Black Beauty

In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Pecola has a difficulty accepting the fact that she is black. I theorize that, in real life, Pecola would look something like this:

Pecola wants to have blue eyes like white people because she thinks they are beautiful and she is ugly. This reminds me of a speech made by Lupita Nyong'o. If you don't know who Nyong'o is she is a famous actress who played Patsey in 12 Years a Slave. In the following speech she talks about how she had a hard time accepting how dark her skin was.

As I read The Bluest Eye, the more and more I realize that black women have a hard time accepting the way they are. Black women want straight hair, light skin, and light eyes because that is what society deems to be beautiful. In recent years black women have accepted their natural beauty, but at the same time little black girls and teenagers don't think that they are beautiful because of what they see on t.v. from performers like Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj, who have bleached their skin and hair in order to appeal to the public eye and be deemed "beautiful."

It really upsets me that black women don't accept themselves for who they truly are. Beauty isn't something that can be given to you, it is something that comes from within. Ruby Dee, an actress from the 1960s and 1970s said, "The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within - strength, courage, and dignity." If any woman holds these three attributes and then some, how can she not be seen as beautiful?

Beauty is based off perspective. So remember as long you think you are beautiful, your beauty will shine through and be seen by others.