Analysis: The Color Of Water By James Mcbride

In this excerpt from the memoir “The Color of Water” written by James McBride, after questioning his mother’s often emotional response to the mass, Mcbride finds out the reason is because one can find refuge in God because he is without judgment or hate. As most children do Mcbride first questions why his mother gets passionate during mass, as he rarely sees his mother on this kind of emotional level, and she is blunt yet effective in her response to him. Consequently, God’s quality of looking past race and social circumstances is the reason for Mcbride’s mother’s high regard for God. A recurrent reason for someone's faith in God is because of their desire to be sheltered from the cruelties of their real lives and Mcbride’s mother certainly has a lot of pain built up inside of her. Mcbride picks up on these cues even as a child
Mcbride’s mother’s distant nature obviously raises a lot of questions for her young son and just like any other affectionate child wants to get down to the reason why. Due to Mcbride’s young age he naturally would assume that his mother was crying out of sadness rather than of the jubilation that she comes into from God, and in an anecdote is curious as to “‘Why [she cries] in church?’...’Because God makes [her] happy,” (50). Mcbride theorizes the reason why she gets so heartfelt is because “...she wanted to be black like everyone else,” which gives insight as to why she may feel so polarized and thus feel the pull to God so strongly. Whenever Mcbride questions his mother about this topic she almost always responds in a fragment that highlights her reserved personality even towards her children, which also shows her strength as well. Furthermore, when Mcbride is curious as to if God is black or white his mother makes it quite clear that “‘[God] loves all people. He’s a