Summary Of How It Feels To Be Colored Me

“How it Feels to Be Colored Me” is an inciteful look at the sense of self that Zora Hurston feels. Hurstons experiences can be explained by Allport’s in-group theory. Due to the nature of the times that Hurston lived in, people normally kept within their own race group. Most neighborhoods at the time were either predominantly black or white. Hurston seems to not be bothered by this but rather, is astonished by the fact that people allow this to happen. She goes on to say “Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company!”. This statement clearly shows the confidence that she has in living her life as her true self despite her race. Applying Allports theory, you could say there are multiple groups. Hurston falls into the in-group of her race and the people of her town. The outgroups to this would be the whites that travel through. Along with those groups there are also the people of Harlem when she travels there. Though she doesn’t allow the segregation around her disrupt her own sense of self, she can’t always completely ignore it.
Fortunately for Hurston she doesn’t seem to allow this to bother her much. She begins by saying “I remember the very day I became colored”. By saying this she separates herself from her race. She treats it as if it is a state you reach and not something she was born into. The segregation around her creates the in and out group of blacks and whites but Hurston, although consciously aware of this divide, separates herself from it by not allowing it to skew her identity. Being able to separate herself from the on goings of her surroundings ultimately allowed Hurston to mold her true self and live her life to its