Racism and Society -- Literature Response
Race and Identity as Functions of Societal Labeling and Expectations
Two pieces of 20th century literature exemplify the alienation felt by African-Americans in the United States. One of those works, authored by Zora Neal Hurston in 1928, is the essay How It Feels to Be Colored Me, which vividly illustrates the degree to which the identity of a black person in the pre-Civil Rights era was defined by white society. More importantly, Hurston's work also illustrates how much of a conflict and perpetual struggle African-Americans experienced internally if they tried to maintain their own self-identity. Whereas many blacks of that era bought into the expectations foisted on them by white society, others resisted this artificial identity that was imposed on them. Hurston clearly was shaped by this dynamic and bitterly resisted the self-identity that she was expected to have accepted and reflected to get along in her society.
One of the mechanisms that black people used to cope with racial stereotypes was, apparently, to downplay their ties to their African-American heritage. Hurston makes a reference to this when she writes that she could "offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief" meaning that it was commonplace for blacks to present themselves as part Native American to escape some of the racism against blacks. The author recalls the "very day that I became colored," when she was first sent to school in Jacksonville: she writes that she "left Eatonville, the town of the oleanders, a Zora." But when she "… disembarked from the river-boat at Jacksonville, she was no more. It seemed that I had suffered a sea change. I was not Zora of Orange County any more; I was now a little colored girl." Obviously, the author had not "changed" during the trip to Orange County; nevertheless, the influence of external perceptions and characterizations about her because of her skin color were so important that she says, "I found it out in certain ways. In my heart as well as in the mirror, I became a fast brown -- warranted not to rub nor run." By that, Hurston means that she realized that she was now perceived not as just a thirteen-year-old girl named Zora; now, she was, more than anything else, a colored person. The reference to being warranted not to rub or run means that there was obviously nothing that she could possibly do or say to overcome the overwhelming significance of her skin color as the predominant aspect of her as a person that defined the way that others regarded her.
Later, she writes that "Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the granddaughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me. Slavery is sixty years in the past. The operation was successful and the patient is doing well, thank you. The terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said 'On the line!' The Reconstruction said 'Get set!' And the generation before said 'Go!' I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep. Slavery is the price I paid for civilization, and the choice was not with me. It is a bully adventure and worth all that I have paid through my ancestors for it." That passage suggests that the author is reminded at all times that she is, more than anything else that could possibly define her in the eyes of others, colored. The implication is that some people remind her of her heritage to keep her from hoping for too much out of life while others may remind her of her heritage to remind her of the anger she should rightfully own. She resists both suggestions, preferring to consider herself fortunate to have benefitted from the progress achieved by her ancestors while, at the same time, not allowing her racial heritage to define who she is in her own mind, nor, more importantly, allow it to limit her goals and aspirations in life.
Ultimately, Hurston would live her life simultaneously resisting the negative influences of those who expected nothing of her by virtue of her race and the influence of the anger toward mainstream white America that she had every right to experience....
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