More Than 50 Years After Its Release, Why School Districts Keep Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’ On Their Book Ban Lists

Before Toni Morrison became a Nobel Prize-winning author, she wrote a gripping novel about a young Black girl who believed having blue eyes would make her beautiful. More than 50 years later, “The Bluest Eye” is at the center of a book ban controversy in Georgia, where a major school district has pulled it from library shelves.

Cobb County has removed Morrison’s debut novel from its school libraries due to concerns over depictions of sexual violence, including the rape of Pecola Breedlove by her father, according to The Current. Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said that keeping it on the shelves would allow students to read the material without parental knowledge.

“The words speak for themselves,” Ragsdale said during a September school board meeting. “Both as a father and as a superintendent, I think about a parent having to explain to their sixth-grade daughter after she encounters explicit descriptions of child incest and rape in a book provided at school, without parents’ knowledge.”

There is no question that the novel contains disturbing material. In fact, “The Bluest Eye” was meant to be a challenging read, but the violence is not the point of the novel by itself.

The protagonist, Pecola, experiences racism, poverty, domestic violence and sexual abuse before becoming pregnant by her own father. In a 1993 interview with The Paris Review, Morrison explained her decision to reveal the novel’s devastating outcome immediately, saying, “I put the whole plot on the first page.”

Morrison uses Pecola’s story to show what happens when racist ideas about beauty become so deeply embedded that a Black child begins to believe she must become someone else to be worthy. She even lays out the stakes early in the novel: “There is really nothing more to say– except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.”

But while struggles with self-worth are common among children of color, school districts across the country have zeroed in on the language and imagery and have worked overtime to keep “The Bluest Eye” out of their classrooms and libraries. It was among the American Library Association’s 10 most challenged books for multiple years between 2020 and 2023. This isn’t even the first time “The Bluest Eye” has been removed from Georgia schools. In 2022, Forsyth County was ordered to return Morrison’s debut novel to the shelves following a federal government investigation into the novel’s removal, according to The Georgia Recorder.

RELATED: ‘Roots’ Banned in Tennessee School District as Censorship Concerns Rise

Morrison was not asking readers to discover whether Pecola would suffer. She was asking them to consider the why behind it and, perhaps more importantly, the kind of society that would raise a child to believe blue eyes would make her beautiful.

Those questions remain relevant in a culture today where Black people continue to navigate beauty standards shaped by racism, often reinforced through targeted ridicule, discrimination and violence.

In a separate 1988 interview with Mavis Nicholson, Morrison revealed that the novel’s biggest inspiration was her own desire “to read about people like me– people who were Black and were young and had lived in the Midwest.” She added simply, “And nobody wrote about them.”

With that, Cobb County’s decision is also raising questions about a new precedent.

As we previously told you about other books by Black authors that have faced challenges and removals, including Alex Haley’s “Roots” and Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” Those challenges have repeatedly raised questions about censorship, parental rights and students’ access to literature that confronts difficult parts of American history and Black life.

Now, Morrison joins a growing list of Black authors whose work has come under scrutiny for telling stories that are not always comfortable to read. For parents, educators and school districts, removing the material can also mean removing the history, context and conversations that come with it.