The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison was published in 1970. Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel Beloved.
BANNED in ‘22-23 and ‘23-24 in Clay, Martin, Indian River, Marion, Pinellas (later lifted), and Volusia County Public Schools.
In 2023, Pinellas County removed The Bluest Eye from public schools. Michelle Stille, the mother of a Pinellas County public school student, complained about its content. In a video posted to social media, Stille refers to public schools as “Marxist indoctrination camps.” She calls The Bluest Eye the “final piece of indoctrination in AP/IB 11th-grade English.”
The Bluest Eye follows Pecola, a young black girl who is abused by her family and peers. Pecola believes that if she had blue eyes, her life would be much better. She idolizes blue-eyed Shirley Temple and the white beauty standards that she represents. The novel is about racism, colorism, and the effects of being unloved by your community.
Stille says she had a “trauma response” to the “explicit descriptions of illegal activity” in The Bluest Eye. But high school teacher Shekema Silveri has a different point of view. Silveri states, when teaching The Bluest Eye, she had several students come forward to share their own experiences with childhood sexual abuse. She states, “Books allow us to help them heal in ways that we as educators couldn’t help them heal on our own.”
In April 2023, Pinellas County Schools lifted the ban on The Bluest Eye. Its initial removal did not follow district policies. Chief Academic Officer of Pinellas County Schools, Dan Evans, claims he was “erring on the side of caution, per the language of (new state) training” when initially banning the book.
“I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge – even wisdom. Like art.”
—Toni Morrison, “No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear”