Black Arts Movement Artists

To response to the ideology of Black Power, Black Arts Movement, as opposed to artwork simply created by an African American artist, signified the only relevant artistic production in the struggle for African American self-determinacy. Therefore, Black Art rejects the "art for art's sake theory" in favor of advancing art's sociopolitical influence in the re-definition of African American identity. Black artists, aimed to challenge the white standard aesthetic value system, voiced their own black culture and express ideas from the point of view of racial and ethnic minorities was not valued by the mainstream to display the distinction of black identity. Like other Black Art Movement activists, Toni Morrison internalizes the main concerns of the aesthetic. She writes about black oppression, consciousness and tradition. Morrison’s major characters are black and they are in constant search for their ethnic identity. Morrison tackles the destructiveness of double-consciousness in The Bluest Eyes. She does not avoid painful and complicated themes in her novels about black experience, and she also chooses stylistic devices that are faithful to her African-American heritage. Morrison implicates the importance of her culture by reflecting black traditions of storytelling and black spoken dialogs. Similar to Morrison, black artists in BAM displayed the ideologies and perspectives of art that center on black culture and life, and strengthen black ideals, solidarity, and creativity. They against the institutional racism that through educational system, popular culture and production of items that only cater to the whites. Black artists tried to open a new era that gives more space to individuality and diversity and against the community as a whole has accepted the Western values and considers differences from it a flaw. In Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes, Pecola and Claudia remain a meaningful contrast to each other in facing the problem of Eurocentrism. 

Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy, 1963

Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy, a Jeff Donaldson’s oil painting, portrays the confrontation Donaldson envisioned. Appropriating icons of American consumer culture, the painting not only portrays a confrontation between Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy, but also enacts a confrontation with popular media imagery responsible for furthering racist stereotypes. Donaldson's depiction of Aunt Jemima subverts the docility and subservience associated with this image of black womanhood. Though the Pillsbury Doughboy (a figure of oppression in the painting) restrains Aunt Jemima, her defensive stance and fierce expression indicate that she will not concede defeat. Moreover, Aunt Jemima’s statuesque figure implies that she holds the upper-hand in a contest of strength with her oppressor. Pitting The Pillsbury Doughboy against Aunt Jemima, Donaldson is simultaneously “identifying the enemy” and asserting black America's strength to overcome racist oppression and challenge the power of white supremacy. Notably, the subversive nature of Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy extends to the American flag as well. The strips of the flag in the painting's background are bent in an angle reminiscent of a swastika. Challenging the notions of democracy and freedom associated with the American flag, Donaldson is drawing a jarring connection between American racism and the recognized atrocities of Nazism since the destructiveness of the white beauty standard to the African American community is significant. The most notable victim is Pecola in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes, who is deeply affected by the illustrations of white beauty around her and believes that she is ugly and desires to “be Mary Jane,” becoming insane at the end due to the society’s assuming of her ugliness. The Black Arts concepts struggled to abandon Du Bois’s idea of double-consciousness since blacks were constantly struggling toward the white culture’s ideals, even though the dominant society disabled them from reaching the white standard of beauty. Mirroring themselves against value structure of the oppressive white society was depriving the blacks of their empowerment. Jeff Donaldson wanted to concentrate on solving the problems of the African-American community from the inside, developing awareness of the rich black heritage and gearing the community to realize its worth. The Black Art Movement leaded the time for blacks to stop internalizing the image of being inferior in the society as a whole and asserting the strength, beauty, and self-esteem of blacks. Preventing the tragedy of Pecola, black artists built up black’s own brand—Aunt Jemima to confront the white standard beauty figures of “Mary Jane” and “Shirley Temple”. Jeff Donaldson claimed the "next level of struggle would [have to be] confrontational," to be black themselves and to love themselves, but not to “be Mary Jane” and “love Mary Jane” (50). The Black Art movement leaders tried to liberate blacks from the limitation of white beauty standard and the fallacy that people’s value depend on their looks.

Polarization, Claude Clark

Polarization presents the condition, names the enemy, and directs a plan of action. Depicting a black man arm wrestling Uncle Sam, Claude Clark presents African American life in opposition to white America; he specifically identifies the American government as the "enemy," and he points to direct confrontation as the mode of socio-political struggle. While Polarization portrays a confrontation still in action, Clark's iconography foreshadows the "American" victor. Linking African American's struggle for civil rights with the American Revolution, the American flag placed on the "side" of the black man indicates his eventual victory over the "monarchy" of white America (the crown beneath Uncle Sam's bench). Toni Morrison reveals the destructiveness of white authority by excerpting sentence from Dick and Jane. Like Uncle Sam, Dick and Jane are also the creations of the white society that determines the material values and desirable appearance for everyone. The blacks do not have public representation in the society. There were no reading assignments about black children who live in poverty. This manifestation of institutional racism contributes to the black characters’ personal prejudices, increasing their feeling of insecurities and ugliness. The Black Art Movement aimed to change black’s situation by fight against the standard aesthetic value set up by white people and “towards a plan of action in search of our own roots and eventual liberation" (Claude Clark).

If I Were Jehovah, 1970

This painting is an assertive revision of African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar's most noted poem "We Wear the Mask."

We Wear the Mask
Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but O great Christ, our cries
To Thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh, the clay is vile
Beneath our feet and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask.

As depicted in the painting If I Were Jehovah, the "mask" African Americans historically used to shield the depth of their emotions in a racist society is being ripped away in a full expression of outrage and determination. The “mask man” in the painting rejects the white authority and tries to abandon the double-consciousness. Similar to Claudia in Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes, the “mask man” does not wish to be white, but hate the western ideal and “desires to dismember it” (20). The “mask man” and Claudia recognize the institutional racism around the: the mass media bombards the black community with white images of beauty, making it harder for the minority to maintain its own identity and worth since no public presentations of black ideals or role models are available. Like Claudia, the activists in the Black Art movement rebelled to white institution and took off black’s mask.

Black artists in the movement tried to distinct black culture by using African motifs and musical beats in their art works, and they have profoundly changed what and how America sees--in the images that flare on the canvas as well as those that flicker on the large and small screen. 

Gordon Parks peeked through photographic and cinematic lenses to record the travail of Black life. In the photo “Children with Doll,” the two children represent different attitude to the white doll, just like Pecola and Claudia in The Bluest Eyes. One is addicted to the white doll and wants to become white girl, and one hates and rejects white standard beauty. While Pecola drowns herself of ugliness and worthiness and becomes a victim of the white standard of beauty, Claudia rejects the western ideal and in somewhat rebels like the Black Art movement activists.

Black artists used Abstract Expressionism and social protest--and brushes, pens, invented materials and found objects--to fashion the textures and colors of a new Black humanity that challenged racial stereotypes.

                                               Jazz: (N.Y.) Savoy--1930s, Romare Bearden

Humanity shines in Romare Bearden's collage, Jazz: (N.Y.) Savoy-1930s, which treats the most majestic music Black folk have created. Bearden achieves the sense of sound and rhythm associated with jazz through irregular spatial relationships and intense lights and darks. As in the music, what appears random—a face here and instrument there—coheres into a structured whole. To portray black ethnic voice like Bearden does, Toni Morrison uses old, black storytelling traditions in The Bluest Eyes to convey an authentic African-American experience. Morrison uses the call-and-response style of communication that initiates from the time of slavery. She continuously changes her focalization with narrative and writes non-chronological revealing of Pecola’s story, aiming to resemble African-American storytelling. Through the methods of black storytelling, Morrison gives a voice to several silenced issues of oppression.

Black artists and writers like Toni Morrison in Black Arts Movement were both trying to challenge the authority of white value system and injecting new diverse voices of minority. Their rebellion not only dealt with the racial issues but also changed the dominant white culture situation to a new multicultural era.

Out of the Darkness, I Came the Farthest: South Africa and Six Degrees of Separation

In Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare, the poor are wild and vivid, and the rich are somber and geometric. Wealth accompanies order, and is a departure from individualism. This individualism, or imagination, is what defines you, but as the acquisition of money becomes your primary goal, those material goods become your defining characteristic. The imagination can lead you toward economic prosperity, but then cause you to loose yourself in the process. Geoffrey, a rich South African who made his money from gold mines, is an example of loosing yourself in monetary assets, as he mocks the troubles of the nation he came from. Apartheid still plagued South Africa; separation of rich and poor still plagued the world. Visiting South Africa last summer, I must admit, my family and I sat in our gorgeous hotel and planned a trip into a township. Although our purposes were different than Louisa’s description of “demand[ing] shock,” since we weren’t looking for entertainment out of the excursion as much as world awareness, the general touristic aspect stayed the same (10). In Cape Town, South Africa, my extended family and I loaded on to a bus and were taken to a township called Lenga. Our guide was a man who had worked his way out of the same township we were visiting. He had faced himself and his situation, and allowed his imagination to lead him to a better life. This was evident as his quick wit and clever jokes kept us on our toes. Your imagination helps “show you the exit from the maze of your nightmare” (63). This particular township had a more vivacious spirit about it than most, as it had created a community center that used art as an escape and a way out. They loved tourism because it brought money into their community, so they welcomed us. The ideas of using your imagination, improving your situation, and defining lines between rich and poor are major themes in Six Degrees of Separation, but also are very relevant to my experience.

The two-sided Kandinsky painting can be seen as the two sides of Cape Town. Cape Town is on the southernmost tip of Africa, and is often thought of as one of the world’s most beautiful cities. With its geometric architectural style and views of the mountains and ocean, it is a worldwide tourist destination. Only a few miles away from this prosperity, is some of the world’s most extreme poverty. The city itself very literally portrays the Kandinsky. The geometric, organized lines of the wealthy city stands right next to the vibrant chaos of the townships.

Louisa and Flan are trying to get money from Geoffrey to purchase art, but are trying not to think about it during the evening. They say that it’s like when someone tells you not to think about elephants, but then it’s all you can think about. I think that it’s interesting to think about the significance of elephants in this situation. The elephant is very important in South Africa and is represented in their coat of arms. The elephant tusks symbolize wisdom, steadfastness, and strength. The elephant representing Geoffrey’s money in the book can then be tied back to this image of a South African elephant. In a way, it shows their skewed perception of what is important in life. Money being your number one priority makes you push the things of real importance, such as family, aside. The lack of money and possessions in the townships allows room for close relationships and love. This is what creates such a vitality and sense of community, despite the low living standard.

The imagination is what defines us, but is also a link to a higher social class and wealth. To want to move up in the world is a natural human desire, and it seems to me that those with imagination find a way of accomplishing that and those without, fail. In many instances, I saw the people taking advantage of their surroundings and using their resources effectively, carving their own path instead of letting their circumstances guide their life. Flan says that when he sells his paintings, he is not “just selling them like pieces of meat” (46). He cares about them. In the townships, everyone was selling meat along the alleys. They were travelling down the same path as everyone else, and staying paralyzed in their situation. Those that found a new way of getting ahead were the ones that made it. Art was the path to success for both Flan and many of the people in the township. They used their imagination to create art that showed them the way out. We got to see the various types of art that the people at the community center made, and my favorite was by a man who had used a very unique media. He used the sand from the ground and dyed it, and then he made beautiful, intricate pictures with it. This inventiveness and use of the resources available to you is also a characteristic very unique to Paul.  He too uses his resources such as the address book, his wit, and his intelligence to move up in the world. He clings on to the wealthy to try to use them as a way up and out. In my own experience, some of the children also saw an opportunity to get ahead by making nice with those already ahead. My grandmother used a wheelchair when we were in the township, and as we walked through, young boys would run after her wheelchair, wanting to push it. Our guide told us that they were hoping to get paid for their efforts, and like Paul, they saw an   opportunity to get ahead by literally holding on to those who’ve already made it. 

The idea of Social Darwinism is only applicable if you believe it. If you are unhappy with your place in the world, then moving away from it is always possible. Despite extreme obstacles, I met imaginative people who managed to use what they had to work toward making a better life for themselves and others in their community. In Six Degrees of Separation, this complex idea of assimilation, including how you fit in, if you belong where you are, and how to create your own change, is paralleled to the self-examination of many of the people in the township.

*All photos are original (excluding the Kandinsky and the South African coat of arms)

Titanic & The Great Gatsby

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald emphasizes the corruptions of the American Dream by conveying the consequences derived from wealth. These consequences include the domination of wealth in the social hierarchy and the lack of social mobility. Similar to The Great Gatsby, the movie Titanic illustrates the dangers that arise from a relationship between an upper class female and a lower class male, in addition to revealing the true, depraved American Dream.

The Great Gatsby and Titanic illustrate the unevenness of power in the social hierarchy because of the upper class’s ascendency. In order to be highest in the social hierarchy, “holocausts” must be made (162). These sacrifices are evident in the Titanic through the discrimination between the first, second, and third class passengers. For example, the ship only had enough lifeboats for 1,178 people, but they were 2,223 passengers total. This unevenness resulted in sacrificing half of the passengers in order to save those in first class. In fact, over 55% of the Titanic survivors were first class passengers. Additionally, the Titanic’s layout positions the first class rooms on the higher floors and the lower classes on the bottom floors. As a result, the lower class floors were the first to flood after the wreck. Additionally, to decrease franticness, workers were commanded to lock the gates and trap the lower classes in their flooded floors. This confinement demonstrates the “holocausts” of lower classes in order to benefit those higher in the social hierarchy.

Titanic and The Great Gatsby both emphasize the ethicality of unattainable social mobility through the two protagonists, Gatsby and Jack. However, the only way to achieve social mobility is through conning. For example, Gatsby “was in the drug business” in order to join the upper class and become “his Platonic conception of himself” (90, 98). Additionally, Jack risked his entire savings in a game of poker for the chance of attaining Titanic boarding passes. Luckily, Jack won the tickets and came aboard the Titanic, which was supposed to sail to America and allow Jack to move up in the social hierarchy because of his insight to the first class passengers.

In The Great Gatsby and Titanic the wealthy female character develops a relationship with a poorer man and is then faced to choose between him and a wealthier man. In The Great Gatsby, Daisy fell in love with Gatsby, but he “let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself” (149). This façade resulted in a fallacious relationship. Additionally, Gatsby compared Daisy with a “grail” and it “excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy – it increased her value in his eyes” (149). Viewing Daisy as a price and judging her “value,” Gatsby proves that he only loved Daisy because she was a part of his façade. However, Daisy ultimately chose Tom over Gatsby because he was wealthier. Despite Tom’s affairs, Daisy stayed with him because of their wealthy appearance. In Titanic, Rose was engaged to Cal because her mother pressured Rose to marry him for his money. Despite Jack’s lower class status, Rose chose him over Cal. After the shipwreck, Rose was sitting in one of the last lifeboats, but jumped back onto the ship in order to be with Jack. By returning to the sinking ship, Rose chose Jack over wealth and safety.

Scout & Claudia: A Childlike Analysis of Racism

Both Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Scout and Claudia both, in some part, narrate and share their perspective of racism.  Scout lived in Jim Crow infiltrated Maycomb, Alabama,  while Claudia lived in Lorain, Ohio.  Regardless of locations, these children are profoundly affected by racism, Scout through the trial of Tom Robinson and Claudia  through her own discriminating environment and the life of Pecola Breedlove.  Scout Finch is a mere 9 years old for the majority of the novel and Claudia MacTeer is also the same age.  Their own simplistic views of racism play a pivotal role in their lives.  


It is critical that both Toni Morrison and Harper Lee both choose a child to narrate part of their stories.  The complex issue of racism can be broken down and analyzed, effectively, from the perspective of a child.  The simplicity in which Claudia and Scout narrate their stories provide an concise and innocent perspective on how appalling racism truly is.  Claudia's depiction of Pecola Breedlove's desire for blue eyes is harrowing and rivets the emotions of the reader into complete despair for her.  Scout's perception of Tom Robinson's trial entails how innocent Tom really is and how he lost his life to Jim Crow harbored racism.  Frieda's desire to know the beauty behind the doll is the same simplistic way in which Scout ponders with why everyone is so upset with Tom Robinson and her father.  Through the uncorrupted perspective of a basic mind, both Lee and Morrison argue that racism is not as complex as usually perceived.

Pecola asks, ”‘What’s a suit?’” Maureen responded, “‘It’s when you can beat them up if you want to and won’t nobody do nothing” (68). The plot of To Kill a Mockingbird is the conviction of Tom Robinson, and innocent black man being accused of the rape of a white woman.  Atticus, Scout’s father, is defending Tom Robinson to the best of his ability, trying to defy the racist foundation of Maycomb. A law suit, Morrison argues, is an excuse to “beat up” or further strip African Americans of power.  The ultimate conviction of Tom Robinson supports the predominance of racism in the Jim Crow Era.  The complexity of the legal system is being perceived through the simplistic eyes of Scout.  While the justice system is filled with corruption, manipulation, and adult situations, Harper Lee suggests that the conviction can be best understood through a child.  On the most basic of levels, it is evident that Mayella is not a victim of Tom, but that Tom is the victim of something else.  On multiple occasions throughout the novel, Scout has thoughts of why this is happening and why is everyone so angry at her father.  Atiicus' decision to represent Tom to the best of his abilities is no mystery for Scout.  The enigmatic situation is in the adult imposed court where Tom is ultimately deemed guilty.  Scout, Jem, and Dill, all children, endured the testimony of Mayella Ewel and Tom Robinson.  Tom Robinson is being accused of raping Mayella, when in fact, Mayella's father, Bob Ewell, did the physical and sexual harassment (203-226).  Atticus Finch, sometimes referred to as a "negro lover", is trying to fairly represent Tom Robinson.  Atticus is not only up against the allegations of Bob and Mayella Ewell, but also the deeply entrenched racist citizens of Maycomb. During the trial, speaking of his kids Atticus says, " hope and pray that I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness, and most of all, without catching Maycomb’s usual disease” (100).  The "usual disease" that Atticus speaks of can be applied to Toni Morrison's concept of beauty in The Bluest Eye.

Claudia is not oblivious to racism, but perceives the discrimination, not as a black vs. white, but as a ugly vs. beauty.  Looking at situations in terms of ugliness and beauty is far less complex than the perspective of prejudiced adults.  Thus it is key that Morrison chooses Claudia, a character who physically tries to find the secret behind beauty, to narrate her story.  A instance in which Claudia attempts to discover the discrepancy, and ultimately the reasons behind racism, is when she dismembers the dolls. She says, "I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me" (20).  Why is this doll so cherished and "dear" to everyone? The "beauty" in the doll is not in stitching however, it is in the complex system in which adults have implemented value into the white doll.  Like the judiciary system in To Kill a Mockingbird, beauty, Morrison argues, is a corrupt and complex ideal that ultimately leads back to racist roots in what is aesthetic and what is not.  The idea of ugliness is evident in Pecola's life, “the master had said, “‘You are ugly people.’” They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict this statement” (39).  The Breedlove's complacency in their "ugliness" epitomizes the impact of racism in America during the 1940's.  "The master" symbolizes the racism that deems Pecola Breedlove "ugly" and racism keeps Pecola from "contradicting" the notion. Claudia dissects racism as terms of beauty and ugliness because the concept of racism is too complicated for her.  Morrison argues that the simplification of racism is possible through the innocence of a child.

The Theory of Double Consciousness

Du Bois

Toni Morrison plays around the idea of a double consciousness is brought up multiple times in “The Bluest Eye”. The ideas of racial self-loathing that the character deal with are put into the heads of the characters in the novel because of their double consciousness.  As humans we are programmed to care about how other perceive us , but in the cases presented in the novel they are taken to another extreme. A man by the man of W.E.B  Du Bois was a famous author he became famous for his protest against racial prejudice and discrimination  also for this idea in a paragraph in  a book called "The Souls of Black Folk" in chapter one “Of Our Spiritual Strivings”. The paragraph reads:

“After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

Du bois calls direct attention to the fact that we are only as powerful or have as much worth as society grants us.

            In the bluest eye there is an ongoing theme of self-loathing. Claudia wants to be as “pretty” as the white girls, Pecola is desperate for blue eyes and blonde hair, and Geraldine tries her hardest t separate her family from the “niggers” by keeping her home immaculate. They all are unable to accept their race without hating themselves. In the most extreme case there is Pecola. On page 47 the narrator says” she would see only what there was to see: the eyes o other people. Pecola has become invisible to herself and others”. She has been brain washed by the common culture that she is not worthy to be looked at. She only cares about what other see, the way other sees her.

            Pecola ultimately becomes obsessed with the idea of society; in the end she convinces herself that she has blue eyes. The last chapter of the book is a conversation with Pecola and an imaginary friend. Pecola is so obsessed with the idea of how others perceives, she has to create an imaginary friend to comfort her, She cannot learn to accept herself for who she is so her mind creates an outsider that will. This directly proves Du Bois’s theory about the need to be accepted my others. Pecola cooping mechanism is to create an imaginary friend that will support her insanity,. This is extremely tragic event because the only way that Pecola is able to be happy is to create a fake double-consciousness and become mentally insane, to the point were society is even less accepting of her this way than the in her normal state.

"Look Twice": Black Star Revises The Bluest Eye

Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star (1998) album cover

First edition of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye (1970)

In the true meaning of "revision," seeing something anew, Talib Kweli and Mos Def of the rap group Black Star, revise the words and the ideas of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye in their song "Thieves in the Night" from their self-titled debut album. The song takes its title and its chorus from the closing passage of the novel in which the child narrator, Claudia, reflects on how her classmate Pecola was ostracized unfairly by the black community (and the larger white community) for her alleged "ugliness." Kweli and Def affirm Morrison's argument that, as they put it in the song, "the law of the bluest eye" still governs black experience in America: Anglo-Saxon ideas of beauty, blue eyes, straight, blond hair---are considered the norm. But the rappers also update these "laws" and show how their "jurisdiction" has extended from the segregation-era ideas of racial beauty that the Nobel Prize laureate critiques in her first book. Kweli writes in the liner notes to "Black Star" of reading The Bluest Eye in a high school classroom and how the novel, as he writes, "struck me as one of the truest critiques of our society, and I read that in high school when I was 15 years old. I think it is especially true in the world of hip hop, because we get blinded by these illusions." Within the "hip-hop" context of postindustrial urban African American communities, "the law of the bluest eye" still applies, it guides the actions of the police state in its management of inner-city black bodies.

Kweli at Rawkus Records in NYC, 1999

Mos Def's second verse of "Thieves in the Night" perhaps provides the closest reading of the novel in the song. He begins, "Yo, I'm sure that everbody out listenin agree / That everything you see ain't really how it be." This idea that seeing is not being is critical to The Bluest Eye: Pecola's "ugliness" is never confirmed literally in the text; her lack of beauty is how she is seen by white society, not how she actually looks. Mos Def, though, sees something of the psychology of Pecola's "racial self-loathing," as Morrison calls it in her Afterword, the internalized racism from which Pecola and others in the novel suffer, in contemporary inner-city black male youth:

Most cats in my area be lovin the hysteria
Synthesized surface conceals the interior
America, land of opportunity, mirages and camoflauges
More than usually -- speakin loudly, sayin nothin

Morrison links Pecola's negative self-image to the broader images of normative American identity, family, and home through the juxtaposition of the Breedlove household with the idealized household of Dick and Jane from the primary readers. For Def too, there is a broader national narrative at stake, the very idea of the American dream is little more than a "synthesized surface" that "conceals" a far less hopeful reality. Mos Def seems to argue that it is the worship of materialism, integral to the American dream, that is particularly problematic in black communities when he raps "Gets yours first, them other niggas secondary / That type of illin that be fillin up the cemetery." For Def, the rampant consumerism, perhaps in the rap songs and videos of more mainstream artists, is a form of "mental slavery": "Put you on a yacht, but they don't call it a slaveship." The binary system of racial identification of the Jim Crow era still lingers in the late twentieth century when African American men must chose between being "niggas or Kings." Moreover, the establishment of one's "monarchy" seems contingent on exerting one's power over other blacks, just as Pecola is used as a scapegoat by the larger black community in their establishment of the dichotomy between "niggers" and "colored people" (87).

The American dream family according to the Dick and Jane primers

And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good but well behaved, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect, we switched habits to simulate maturity; rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old ideas the Revelation and the Word. (206)

The title of Black Star's song seems to argue that blacks are still in some ways hiding their true identities, like "thieves in the night," as a result of the pressures to conform imposed by mainstream American society. By revising the final passage of The Bluest Eye in the chorus to the song, they repeat and develop Morrison's argument that the conformity of assimilation is a kind of social death, in her words, "hiding from life." The idea of being "not strong...only aggressive" bears a specifically interesting relation to the image of the "thug" in modern black life--inner-city gangsters, Def and Kweli seem to argue, are street tough but not truly "strong" in the sense of strength of character. In lyrics added to the final paraphrased passage from The Bluest Eye, Black Star reiterate that young black men may be "chasin' after death," but are not truly "brave." In a clear reference to the style of 1990s gangsta rap, Talib Kweli writes in his first verse to "Thieves in the Night":

Survival tactics means bustin gats to prove you hard
Your firearms are to short for God
Without faith, all of that is illusionary
Raise my son, no vindication of manhood necessary.

The underground rappers are searching for a form of black masculinity not defined by one's "hardness," but by more spiritual qualities like faith and family. Like Morrison does in The Bluest Eye, Black Star attempts to "find beauty in the hideous." Again, for Kweli and Mos Def, the "thug life" is part of the legacy of American chattel slavery with the prison-industrial complex serving as the postmodern plantation.

[M.D.] Not strong
[T.K.] Only aggressive
[M.D.] Not free
[T.K.] We only licensed
[M.D.] Not compassioniate, only polite
[T.K.] Now who the nicest?
[M.D.] Not good but well behaved
[T.K.] Chasin after death
So we can call ourselves brave?
[M.D.] Still livin like mental slaves
[Both] Hidin like thieves in the night from life
Illusions of oasis makin you look twice
[Both] Hidin like thieves in the night from life
Illusions of oasis makin you look twice

The Dove Campaign & The Bluest Eye

Whether a person considers herself to be beautiful or hideous, an individual's expectation and desire to meet appearance standards is emotionally and psychologically consuming. Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye illustrates the feelings of self-hatred derived from social acceptances and external attitudes towards African Americans through Pecola Breedlove's character, while Dove has created a beauty campaign in attempt to destroy any sense of personal abhorrence and establish a new idea of beauty in the minds of self-conscious individuals. 

Before the novel even begins, Morrison introduces the romanticized image of beauty in the Dick and Jane reader, continued before each paragraph, claiming that blonde, light skinned, blue-eyed little girls were considered beautiful beyond any opposition. This fascination with a specific look was mimicked in media, advertisements, and consumer goods that surrounded the characters, shaping the opinions of African American girls and women that eventually would see themselves as ugly. Pecola Breedlove suffocates under this predetermined standard for so long that she begins to long for blue eyes, as if that is requirement to being beautiful. Her mind is warped by her obsession of sorts, and her thoughts explode:
"Pretty eyes. Pretty blue eyes. Big blue pretty eyes...They run with their blue eyes. Four blue eyes. Four pretty blue eyes" (46). 

Formatted like the Dick and Jane books, Pecola's thoughts focus solely on her desire to be white, to be pretty, to be like Jane. If she could not completely disappear from existence, Pecola focused all of her conscious effort on shedding her ugliness or, in her mind, attaining blue eyes. 

Female perceptions in the twenty-first century share the same pressures and yearnings in terms of objectified appearance.Under Dove research it was calculated that "only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful," while over three fourths of women believe beauty lies within everyone but simply cannot locate their own (Dove). Unlike many commercial products that alter and mask appearances, Dove is not based on transforming the female physical image, yet building the self-esteem that makes each girl or woman comfortable in her own skin. 

For their advertisements Dove doesn't look for the skinniest girl, or the tallest, or the one whose picture would appear in the mind of any girl imagining someone beautiful, but one that is real; a image that consumers and witnesses can relate to; one that is normal. 

Pecola Breedlove is the ultimate victim to the four percent statistic, as she finds nothing beautiful about herself, yet discovers more and more imperfections, as do her Black friends. The girls: Pecola, Freida, and Claudia, are blatantly called ugly by their lighter-skinned classmate Maureen. Hurt and convinced of the insult's truth, the trio "walked quickly at first, and then slower, pausing every now and then to fasten garters, tie shoelaces, scratch, or examine old scars. [They] were sinking under the wisdom, accuracy, and relevance of Maureen's last words" (74). The obsessive attention to detail found in the minds of Morrison's characters is beyond that of any comfortable, confident child. The girls fasten, tie, scratch, and examine as means of pointing out each visible flaw which others point out as overriding any aspect of beauty. 

It is the Dove Corporation and its campaign for real beauty that illustrates that no one resembles Jane, or in current terms, no one resembles the face staring at you from a magazine, billboard, or catalog. In the evolution video, Dove's most prominent campaign tool, a team pulls a simple girl- pieced with average blemishes and face structure- and constructs her to fit a particular image to be placed on a public billboard. The resulting picture, after the model is made over, photographed, photo-shopped, and printed captures the eyes and consumes the thoughts of numerous minds, like those of the two girls captured admiring the final picture at the end of the film. 

The two images above are perceived by thousands as the same face and image, yet, behind the scenes, the first is real while the the second is completely computerized to perfection. Dove's mission is to publicize that no person fits the mold of beautiful that implants the minds of girls and women who desire such attributes for themselves. It sets out to revive senses of self-worth in those that only see ugliness, and therefore such a program could have been one to help save Pecola from self-destruction.