How It Feels To Be Colored Me By Zora Neale Hurston Analysis

Racial identity can be the identified as one’s outward looks which classifies each to a specific group of ancestors. In other words, your race describes where you or your family is from. Some people, as Zora Neale Hurston reports, are still held back in time when people of color were mistreated, and they feel as if they are the “superior race”. She responds to their misconception in her essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by saying “It fails to register depression with me. Slavery is sixty years in the past.”(Hurston 1) As a young black girl who transfers to a white school, adapting was a challenge. Through her experiences, she writes about the nonsense she lives through and documents her feelings. She states “I feel most colored when I …show more content…
In her essay, Hurston ridicules the ignorant ideas of discrimination and intelligibly expresses her view on intolerance for the reason of skin color. “Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company?”(Hurston 2) In this way, racism encourages bullying, which virtually begins within the youth. It also discourages those persecuted from showing their full potential. This was an issue for Zora Neale Hurston, but it did not get in her way. As she began her life in a new school, she was faced with unpleasant acts towards her. Her response is priceless. “At certain times I have no race, I am me.”(Hurston 2) Hurston is declaring herself not as one of color nor race but merely as herself. Her stand on the color of someone’s skin is clearly nonexistent to her. She simply looks past physical appearances. Hurston continues to describe the hardships she encounters because of her color but separation still does not affect the way she views herself. Therefore, reclusiveness due to the belittling of one’s self results in …show more content…
She writes: “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.”(Hurston 1) This is brought together in her paper by demonstrating how she believes that being different cannot be the cause of seclusion from society. After all, she strongly supports the fact that we are all biologically identical human beings. Through many problems she encountered, she finds herself able to disclose to us how being distinctive in looks should not make any difference as opposed to within. From this the reader can be able to comprehend and live through the hardships and troubles of one being discriminated against and become educated about racism. Again, looks should not be based on ancestral history, in fact, looks should not matter at all. We must learn to know a person before