Zora Neale Hurston On Identity Essay

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After moving from the predominantly colored town of Eatonville to the strong white background of Jacksonville, Zora Neale Hurston undergoes a change in her perspective on identity and her opinions on her race. Unlike most colored people at the time, Hurston states that her past does not “register depression with [her]. Slavery is sixty years in the past.” She clearly explains that she does not allow the struggles and hardships of her people's past to prohibit her from being the best she can be. However, Hurston admits that she feels colored only when she is surrounded by a white majority.
While watching a jazz performance with a white person, she observes the sharp differences between herself and this other person. She recognizes that “he is far away and [she sees] him but dimly across the ocean and the …show more content…
However, during her experience at the jazz concert, she felt the separation of races because of the variety of perspectives on the music. It seems as if Hurston is contradicting herself by allowing a music preference to make her feel colored when she recognized that everyone is different inside along with outside. Hurston makes a wonderful effort to be righteous and recognize that color is not an effective system for classifying individuals, but it is hard to believe that she would take the person’s opinion so harshly if he/she were also colored. Considering that Hurston is not angry towards people who believe in stereotypes, it is easy to believe that she did not intentionally mean to judge her counterpart simply because of skin color. It has been proven that belief in stereotypes and prejudice notions can be unconscious. Since Hurston attempts to be objective and colorblind, recognizing that racist actions may be independent from their consciousness could strengthen her argument
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