"More than my fondness for Pecola, I felt a need for someone to want that black baby too live - just to counteract the universal love of white baby dolls, Shirley Temples, and Maureen Peals."

Pecola Breedlove was raped. She was raped by her father. This is the most disturbing aspect for people to accept when reading The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. This quote however illuminates a greater point that she is attempting to make. American society does not appreciate people who are not 'normal.' They reject anyone, from their inception (or conception), if they are not exactly like everyone else.

The baby that Pecola is pregnant with at this point in the novel faces exactly this problem. The baby is first brought into the world in socially unacceptable ways, which is valid because of the horrors involved in that process. However, the narrator here illuminates another reason why the baby is alienated from society. The baby is alienated because the baby is not white.

The hopes that the narrator has here is simple, with no true great aspirations for society. She does not hope that society will love this baby and allow the baby to thrive. The narrator's desires aren't even that great. The narrator only wants someone to respect the dignity of the child enough to value the child's existence, something that doesn't always happen for African-Americans.

The narrator then points to popular culture and private lives of that time to exemplify American society's disdain for anyone of a different skin tone. First, she starts with the beginning of the patriarchal, racist development process of dolls. Especially at the time that this novel is based, almost all dolls given to girls were white. They exemplified 'white beauty.' With their cold blue eyes and blond hair, these Aryan dolls taught children not only what irrational physical goals to strive for, but also what role women are supposed to fulfill in society. The doll itself proposes that women's only function is to look good for other's amusement. The interaction with the doll that girls are forced into programs women into believing they are supposed to be the sole, immediate care-givers of children and play no other role in the family dynamic. She then continues with reference grander popular culture. One of these Aryan dolls incarnate is the recipient of the narrator's next attack. Shirley Temple was 'America's sweetheart.' She represented innocence, beauty called upon to all women. However, Shirley Temple was a goal that was unattainable by a large part of society. These people were given no other role models.

The examples are just as clear today. Barbie is the example of Aryan, sexist toys that are available for today's children. True, this toy line offers other characters who fulfill other roles, racially and sexually, but the focus is still on beauty and acceptance, something still not attributed to African-Americans in mainstream American culture. Furthermore one can move from the movies of the 1930s to the television screen of this decade and see little difference in the role model of beauty for children. Jennifer Anniston, Courtney Cox, and Lisa Kudrow define still what culture decides is attractive, a description that excludes anyone who is not white.