Zora Hurston's How It Feels to be Colored Me: A Perspective of Slavery

“My burden is my purpose. Without it, I wouldn't be.” — Solange nicole “How it feels to be Colored Me" by Zora Hurston takes the reader on a journey through the life of a African American when slavery had just become legalized. This story sends out a strong message of how to overcome the difficult obstacles that we all face in life. I feel like this essay applies to my life in many ways, being an athlete at a d1 college and also moving so far from home I can feel her pain.

Whenever Zora was thirteen she moved to a new city that was mixed with color people and whites. She had to learn immediately how to adapt into the new society and be a strong women at such a young age. Right from the start she kept her head up, not letting the discrimination get to her. She decided to go into everything with the right attitude. That the world would not conquer her but she would conquer the world.

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I can relate with this in my life. In the last year I have moved from my home in New Orleans, Louisiana where I have lived for almost all of my life. Leaving my friends and family to come to school here at Oral Roberts. This decision was not easy, leaving the people and the comfort of being around the same people for so long. But I knew that God had bigger plans for me in my life than just staying there for the rest of my life, and I knew if I wanted to go out into the world that I would have to go here first and then later branch out.

I relate to her in this situation because I understand what it feels like to be thrown into a new environment and have to work yourself up to be who you were called to be. She soon was bombarded with discrimination, being a minority in her town. She saw this as an opportunity, one of the most inspiring lines from this work of literature I believe is "I am thrilled to know that for any act of mine, I shall get twice as much praise or twice as much blame." She saw every chance she had as an opportunity to make something of herself, to be the first of something or to create an new movement that was never possible before until now. She had the burning desire in her heart to be great and nothing could stop her. I can relate to this in my life because I am an athlete. I play baseball here at ORU and sometimes it becomes difficult trying to get involved with the student body because they look at you differently than just a regular student here on campus. Sometimes since we are athlete's people do not give us the best reputation and talk about us in a discriminatory way. I do not see this negatively, but as a chance to show them who we really are and that we are just as much as a student as they are. I have an opportunity to reach some of the people that the regular students may never be able to reach because of my position and where I am. I thank God for giving me this opportunity and pray for his strength to guide me in all that I do.

Towards the end of the story she brings out another line that I believe is strong an powerful "At certain times I have no race. I am me." Her self-confidence is something that I look to strive towards. Through all of the haze and mist of her life she still knows that her identity is not bound up in the color of her skin but in the contents of her heart. She knew her identity and was not self-conscious one bit. How could she be? She was an African American with a plan in a time where the country was so strongly against people of her race. I strive to be like this. In the world today we can get so caught up in what we wear and the latest trends, and yet people are more self-conscious than ever. I struggle with it at times, as I know most people do. Every day of my life I worry about what I am going to put on for the day and how I look. Does it really matter though? We should be judged on our personality and the love we have for people. What is on the inside is the most important thing. Too often we get caught up in meaningless things that we could live.

In conclusion this story really taught me how to better my life. Women who lived in so much pain and hardship, but from the story she is a conqueror, overcomer and leader. This story shows how much having the right attitude and looking at life from the right perspective can change the outcome of your life. This story could easily be a sob story about women who went through hard times and how harsh America is, but it is not. Instead it is a story of inspiration captivating anyone who reads it and allowing them to be able to learn to have the sense of hope and courage that she did to overcome any obstacle.