Zora Neale Hurston Racism

In the past, there have been unfortunate events such as the slavery of coloured people. Those who were wealthy were able to own a person and enslave them to do daunting works. These people have been poorly mistreated, abused and were stripped of their human rights. Many, however, have spoken of the horrors of these issues and terminated slavery. They have also brought to attention of these events such as Fredrick Douglas. Zora Neale Hurston is another example of bringing attention to the tension of race. She, however, still demonstrates pride in her race as demonstrated in her work, “How it feels to be coloured me”. Hurston demonstrates her pride throughout the piece through word choice. Throughout the piece, Hurston chooses words that bring

This is shown in, “No, I do not weep at the world” (Hurston). She explains that she is not filled with sadness because of the colour of her skin. She does not want to extract sympathy from the readers, but to lead them towards understanding that she does not weep over her race; she embraces her race. Not only does she do this, but she repeats ‘weep’ to convince the readers of her true feelings as shown in, “It is quite exciting to hold the center of the national stage, with the spectators not knowing whether to laugh or to weep.” (Hurston). Hurston reminds the readers that she does not weep because of her race, but rather, she is proud. She chooses two opposing words, “laugh” and “weep” to convey a message that there are conflicting emotions among other. Thus, by repeating ‘weep’ the readers are reminded of the previous sentence, that she does not weep. She is not conflicted with emotions, but rather, she is certain and has a sense of pride. She continues to express her feelings towards her race in, “I do not belong to the sobbing school” (Hurston). This choice of word, in this case, “sobbing” is paired with “I do not belong”. Repeating these words demonstrates that she really is not ashamed or