Martin KangeEnglish 23083 March 2014Mrs. KeckHow it Feels to Be Colored Me In 1928, when Zora Neale Hurston wrote "How it Feels to Be Colored Me," it wasn't very common for a person to talk freely about how racial discrimination wasn't bothersome to African Americans and certainly didn't reflect the how most had felt about racial discrimination. Hurston talked about growing up in Eatonville, Florida, and how “to me white people differed from colored people only in that they passed through town and never lived there” (Hurston, par. 4). In this essay she explains how she doesn't let all these injustices continue to bother her, whether they happened in her past or present, she doesn't let these injustices stop her from living a virtuous life. Hurston profiles her life as a young black girl who took on a positive attitude in life after her father sent her to stay with her brother. It was his introduction to the white world. Eatonville was an all-black town, so Hurston never got to experience what it was like to be discriminated against because of her ethnicity until she was thirteen when she had to move to Jacksonville, Florida. He had to go to school in Jacksonville, Florida, because there was a family problem. Being in Jacksonville, you start to become more attuned to the racial discrimination that was so much a part of our lives in that era. She talks about how she doesn't let the discrimination she is exposed to affect her in a negative way and uses it to her advantage to make her a stronger person than she was before moving to Jacksonville. He uses figurative language to show what he thinks about the injustices between the two races. An example he uses is wh...... middle of paper ......ows that just because your skin color is different from someone's doesn't mean you know what that person is like. If all the contents of each bag were emptied and then refilled again, we would not know which bag contained what. This suggested that different races of people varied in their human character and personality. For her, there was more to life than letting little things, like words people might say to her, get to her and make her feel bad for her. life only because of the color of his skin over which he had no control. The important thing is that she managed to maintain her identity throughout the entire situation. Her essay was her way of showing that she had pride in herself and also her African American heritage. Throughout her writing, Hurston was able to challenge people to try to think outside the box and not be so naive.