Compare And Contrast How It Feels To Be Colored Me And Just Walk On By

Racism has been around for years. Today, many don’t believe that it is an issue anymore as it was in years past. They believe we have grown since the 1800s, where there was a separate bathroom for a “colored” person, or where there was a different water fountain, or where they had to give up their own seat on a bus for a white person. Since these days, many people have protested and fought for equality such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. In Brent Staples “Just Walk on By,” and Zora Neale Hurston’s “How it Feels to be Colored Me,” both show, through the use of rhetorical devices, how race has affected them personally and how they dealt with it in their own way, revealing the unnecessary hate and discrimination in our society.
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Staples dealt with the issues, and came up with ways to appear less threatening. “I whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more popular classical composers,” (Staples 3). He also took precautions in his appearance, where he walked, and to not walk behind someone. In this cumulative sentence, we see the struggle of being a colored person. If people weren’t hateful and judgemental, people wouldn’t have to worry about what they do all the time in order to make sure that others don’t feel threatened. Staples had to find ways to make sure that the white person in front of him doesn't think they’re being followed, to make sure that those around him feel safer, or even better, that he is safe to make sure someone doesn’t attack him because they think he is the threat. On the other hand, Hurston embraced the fact that she was a colored person. “ I am not tragically colored,” (Hurston 1). Hurston, in this simple sentence, had decided that she was not going to let being colored be a tragedy. She wasn’t going to let it stop her from being herself, and doing the things she loved to do. She wasn’t going to let the unnecessary haters and the unnecessary discrimination get in the way of her life. Hurston was not going to let being black define her and her