“They Lived There because They Were Poor and Black”: Spatial Injustice in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

This essay aims to investigate the function of urban space in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye through the approach proposed by cultural geographers, such as Edward Soja, David Harvey, and Don Mitchell, who link space with questions of justice/ injustice. At the same time, the essay considers some valuable insights of Black Geographies scholars like George Lipsitz, who argues that an analysis of the rela- tions between power and place always needs to consider the factor of race. For their political implications and their focus on justice, power, and race, these two approaches might be particularly suitable for reading Toni Morrison, whose oeuvre is openly involved in the denunciation of injustices and social/racial tensions in the US contemporary scenario with a specific focus on African American communi- ties. Framing a reading of her novels from the vantage of cultural geography reveals insights into characters’ geographies. In The Bluest Eye, specific spatial elements like neighborhoods, streets, and houses are fundamental in building social relations as both places of contact or conflicts. In these places, injustices in terms of access to resources, job opportunities, and the (im)possibility of shaping one’s surroundings are created and become strikingly evident.