Race as a Social Construction
The Rwandan Genocide in the last century was a result of an African nation divided by colonists on the premise that external features directly correlate to abstract qualities such as intelligence. This later caused a power struggle when the colonists left one group in charge of the other. This classification was solely a social construction. “How It Feels to ” by Zora Hurston also demonstrates that race is a social construct in the United States.
Hurston begins her essay with the words, “I am colored” (1040), but the second paragraph demonstrates that her “coloredness” was not innate. She remembers the moment when she became colored (Hurston 1040). Before this moment, she had no race because race had been irrelevant. Hurston was from a small town in which all the residences were “colored” (Hurston 1040). Because everyone looked the same, she had no notion of race. They simply were who they were. From an anthropological standpoint, any traits they had which would distinguish them from their neighboring towns were not a result of racial differences but from belonging in the small subculture of their town.
Others, who had been outside her town and into the society which had created races, had the understanding of race. Whether or not one believed it made one different is dependent on whom one asked. But everyone who ventured outside of the town understood their label as “negro” or “colored”. When white people ventured through the town, they would see Zora dancing and singing and would pay her (Hurston 1040).
The visitors did not understand Zora’s character and reasoned that it was due to her race. Those who had to live with in the town were annoyed with her, but she was a citizen in their town (Hurston 1041). She writes that she “belongs” to the people of the town (Hurston 1041), but not in a racial sense. She also includes hotels, the county, and the generic pronoun “everybody” (Hurston 1041). It is when she leaves her community, the “everybody” to whom she belongs, that she becomes colored (Hurston 1041).
Ms. Hurston understands that there is no innate difference in being white or black as demonstrated in her analogy of the different colored bags (Hurston 1042). But she does feel most “colored” when with white people (Hurston 1041). This could be a misinterpretation of cultural differences between the general culture and the culture of her small town. If that were the case, her town would have been culturally influenced from the culture of the African slaves. But even so, after being in isolation for more than a few generations, it would become its own culture with many similarities rather than part of a whole. While Zora does understand what it is to be white or black, she also understands that it has absolutely nothing to do with the color of one’s skin but everything to do with society.
Work Cited
- Zora Hurston. “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.” The Norton Anthology of African
- American Literature. Eds. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Valerie A. Smith. Vol. 1. New York: Norton & Company, 2014. 1040-1042. Print.
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