Racialized Identity, Then and Now: Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the Rise of Donald Trump, and the Role of Academia

Abstract

Abstract: This paper explores the formation of racialized and gendered identities in Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye. To this end, the intervention aims at analysing how these identities are constructed along the colour line and also reconnoitred in the novel by putting W. E. B. Du Boas’ seminal term “double consciousness” into operation. The study also zeroes in on the sea change taking place in the United States in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election and beyond to demonstrate how various racial constructions are still at work in assorted forms and practices and reinforced under the guise of Donald Trump’s slogan of “make America great again”. It, further, tries to show how we can address these issues by drawing on the course Critical Race and Ethnic Studies taught in the American academia that can eventually, to certain extents, help us to identify several critical tools and paradigms to deal with the politics of the “personal and spiritual” with a view to envisioning a future in relation to emancipation and equity.