Throughout James McBride’s autobiography in “The Color of Water: A Back Man’s Tribute to His White Mother”, he struggles to find his identity and growing up. His experiences and curiosity can be viewed differently. James McBride’s childhood challenges your origins, multiplicity, neutrality, self and world.
Ruth McBride, the mother of James McBride expresses his mother childhood throughout the book. He shows the hardships she went through being pregnant at 15 with a black man, having a father who sexually assaulted her, and a family who didn’t support her decisions. Not only did she try to escape her parents and their ideas, she also hid her past from her children. Whenever they would ask questions about their mother past she would try to avoid …show more content…
On page 51, Ruth McBride stated “God is the color of water. Water doesn’t have a color”. This quote means god is categorized as black or white, god isn’t a race he is like everyone. When questions about race occur we have the option to ignore them if they make one uncomfortable. In the cases with Ruth, she tended to try to avoid the race questions with her son. Today society is very much different from before because there isn’t really much racism going around. Couples are allowed to have interracial marriages. When answer surveys about race/ethnicity, there is an option that says preferred not to answer. Today society, we don’t hire someone based on race but what they bring to the …show more content…
Her father didn’t really let her associate with “gentiles”. Ruth ended up having a friendship with one of the “gentiles” named Frances. Ruth would sneak out in order to hang out with her. Ruth lived a childhood where her father controlled everything. Tateh would make her wear the cheapest hand me down clothes and work in the store. Ruth did everything he asked until she was about to marry Dennis. Tateh stated she would be disowned if she married to him. Ruth disregarded her father and married him anyway. My life has been controlled by my parents. I was really oblivious to everyone and everything. It was until high school I was able to open my eyes and slowly start to discover who I really am. Compared to Ruth we both started to realize what is important to us around the same
Ruth McBride, the mother of James McBride expresses his mother childhood throughout the book. He shows the hardships she went through being pregnant at 15 with a black man, having a father who sexually assaulted her, and a family who didn’t support her decisions. Not only did she try to escape her parents and their ideas, she also hid her past from her children. Whenever they would ask questions about their mother past she would try to avoid …show more content…
On page 51, Ruth McBride stated “God is the color of water. Water doesn’t have a color”. This quote means god is categorized as black or white, god isn’t a race he is like everyone. When questions about race occur we have the option to ignore them if they make one uncomfortable. In the cases with Ruth, she tended to try to avoid the race questions with her son. Today society is very much different from before because there isn’t really much racism going around. Couples are allowed to have interracial marriages. When answer surveys about race/ethnicity, there is an option that says preferred not to answer. Today society, we don’t hire someone based on race but what they bring to the …show more content…
Her father didn’t really let her associate with “gentiles”. Ruth ended up having a friendship with one of the “gentiles” named Frances. Ruth would sneak out in order to hang out with her. Ruth lived a childhood where her father controlled everything. Tateh would make her wear the cheapest hand me down clothes and work in the store. Ruth did everything he asked until she was about to marry Dennis. Tateh stated she would be disowned if she married to him. Ruth disregarded her father and married him anyway. My life has been controlled by my parents. I was really oblivious to everyone and everything. It was until high school I was able to open my eyes and slowly start to discover who I really am. Compared to Ruth we both started to realize what is important to us around the same