Zora Neale Hurston Racism

Since the start of the Civil War, the United States has slowly been winning the uphill battle for racial equality. It is easy to look at authors such as Zora Neale Hurston and Brent Staples and wonder why there are problems with racist behaviors in our country when we seemingly have come so far. While Staples blames the system for this and not the people doing the acts, Hurston does not condemn anyone, but the implies black community turns themselves into victims. Although there are things that are better ignored than attacked, systematic racism cannot be overcome without calling attention to it. In the essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” Zora Neale Hurston explores the concept of her racial identity and self-pride. Hurston begins her essay

by describing her early childhood in Eatonville, Florida, through narratives describing moments when she welcomed tourists, sang in the streets, and observed everything from her front porch. She describes herself as “everyone’s Zora,” free of any categorization or discrimination. This all changed when she began to attend a boarding school in Jacksonville where she immediately became a “little colored girl.”   Hurston disassociates herself with “the sobbing school of Negrohood” that requires her to incessantly lay claim to past and present injustices and “whose feelings are all hurt by it”. Although she acknowledges times when she feels her racial difference, Hurston does not believe herself to be “tragically colored.” Even when she feels the most colored, at Barnard, she emerges from it unchanged like “a dark rock surged upon.” She remembers feeling different the most in a jazz club with her white friend. While she was on a figurative roller-coaster ride hearing the jazz orchestra, her friend is completely unmoved. Hurston concludes the essay by comparing all people to different colored bags all filled with different items that are essentially interchangeable. She conveys with her metaphor that all people are similar regardless of race and that God, “the Great Stuffer of Bags”  made them this way in the first place. The author fails to address the disadvantages to being a black person and how to change it. By glossing over her struggles and making them appear justifiable, Hurston causes the struggles of racism and prejudice to appear excusable.

By growing up in a community where she was largely shielded from racism, Hurston was able to establish a sense of self-pride that many black people lacked. While Hurston undoubtedly experiences many struggles due to her race, she lacks sympathy for her fellow African-Americans that experienced far worse. This acceptance of racist behavior is seemingly mirrored in Brent Staples’s essay “Just Walk on By,”  but it is clear that Staples and Hurston do not agree on certain points.  Although Staples  does not blame any specific person for his struggles, he does not make light of them. Where Hurston might minimize his writings  and say he is from “the sobbing school of Negrohood,” Staples would respond that he is not playing the victim, he is afraid for his life and change is necessary. In his essay, Staples says “I only need to [be near a]scared and armed person [to encounter] the possibility of death.” Hurston’s lighthearted metaphors and colloquial style are endearing and captivating, but, they turn attention away from the problem of  racism as a system and turns it into something that every black person needs to “get over.” It is important to move forward and ignore past injustices but, if people do not call attention to systematic injustices, these

actions will only be repeated. Staples’s non-aggressive method of pointing out the flaws of racial profiling allows one to consider the consequences of their racist actions without feeling attacked. Without blaming the people involved, he still describes himself as “surprised, embarrassed and dismayed all at once.” Conversely, Hurston accepts her struggles and does not consider them unfair. She describes herself as “astonished” when she is discriminated against but does not act on her feelings and lets it go. In her refusing to acknowledge the problem of the systematic prejudice against the African American community, Hurston enables the racist system. The race toward equality is only slowed by those who ignore the problem.