In the book, the author portrays the black community as suffering under the weight of its poverty. In addition, many of the members of the community suffer because they are a minority community living in a white majority society. Many internalize the overt message of the media that white is beautiful and see themselves as "ugly." The word "ugly" is used throughout the book to describe a broad variety of characters, and is even used tauntingly by the biracial Maureen.

That many members of the community have internalized the media's message is seen when Claudia talks about the dolls she has as a child. The dolls do not look like her. They are white baby dolls that do not reflect the reflection she sees when she looks in the mirror. She even notes:

I felt a need ...— just to counteract the universal love of white baby dolls, Shirley Temples, and Maureen Peals. And Frieda must have felt the same thing.

However, many in the community aspire to become like the majority community. That is why Pecola wants to have blue eyes. She asks Soaphead for blue eyes, and the author writes:

Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty. A surge of love and understanding swept through him, but was quickly replaced by anger. Anger that he was powerless to help her. Of all the wishes people had brought him — money, love, revenge — this seemed to him the most poignant and the one most deserving of fulfillment. A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes.

Claudia rejects this. Although like any young person, she is insecure, she is proud of who she is in the core and wants a doll that reflects her. Pecola rejects her own looks and wants to look like the doll, which has blue eyes.

As a biracial character, Maureen seems to span the two communities. However, even though the girls admire her pretty things and looks, she is not portrayed as a likable character. She even screams at them:

she screamed at us, “I am cute! And you ugly! Black and ugly black … I am cute!”

Poverty is also a common denominator for most of the characters. Claudia even notes that the Breedloves were not unusual because they were poor. Everyone was poor. The Breedloves were different because they were ugly. The ugliness is both literal and figurative. The ugliness of Pecola’s father stems from the inner ugliness that would enable him to treat Pecola the way he does in the story.