Until that moment I had seen the pretty, the lovely, the nice, the ugly, and although I had certainly used the word ‘beautiful’, I had never experienced its shock – the force of which was equalled by the knowledge that no-one else recognised it, not even, or especially, the one who possessed it.

Toni Morrison

I just read Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and cried for my life. I can now articulate why it deeply unsettles me when some people tell me how beautiful they think I am. I can often detect a latent violence just beneath the surface of such a perilous affirmation. And yet I travelled the world in search of it – a pursuit I now realise is worse than empty. Last year I started to strategise ways of not accepting it but it seems near impossible and the anger that quickly rises when it is not well received always surprises me. I was once almost attacked for not being more grateful for the compliment. The darkest among us have been the sites upon which the world has unburdened all forms and guises of hatred and violence. Hailing ‘black beauty’ will not rid this world of “racial self loathing” – it’s just another mask for the same old violent gaze. The same old violent gaze that is so efficient and diabolical we are often unwilling or unable to call it by its name or acknowledge its presence. We will even defend it as it destroys us.

I no longer accept beauty as a reward. I no longer accept beauty as an apology or remedy for racism and “racial self loathing.” I cannot describe what went through me as I read this book, how it threw so many things into devastating focus, never relying on sentimentality for relief or rationalisation. Morrison compels readers to consider “whether the voice of children can be trusted at all or is more trustworthy than an adult’s.” The amount of genius love it took to articulate this story is monumental, perhaps only fathomable through the perspective of brave little black children.

Or maybe we didn’t remember; we just knew. We had defended ourselves since memory against everything and everybody, considered all speech a code to be broken by us, and all gestures subject to careful analysis; we had become headstrong, devious and arrogant. Nobody paid us any attention so we paid very good attention to ourselves. Our limitations were not known to us – not then. Our only handicap was our size; people gave us orders because they were bigger and stronger. So it was with confidence, strengthened by pity and pride, that we decided to change the course of events and alter a human life.

Toni Morrison