Title: How It Feels to Be Colored Me Summary & Analysis | LitCharts
Headings: How It Feels to Be Colored Me
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How It Feels to Be Colored Me Summary & Analysis

Content: Active Themes
Hurston describes her experience now as an adventure and a grand opportunity for glory. As an African-American, she’s viewed by whites as a representative of her race, which raises the stakes for her conduct and achievement. The scrutiny of white America creates a “national” stage on which Hurston can hold her performance. Here, the theme of performance is directly invoked as a way to understand race relations in the American 1920s. Whereas white people get the privilege of being treated as individuals whose conduct doesn’t bear on their larger racial group, a single African-American’s behavior will necessarily stand in for that of all African-Americans in the eyes of white America. Although this is generally understood as harmful discrimination, Hurston considers the attention positive and the wild swings of fortune exciting. Given her fruitful experience with a white audience as a child in Eatonville, she feels ready for the challenge. Active Themes
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On the other hand, her “ white neighbor ,” and white America as a whole, must bear the historical guilt of slavery. “ Brown specters” and “dark ghosts” trouble the white neighbor as he tries to go about his life. His future task is to try to keep as much as he can of what he already has.