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How It Feels to Be Colored Me

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"How It Feels to Be Colored Me" (1928) is an essay by Zora Neale Hurston published in The World Tomorrow, described as a "white journal sympathetic to Harlem Renaissance writers".[1][2]

Coming from an all-black community in Eatonville, Florida, she lived comfortably due to her father holding high titles, John Hurston was a local Baptist preacher and the mayor of Eatonville. After the death of her mother in 1904, at the age of thirteen, Hurston was forced to live with relatives in Jacksonville, Florida who worked as domestic servants. In her essay Hurston references that she felt "most colored when thrown against a sharp white background". Eatonville and Jacksonville became the main settings for the essay.

Summary

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Downtown Jacksonville in 1914

Hurston begins the essay about her childhood in the town of Eatonville, Florida. She describes watching white people from her front porch, and dances and sings for them in return for money. Hurston becomes comfortable with her surroundings in the small town of Eatonville. At the age of thirteen her mother passes away and Hurston was sent away to leave her home in Jacksonville to attend a boarding school. At this point, Hurston is referred to as just another “colored girl.”[3] She then elaborates how Eatonville was a safe zone for her since it was considered a “colored town”.[3]: 358  As time progressed, she realized the differences between herself and others surrounding her, like her skin and the different personalities in her friends. She begins to feel a sense of isolation and loneliness. Although, Hurston claims that she does not consider herself "tragically colored" but a regular human being, "At times I have no race, I am just me".[3]: 359  She mentions her experience at a jazz club with a white friend, where through the music she expresses the racial differences and distance between their lives. She concludes her essay acknowledging the difference but refuses the idea of separation. "I have no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored".[3]: 360  She explains that if the racial roles were reversed, and blacks discriminated against whites, the outcome is the same for a white person’s experience amongst black people. In her final paragraph, she compares herself to a brown paper bag filled with random bits, just as everyone around her is a different colored paper bag filled with different small bits and pieces that make each unique. Hurston concludes that every race is essential and special to the "Great Stuffer of Bags".[3] She encourages one not to focus on race, but one’s self-awareness and the similarities we all have in common.

References

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  1. ^ Johnson, Barbara (1985). "Thresholds of Difference: Structures of Address in Zora Neale Hurston". Critical Inquiry. 12 (1): 278–289. doi:10.1086/448330. JSTOR 1343471. S2CID 161122749.
  2. ^ Wald, Priscilla (1990). "Becoming Colored: The Self- Authorized Language of Difference in Zora Neale Hurston". American Literary History. 2 (1): 79–100. doi:10.1093/alh/2.1.79. JSTOR 489811.
  3. ^ a b c d e Gilbert and Gubar, Sandra and Susan (2007). The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. The Traditions in English: Early Twentieth Century through Contemporary. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. pp. 358–361.
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