How It Feels To Be Colored Me By Zora Neale Hurston

Discrimination

In "How It Feels to Be Colored Me," Zora Neale Hurston describes her experiences as an African American woman in early 20th Century America. She describes people as different colored bags, all of which are filled with the random bits of things that make up life. Zora’s claim is valid because I think everyone should remain themselves regardless of where or what situation you are in. Similarly, I was discriminated against based on my race since I did not sound like a native speaker. Therefore, I felt a little uncomfortable when surrounded by white people.

I agree with Zora’s idea that everyone should remain themselves. In the last paragraph of her essay, Hurston uses a wonderful metaphor to summarize these conclusions based on

her own life experiences and attitudes. She begins by saying she feels as if she is just a "brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall." Next to her are many other bags, and they are "white, red and yellow." She explains her idea this way: Pour out the contents, and there is discovered a jumble of small things priceless and worthless. On the ground before you is the jumble it held-so much like the jumble in the bags, could they be emptied, that all might be dumped in a single heap and the bags refilled without altering the content of any greatly. A bit of colored glass more or less would not matter. Perhaps that is how the Great Stuffer of Bags filled them in the first place. This metaphor suggests that we are all the same in this case, we are all bags; though we may have a different color on the outside, the "stuff" in our bags that makes up who we are is not really all that different than the "stuff" that is found in anyone else's bag. This metaphor gives us a wonderful picture of how little skin color matters and how human beings are all essentially the same, not different.
Recording to “Sometimes it is the other way around. A white person is set down in our midst, but the contrast is just as sharp for me” which relates to my own experience regarding the psychology class. Never before have I been exposed to how it feels to be a “minority” in society. In the class, I was one of few yellow students and had the opportunity to take in how it feels to be outnumbered racially. The phrase about how someone does not know how it feels until you are put in that position is true. This class has been an eye-opening experience for me to see how African-Americans, Hispanics and all other minority races in the United States must feel. Though I was in the minority, I did not feel any less proud or ashamed of whom I am. As Zora says, “I remain myself”. In my opinion, everyone should remain themselves. Regardless of where or what situation you are in, you should never be shy away from who they truly are. Regardless of race, gender, religion, or whatever else could distinguish someone from the “crowd”, we should be ourselves. As long as you are individual, you should be viewed with respect and as an equal.
Unfortunately, it is human nature to be suspicious and intolerant of another group of people just because of their differences whether they are physical, like skin color, age or religious.

People are afraid of those who are different from themselves. Similar to Zora, I was discriminated against based on my race since I did not sound like a native speaker. I was discriminated against when I was looking for a job last year. I was not a native speaker that lots of places did not want to hire me because they thought I was not good at speaking English. In their mind, they either feel like I am not good at English or they feel like I do not have the necessary skills to have a job. I was applying for a bunch of different jobs in restaurants and a lot of time they said, “You are not a native speaker.” I remembered that when I was about 17 years old, I applied to be a waitress. I spent most of time on preparing for the interview and the resume. I felt confident and thought I must succeed to be a waitress. But on that day, they just saw my resume and felt I was not a native speaker. Also, they thought I did not have the ability to take care of the guests and provide customer service. In addition, they treated me differently from other people. Although I was not born on the America, but I can speak English fluently. That was the reason why they did not hire me. I felt upset but did not get completely mad at them, because I understood I was not a native speaker, but I did explain to

them that if they trained me, I would try my best to learn and speak like native speaker. Sometimes I felt angry and sad when I was discriminated against, but sometimes I persuaded myself to open the mind because I knew that there are lots of people who try to keep the equality of opportunity, and there are many organizations that are willing to help people who are discriminated against.
Discrimination has been around for many years. We should not hate someone for their differences. If you always hate someone in your life with expressing such hatred, you are hurting that individual more than you could possibly know. These things can have a bad mental effect on these people who have low self-esteem. They might end up being hateful and spiteful towards other people, because they do not know how to be respectful towards them. Discrimination is a virus that has spread relentlessly throughout the world, unfortunately I do not think we will be able to truly stop it, but we should try our best to reduce it.