Racism And Discrimination In The Color Of Water

After the American Civil War and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment there was no longer a question about slavery, but instead a question about race. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, ideally, set a level playing field by granting African-Americans citizenship and the right to vote. Instead, the rise of Jim Crow laws in the South completely negated these two amendments. Plessy v. Ferguson solidified legal segregation using the concept of “separate but equal” until it was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Sparked by racism and discrimination, the Civil Rights Movement worked for equality and was extremely successful. However, their work has not solved the race problem as a whole. As Dalton Conley says:

The Civil …show more content…
The basis for colorblindness is that if someone doesn’t acknowledge race, they can not be racist (Nobel). In The Color of Water by James McBride, he recounts childhood conversations with his mother saying, “When I asked her if she was white, she’d say, ‘No, I’m light-skinned,’ and change the subject again” (McBride 21). This seems to be a simple response from mother to child. The fact is that this conversations, or lack of, can lead to confusions. Confusions that are apparent later on, “ ‘Are we black or white?’ I asked my brother David one day. ‘I’m black,’ said David . . . . ‘But you may be a Negro . . .’ ” (McBride 93), as can be seen in this conversation between McBride and his brother. This wouldn’t be a problem if race was actually ignorable, but it’s not (Nobel). Race is one of few things that bring a multitude of people …show more content…
Race connects a multitude of people from around the world from the past, present, and future. Race gives people an identity that no one can take away from them, but “colorblindness” can block that identity from the sight of others. As McBride reminisced on his past he wrote: “I thought it would be easier if we were just one color, . . . as a grown man, I feel privileged to have come from two worlds” (McBride 103). McBride is referring to his African-American and Jewish heritage. Everyone has their own “two worlds” and no one wants that taken away. Monnica T. Williams agrees and elaborates by saying that not only does it imply shame to a culture someone is born in, but that it also makes race a taboo. She then explains that once people can’t talk about race, they can not understand. Once they can not understand it, they can not fix the multitude of preexisting racial problems