and it is the same mindset that kept racism alive, and self deprecation and internalized racism thriving.
Although Morrison's depiction of white oppression casts nothing but a dark shadow on what the future would be, an overcoming, or at least the attempt to overcome, is being made. Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly’ speaks on this conflict and accomplishment. He understands the concept of the hood, which essentially is man-made; but feels trapped. He has achieved fame and riches, yet he does understand the hood. He also understands he cannot get out of it. Ghettos are a mindset, they are a way of life that Kendrick describes struggling to escape. Kendrick’s “Institutionalized” is the narrative of his trapped self. He goes far enough to say “master take the chains off me.” Clearly, him being chained is a reference to slavery in America, and Kendrick is making a comment about how although slavery has ended, the community of color is still being oppressed by the whites through new institutions such as ghettos and the culture of white supremacy. And it is a culture we live in in America, racism is an institution and white supremacy the culture. Later in the song “Institutionalized”, Snoop Dogg is featured where he says “talented but still under the neighbourhood ruse.” Again, Lamar is referencing the ghetto, where he wants to get out and at this point has found a way out: music. He’s talented but his mindset is tricking him into staying trapped. On the one hand, there’s Kendrick who is conflicted about becoming something, and on the other hand there is Snoop Dogg who has made it. There’s a mentor/mentee dynamic that Snoop’s feature brings to the table; Snoop is seeing this young rapper from the vantage point of success. Lamar is institutionalized, but there is an escape.
This is the perfect path to overcoming. In “The Blacker the Berry” there's the feeling of rebellion to this culture. From the chorus to each verse, Lamar drips with pride and understanding. “You hate me don’t you…I’m a proud monkey” he speaks on the hatred felt by racist people who see a successful black man, or black culture in general and despise it. Using the slur ‘monkey’ signifies his embracing of the hate, according to Genius Lyrics.The same way only black people can use the n word and the lgbtq community takes hold of queer. This is just another example of Kendrick's turn around of oppression. He is using the ignorance against them with his command of the slur. Furthermore, the way he understands and calls out The Master Narrative for hating him, exemplifies his overcoming, determination, rebellion, and intelligence. It is almost as though he smirks in the face of the narrative, knowing something it does not. Knowing there is hope for himself, beyond all ideas of failure and odds stacked against him, he made it and there is only a smirk left.
To conclude, Morrison depicts white oppression from three families and Kendrick Lamar Duckworth depicts black lives in a better white, despite white oppress. Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” tells a story about black people in 1940, while Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” is a continuation of Morrison work. Though Kendrick’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” talks about a general improvement for black communities in today’s society, he does mention all the tragedy that went on in his life, how racism exists everywhere he grew up. ‘To Pimp a Butterfly” is about accepting your heritage, accepting your neighborhood, and loving yourself, despite all the racist slurs made.