Analysis Of James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man

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AMBIVALENTLY COLORED
“Sometimes it seems to me that I have never really been a Negro, that I have been only a privileged spectator of their inner life; at other times I feel that I have been a coward, a deserter, and I am possessed by a strange longing for my mother 's people.” Thus encapsulates the painful dilemma of being of mixed race in America of James Weldon Johnson in his Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. From thinking of himself as white because of the lightness of his skin, to finding that in fact he was colored, and the constant struggle to perhaps deny it, to the peculiar pride that sometimes reared its head and caused him to embrace his Negro blood, his narrative revealed his inner conflict and wavering ambivalence towards who …show more content…

“Red Head” was unabashedly white and “Shiny” was just as unswervingly black. Yet these two became his only close friends when he went to public school. But when he unwittingly discovered that he was colored, the full impact of the discovery was almost painful in intensity. He spoke of his mother “suffering” for him as he pleaded with her, “Mother, mother, tell me am I a nigger?” As his mother confessed to him that she was not white, for him a dreadful “chasm” opened up right in front of his very …show more content…

“And so I have often lived through that hour, that day, that week, in which was wrought the miracle of my transition from one world into another; for I did indeed pass into another world. From that time I looked out through other eyes, my thoughts were colored, my words dictated, my actions limited by one dominating, all-pervading idea which constantly increased in force and weight until I finally realized in it a great, tangible fact.” He was a colored man! And with that knowledge came angst and fear, pleasure and pride, denial and acceptance. He discovered a need to weigh every word spoken for underlying meanings that may or may not be there. However, he admitted that the change did not occur so much in the attitude of his friends at school towards him. It was his own attitude towards them that had altered. Suddenly his view of the world was colored by suspicion and reserve.
Moreover, he found that where he had previously been indifferent towards the colored children in school, now that he found out that he was just like them, he hated it, “I had a very strong aversion to being classed with them.” Rather than embracing this heritage, he refuted it. And so he withdrew into himself and found comfort in reading. It was through his reading that he discovered “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Negro side of him was awakened. “It opened my eyes as to who and what I was and what

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