Title: How It Feels to Be Colored Me Themes | GradeSaver
Headings: How It Feels to Be Colored Me Themes
How It Feels to Be Colored Me
by Zora Neale Hurston
How It Feels to Be Colored Me Themes
Race as a Social Construct
Performance
Racialized Public Spaces
Rejection of Victimhood

Content: In a setting where racial separation is stark, the Black residents sit on their porches or hide behind curtains while white Northern tourists drive past in cars. Hurston finds herself in another racialized public space when she is sent to boarding school in Jacksonville, and, once living among white people, begins to think of herself as "colored." Barnard College is another racialized public space: One of only a few Black people on the mostly white campus, Hurston feels like "a dark rock surged upon" in a white-water river. The New World Cabaret inverts the racial dynamic, but Hurston feels her race nonetheless when her white friend doesn't respond to the jazz music with the same emotional depth she does. Ultimately, Hurston shows how certain physical spaces contribute to ideas of racial difference, further supporting her belief that racial difference arises out of social contexts and not biology. Rejection of Victimhood
Even though Hurston acknowledges that she sometimes experiences discrimination for her race and that her grandparents were slaves, Hurston rejects the expectation that she should see herself as a victim of racism. Stating that she is "not tragically colored," Hurston seeks to set herself apart from "the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all but about it." Hurston prefers to identify with "the strong" who she sees as excelling in life. Adopting a confidence and optimism about her abilities to make her way in the world, Hurston encapsulates her rejection of victimhood and embrace of ambition in the statement: "