How It Feels To Be Colored Me

Zora Neale Hurston’s How It Feels To Be Colored Me, is a narrative about how she is labeled depending on her location. The contrast of complexions and her family history plays a great deal to her identity to everyone in her area except her. Her labels do not hurt the author but rather open her eyes.

Her audience develops an understanding for what labels mean. She shows African American people that they should never accept or get depressed over any label they are given, while informing other races that they are not different nor superior to her race and no race should be labeled such. She writes, “No, I do not weep at the world- I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife,” showing her audience that their is no point in weeping about other people's opinions of you on a subject that should have no negative meaning (115). Everyone can benefit from her purpose.

Using a metaphor, she explains her purpose quite well. She uses the idea of colored bags with similar contents to show her audience that all races are the same on the inside. In her conclusion, she further illustrates how they are all similar: “that all might be dumped in a single heap and the bags refilled without altering the content of any greatly,” (117). She succeeds in showing her audience how people of different races have a lot in common.

In 1928 when the essay was published, there were still racial tensions as rights were being given to African Americans. The second Ku Klux Klan was well developed at this time. Hurston, living in Florida, lived in a place of racial bias and segregation. She lived independent from white people and wrote her story with the description of this kind of life. She made us think, connect, and wonder about the purpose behind the idea of a label knowing the author was known as herself in one place and a colored girl in another. Hurston paints a picture using ethos, pathos, and metaphors so her audience can feel the meaning behind her words just like she did the music of the orchestra.

African American man making a statement in a dangerous public area to demonstrate the importance and his passion

Photo: Joshua. Big_18ad7fd21c. 2014. GettyImages, Missouri.