"which character do you identify most with"
I don't think I am most like any of the characters in the book "the color of water". I've never had to deal with any type of racism in my life. I've always lived in areas that were mainly populated by people of the same skin color as I was. "Standing out of the crowd" has never occured as an issue to me because I've always adapted, either by changing or compromising my own values with society's expectations. However, skin color is unchangeable so it is impossible for me to understand the uneasiness of racism especially against discrimination. Vancouver, Los Angeles and Taipei is the place I call home, but so do many other Asians, espcially Chinese.
However, I would identify closest with the author of “The Color of Water” because, like him, I am more of a conformist than an “activist”. Activist, I don’t mean large campaigns or parades fighting for equal rights, but that I would not confront another person even when I am verbally abused or criticized for being myself. It is already embarrassing enough to be talked about and there is no need to attract more unwanted attention to myself. What others can do, I cannot control but I can decide the attitude I use to confront these criticisms. First of all, it take courage to argue, especially if one’s perspective differs from the main stream but in the end, whatever you were arguing about, may only seem to make sense to him or herself and not to the others. Sometimes an issue can have no right or wrong answer but just a matter of differences in perspective. However, I would not have had the courage like his mother to go back to the store, confront the store keeper or fling a carton of milk at a criticism. I would have been like McBride, try to get my mom not to go back to the store and tell her to let it go. Why try to seek out trouble for myself when I it’s just easier to let things pass by. I am just as naïve and ignorant to the world as McBride was, living in the little neighborhood where everybody else around me looks like me. The mother, however, is “light-skinned” and yet has gone through a whole series of tragedy, rape, disownment, rejection and most of all, racial discrimination by the blacks. It is a malignant cycle, whites discriminating blacks, blacks having prejudice against “arrogant whites” and looking down on “poor white trash”. Unless prejudice and stereotypes can be put to rest, it is impossible for the two races to live together without suspicion and insecurity. The mother is stuck in this “cold war” between the two races, unable to side with either. McBride and I cannot possibly understand some of her actions because we have always looked like the ones around us and we have never had any criticism thrown at us for our looks and our differences.
I don't think I am most like any of the characters in the book "the color of water". I've never had to deal with any type of racism in my life. I've always lived in areas that were mainly populated by people of the same skin color as I was. "Standing out of the crowd" has never occured as an issue to me because I've always adapted, either by changing or compromising my own values with society's expectations. However, skin color is unchangeable so it is impossible for me to understand the uneasiness of racism especially against discrimination. Vancouver, Los Angeles and Taipei is the place I call home, but so do many other Asians, espcially Chinese.
However, I would identify closest with the author of “The Color of Water” because, like him, I am more of a conformist than an “activist”. Activist, I don’t mean large campaigns or parades fighting for equal rights, but that I would not confront another person even when I am verbally abused or criticized for being myself. It is already embarrassing enough to be talked about and there is no need to attract more unwanted attention to myself. What others can do, I cannot control but I can decide the attitude I use to confront these criticisms. First of all, it take courage to argue, especially if one’s perspective differs from the main stream but in the end, whatever you were arguing about, may only seem to make sense to him or herself and not to the others. Sometimes an issue can have no right or wrong answer but just a matter of differences in perspective. However, I would not have had the courage like his mother to go back to the store, confront the store keeper or fling a carton of milk at a criticism. I would have been like McBride, try to get my mom not to go back to the store and tell her to let it go. Why try to seek out trouble for myself when I it’s just easier to let things pass by. I am just as naïve and ignorant to the world as McBride was, living in the little neighborhood where everybody else around me looks like me. The mother, however, is “light-skinned” and yet has gone through a whole series of tragedy, rape, disownment, rejection and most of all, racial discrimination by the blacks. It is a malignant cycle, whites discriminating blacks, blacks having prejudice against “arrogant whites” and looking down on “poor white trash”. Unless prejudice and stereotypes can be put to rest, it is impossible for the two races to live together without suspicion and insecurity. The mother is stuck in this “cold war” between the two races, unable to side with either. McBride and I cannot possibly understand some of her actions because we have always looked like the ones around us and we have never had any criticism thrown at us for our looks and our differences.
1 comment:
Well said. The example related to the mother's courage is especially effective. wo
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