Zora Neale Hurston in "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" describes
how her image of herself changed as other people's perceptions of
color was imposed upon her throughout her life. She writes about how
she accepts who she is, not as a color, black, but all that she is made
up of. Black was how other people perceived her and was not as much
of a problem for her it as it was for others.
Up until the age of thirteen, Hurston lived in a town that was
"exclusively a colored town"(1766). She knew of little difference
between the skin color of whites and blacks, she wrote, "...white
people differed from colored to me in that they rode through town and
never lived there"(1767). At the age of thirteen she went to school in
Jacksonville, she then discovered how people outside her town
viewed her. She states, "I was not Zora of Orange County any more.
I was a little colored girl"(1767). She felt this change effected the way
she viewed her appearance, as well as inside her, she wrote " In my
heart as well as in the mirror. I became a fast brown..."(1767).
Hurston does not think that being black makes any difference to
her she writes, "I do not mind at all"(1767). She feels that the world is
for those who are strong enough to embrace life no matter what color
they are. She thinks of life as a game where it more exciting to get
what you want, not fighting to keep what you have (1768).
Hurston feels the benefits of being black, such as when she sits in
the jazz club, The New World Cabaret, the music
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