Not being able to know one’s identity during adolescence can lead to do drugs, commit theft, fail school, and be blind on what to do with their life. This is what James McBride had to go through during his adolescence. Growing up in a black community with a white mother can be very confusing and stressful. He employs rhetorical devices throughout his text in order to develop his epiphany regarding his mother’s life and by, extension, his own. Through the use of appeals and tone James McBride reveals the importance of education and religion, but above all else McBride mostly focuses on finding his identity, trying to understand race as he was growing up, and shows how his mother played an important role in his life When was McBride was growing up, he was confused about who he was and his mother. “All my siblings, myself included, had some sort of color confusion at one point or another (52)”, It would be no surprised that all his brothers and sisters would be confused, knowing that were being raised in a black community by a mother whose skin color was light-skinned and that she refused to discuss about where she came from or why she looks different. Every …show more content…
His mother always steered him into the right direction and always warned him of avoiding outsiders. Every chance James got with his mother as a little kid was always a “high point of my day, a memory so sweet it is burned into my mind like tattoo (12).” She was a resilient and a loving woman to James. She always cared for her children and did not care what anyone did to her, but if it was towards her children she would do anything to protect them. Ruth was unique not only because she was the only white person in the neighborhood, but the fact that she could not “stand racists of either color (30).” She believed everyone should “strive for the highest professional goals (30)” no matter what color someone’s skin color is or what heritage they