Breezy Explainer: Why was Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’ reinstated in a Missouri school?

A school in Missouri reinstated Tim Morrison’s The Bluest Eye in the curriculum after protests. However, the book ban poses a newer challenge.

Following protests, Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison’s book The Bluest Eye was reinstated in American School District in St. Louis, Missouri. The school board finished reviewing and then reversed the ban of the book. The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri (ACLU) had applied for a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the students.

The Bluest eye: Why did they ban this book?

Back in January 2022, the board banned eight books from school libraries including The Bluest eyes. They were banned because of the gravitas of issues about gender, sexual, and racial identity dealt with in the books. Other books banned in the school district include Invisible Girl (2020), by Lisa Jewell; All Boys Aren’t Blue (2020), by George M Johnson; Lawn Boy (2018), by Jonathan Evison; Heavy: An American Memoir (2018), by Kiese Laymon; Modern Romance (2015), by Aziz Ansari; Gabi- A Girl in Pieces (2014), by Isabel Quintero and Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic Paperback by Alison Bechdel (2006).

Set in 1940 and 1941 in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison’s hometown, The Bluest Eye is one of the first books exploring race and gender. The book placed black girls and women at the center of literary narratives. The book is an account of Pecola Breedlove, an 11-year-old African American girl wanting blue eyes. Through this book, Morrison explores the obsession with the caucasian norms of beauty. She also delves deep into the struggle and violations that are in Black, poor, and women’s lives. Morrison is also the first African-American woman to receive the Nobel in Literature.

Challenges: post-publication and now

“Most of what was being published by Black men were very powerful, aggressive, revolutionary fiction and non-fiction. And I thought why so loud?” stated the Author in a 2004 interview. She expressed that this was the start of a type of literature that she wanted to read but could not find. However, ever since being published, the book has been in banning rows due to the depiction of racism, violence, and sexual assault including incest. According to reports from the American Library Association (ALA), the book is one of the most banned books in America between 2000 and 2020.

The rising calls for censorship are also linked to the increase in right-wing conservative governments in addition to social media. According to the ALA, themes depicting sexuality, sexual identity, religion, and race are one of the most common reasons for banning a book in the US. Other iconic and pivotal books that were or are under the radar are Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960); Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985).

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