How it feels to Be Colored Me
Everyone's life can reflect an image that many people may see as wrong, but does a person’s skin color affect the way they are treated? With the tough times that people have, it does not all ways mean that a person will be unpleasant. With that being said many people think that their life is a harder than every other person because of their skin color or by the way they were raised, and they turn that unpleasantness into hate against people who do not look like them. In the story “How It Feels To Be Colored Me.” Zora was a care free, and curious child that didn’t think much about racism or the color of some ones skin. She was aware there were people that had different color skin than she did, but because everyone was nice to her she didn’t think anything of it. She liked to sit on her porch and watch how black and white people interacted with her and each other. She talked about how white people would give her dimes so they could see her dance and “speak pieces,” and how black people didn’t give her any money, however they were really protective of her dancing and singing. As a result Eatonville Florida was not as bad as the rest of the south when it came to race and segregation.
She didn’t go into much detail about the change that came when she was 13 but she did say “I remember the Very day that I became colored.” That sentence hit me hard, because that was her first time realizing that this world is not fair. I do not know how people can judge somebody before getting to know them just because of the color of their skin. I can somewhat relate to her experience although I was far more shy than she was. As a kid I grew up in a small town where everyone knew each other. (Population less than 1,000) we had mainly one race and that was white. We were comfortable with each other, we hung out on the weekends not even thinking about racism or any challenge that would come up with that subject. Then when I was 10 I moved Port St. Lucie Florida. That was not just a small town full of white people. We had a mixture of all different races, this is where I had to adjust because I was in a new place that I wasn’t used to, and I was the minority. Just like she had to adjust when she moved to Jacksonville. I had to meet new people, and get familiar with many different races. I got involved in new things to help me adjust. I found comfort in basketball, where she found comfort in music. She made friends with the people at the music hall listening to Jazz and the orchestra. Where playing with new friends helped me. As I got older though I could see that different races acted totally different among each other, and I didn’t understand why. I am not sure what parents taught there kids then but whenever a black person looked at me, it almost seemed as if they hated me, and it was because of my skin color, from then I felt ashamed that I was white around blacks because I felt that I did something wrong. Where Zora was proud and brave. “But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up on my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes.” That statement says a lot about her personality, and who she was as a person. Even after the constant reminder that she was a grand-daughter of slaves. She still was the same Brave and Curious Zora of Eatonville.
There is a part in her essay where I feel she is judging someone based on their skin color. She is talks about being in the cabaret club, and what they all have in common, when the jazz music that is playing takes over her mind and body. “I dance wildly inside myself; I yell within, I whoop; I shake my assegai above my head, I hurl it true to the mark yeeeeoowww!” then slowly she
