Analysis Of Zora Hurston's How It Feels To Be Colored Me

The grandeur of Emerson’s claim is blinding and attractive to anyone who is left discouraged with the kicks life has scolded them with. An individual’s manhood, whether by their own doing or the doings of others, can be stripped from them and crumpled up. Only then to be tossed into a crudely labeled box inscribed “Not my problem” followed with society’s address. The individual’s incompetencies, now carelessly shipped and cast at the doorstep of society, become unreachable, and far from fixed. The sender then awaits its return, repackaged, rightly labeled, and brightly bound. But the package never comes.

Who is to say that society is at fault for the package’s dormant activity when the sender of the package never included a return address?

They either fill them or refuse them. To Zora Hurston, the former wasn not an option. In her essay “How It Feels to be Colored Me”, Hurston notes that she remembers “the very day that [she] became colored” (par 2). She was not oblivious to the fact that her skin was darker than those around her, but however she was oblivious that her skin color mattered to some people. It mattered where she ate, where she used the bathroom, where she walked, where she belonged. It mattered--all because her skin was two tones darker. Society must be blamed for allowing Zora to view her skin as more than just a color, but society must also receive acclaim for the strength that Zora acquired while fighting its discrimination. She proclaimed, “I am not tragically colored...I do not weep at the world” (Hurston, par 6). Zora knows that neither she or the world are something to be ashamed of. The hatred she faced, the heads she turned, the heartless remarks she ignored, none of it mattered to her as long as she held onto her worth. Most would not view this as a time to shine, but Zora was strong enough to see it as such. Thus, when society is viewed through eyes of the strong, it can be utilized as a great asset to personal success. How then can society be conspiring against mankind? Men must take society as it is, and use it for what it can