A YouTube video (CC Rice, uploaded by Chris Collins) reflecting on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. In this chunk the speaker discusses how children's self-esteem can be destroyed quickly—especially when combined with indifferent parents, dismissive adults, and societal messages—leaving lasting damage and a trajectory toward despair.
But there are some who collapse silently, anonymously, with no voice to express or acknowledge it. They are invisible. The death of self esteem can occur quickly, easily, in children, before their ego has legs, so to speak. Couple the vulnerability of youth with indifferent parents, dismissive adults, and a world which, in its language, laws and images, reinforces despair. And the journey to destruction is sealed. I mean, self esteem plays such a big part of it. Yeah, if your self esteem dies while you're still a child, it's almost like you just get stuck.
