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Black White And Jewish Rebecca Walker Summary

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The autobiography Black White and Jewish by Rebecca Walker is about her experiences growing up feeling split between two worlds. Rebecca Walker reminisces on her memories from childhood to high school being a “copper-colored” girl during the Civil Rights Era. Her parents married illegally against the interracial marriage laws that forbad them, however Rebecca was born after the laws were passed and still seen as an oddity to others. Her parents eventually get a divorce, leaving her in a lonely position when she realizes her life is drifting apart. Walker’s intends for her audience, biracial girls, to establish a relationship with her through the similarities they may have faced. She desires to define herself as a human rather than a symbol …show more content…

While living in San Francisco with her mother, Walker had a situation in elementary school where she was attacked by two boys in her grade. “Dakeba comes charging out of the building. He shouts to Robert, Get her! And then Robert stands in front of me and won’t let em by and starts pushing me with big, rough ashy hands. Dakeba gets behind me and when Robert pushes me my back slams into his chest. When Dakeba pushes me back, my chest shoves into Robert’s”(Walker 108). Walker uses various verbs and adjectives to make the reader feel like they are a witness to the scene. This moment is a turning point for Walker because it was her first experience being attacked and called out for her skin color after leaving the safety of her two parent home. After her parents divorce Walker was left in a vulnerable place and began to hang with the wrong company. The internal pain that she bottled up allowed her to make some decisions that she would regret years later. While living with her father in the Bronx, she hung out with a group of teens who did drugs. “I let my head fall all the way back until my eyes smack the blue sky. The clouds are start going fast. Soon it feels like I’m not on the car anymore and I am falling in circles into the sky”( Walker 196-197). This moment Walker applies a realistic feature to her words that allows her audience the ability to picture the scene. The author’s use of imagery presented her memories in a way that her audience could either relate or feel empathy towards

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