color+of+water+essay

Omar Santos The Color of water

In the book The color of water by James McBride was abut a boy who was very confused about him. The way that made him think that way was because his mother was white and his father was black. He didn't know how he can judge himself because during his life period there was alot of racism going around and he didn't know how he would be treated for being half black. For example “Black males are closely associated with crime in America, not with white Jewish mothers, and I could not imagine a police officer buying my story as I stood in front of the Jewish temple saying, “Uh yeah, my grandmother was the rabbi here, you know It’s basically stating that the police are stereotypical against blacks based upon the crime rate in America and there automatically expecting saint like behavior from the white Jewish mothers. It wasn't easy for his mother Ruth McBride to grow up. she came to the united states when she was two and had a father who really didn't care about his children. For example when they moved to Suffolk, Virginia Ruth never had free time for herself. She always had to work in her fathers store which he brought when he first came to the united states. She would always behind the counter and if there was no one there should would have that time to do her homework. In my opinion Ruth was a good parent to her children. She always wanted them to have a good educate which was hard back in the days for blacks because in school there was much racism going around. She didn't want her kids to go through what she went through when she was a little kid. For me Ruth was a strong person who continue to live her life as if nothing had happened to her. She really didn't show in her imagine that she was ever abused by anyone and also had an abortion. The reason she moved to new york city with her aunt was because her mother found out that she was having an afraid with a black male named peter which left her pregnant and her aunt made her get an abortion. So many things had happened to her when she was younger that its surprising how she still a lovable person. Comparing Ruth and James can be related in different ways. For Ruth she was a finding a way to forget about the things that had happened to her in the past and James was looking for himself. What i mean was that he wanted to find out many things about his background and his identity of who he was. When someone would have asked him if he was black or white it was confusing to him because he was both and he liked being both. But what made him really confused was how black people were treated before and they way they were looked at. For example the school that James went to had only like 6 students that were black and the rest were white. In a quote saying “Bob was one of sixteen blacks who first integrated his high school, in mount Gilead, north Carolina, where my father was born”(pg 254). This quote had told how his life was at the school he was at. I think that he felt different from the other people and that might make him that think by being black was a bad thing and it was a crime. In a quote saying “mommy took great pride in our relationship to god.” You can see that Ruth was a religious person which meant that she relied on god a lot. But even tho she was religious it was’t easy reaching up 11 kids plus James. James who wasn’t a good kid at first in his teenage life did many things to hurt her. For example he did drugs and drink but it wasn’t like this when he moved to Delaware. He wanted a fresh start and wanted to make his life better. He started to seek answers about his mother past and examine what he can do in order to discover himself.