The Color Of Water By James Mcbride

James grew up in a racist and segregated part of history. Often times racial slurs were used to describe people of African descent during the time James was growing up. Even during school James would be called these horrendous names: “...someone in the back of the class whispered, “James is ni**er!” followed by a ripple of tittering and giggling across the room” (McBride 89). The fact that small school children call blacks these names shows how racist the many people are and the hatred and discrimination that blacks face. These experience taught James how people treat those that appear to be different. Another experience that taught James this was when he and his family went to the Jewish store and were discriminated against. McBride had many experiences in which he and his family were discriminated against whether it was by the police or store owners: “Some of these Jews can’t stand you” (86). All in all, incidents with people who have a particular dislike for blacks shaped James into the way

When he had first started going to school he had noticed that all the kids looked at him weird for him being a different color than everyone else as well as the kids and their parents looked the same. It made him feel awkward since he thought of himself as different than his mother because they weren’t the same color. James had stated in his book, “I asked her if I was black or white. She replied "You are a human being. Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!” (12). While James was going through an identity crisis at an early age, things only got worse for

Ruth led a life broken in two. Her later life consists of the large family she creates with the two men she marries, and her awkwardness of living between two racial cultures. She kept her earlier life a secret from her children, for she did not wish to revisit her past by explaining her precedent years. Once he uncovered Ruth 's earlier life, James could define his identity by the truth of Ruth 's pain, through the relations she left behind and then by the experiences James endured within the family she created. As her son, James could not truly understand himself until he uncovered the truth within the halves of his mother 's life, thus completing the mold of his own

This is fueled by, not only the changing emotions that teenagers typically endure, but also by the death of his stepfather, whom he saw as his own father. After his death, James cannot bear to see his mother suffer, for she no longer knows how to control the dynamics of the family and "wandered in an emotional stupor for nearly a year." James instead turns to alcohol and drugs, dropping out of school to play music and go around with his friends, which James refers to as "my own process of running, emotionally disconnecting myself from her, as if by doing to I could keep her suffering from touching me." Instead of turning to his family and becoming "the king in the house, the oldest kid," James "spent as much time away from home as possible… absolve[ing] [himself] of all responsibility…" As a result, Ruth sends James to live with his older half sister and her husband, in an attempt to straighten her out her son's life. James distracts himself with the life he found there, spending the summers on a street corner with his half sister's husband, Big Richard, whom he adores, and the unique men that frequented the area. During these summers, James discovers "[He] could hide. No one knew [him]. No one knew [his] past, [his] white mother, [his] dead father, nothing. It was perfect. [His] problems seemed far, far away." Instead of facing the realities of loss and anger in his family, James seeks distractions

The family’s community also displayed integration between the black and white races. Ruth had married two black men in her life who had both passed away unexpectedly and left her to raise the family. Her first husband, Andrew McBride, was a reverend. At the time, Ruth had converted over to Christianity from her Jewish childhood past. She had believed in Christianity and had a strong passion for God. So, Ruth and Rev. McBride had

As, he becomes older he realizes, he needs to understand who his mother is and where she came from. Knowing who she his will help him understand himself and find his true identity. James really struggled for a long time trying to find his identity. After many years he came to a realization, “There are two worlds bursting inside me trying to get out. I had to find out more about who I was, and in order to find out who I was, I had to find out who my mother was.”(McBride 266) He finally realized that it was because of his mothers hidden past that he was struggling with his identity. This is important because here, he was enlightened and was very motivated to find out where his mother came from and who she was. Ruth’s hidden past throughout James childhood made it difficult for him to understand himself. In the begging in the book Ruth tells the reader, “You want to talk about my family and here I been dead to them for fifty years… They want no parts of me and I don’t want no parts of them.”(McBride 1) Right off the bat Ruth blocks her family out of her life, she is “dead” to them. This is important because James knows nothing of her past. He doesn’t know anyone from his mother family or even where they once lived. He knew nothing. She has no past to share with James and this doesn’t help along with being biracial and his mother was open, maybe James wouldn’t have had such a hard time growing up trying to find his

James McBride received the title through a long ago conversation held between him and his mother, Ruth McBride, in which she gave her son James implicit responses to his queries as to why she looked so apart from his friend’s mother’s. He went on to ask his mother a question about “race” and whether ”God” was black or white, she replied “…. God’s not black. He’s not white. He’s a spirit”. “ What color is God’s spirit”? “It doesn 't have a color, she said. God is the color of water. Water doesn 't have a color” (pg. 50-51). It means that a persons race or religion shouldn 't be a deciding factor on the way a person is viewed. Water has not set color. It is clear. We should all be seen as the color of water which could possibly bring peace to our fellow citizens. It could even wash away other problems we still continue to see and go through in todays society such as gender prejudice and racism (etc).

Ruth, the mother of James, and eleven other children, was an orthodox jewish girl from Eastern Europe who immigrated to America in the early 1900s. Being a Jew in an American school gave her enough racists remarks, but then having mixed race children caused more racism. James, on of Ruth’s many kids, was terrified for his mother during the Black Pride movement. (Page 27, chapter 4) James saw a clip of the Black Panther rally on TV. The people in the march were chanting “Black power! Black Power!” and James was worried that those people would kill his mother because she was white living with mixed kids. But those people didn't seem to both Ruth because as she said “If it doesn't involve your going to school or church, I could care less about it and my answer is no whatever it is” (page 27)

There he hopes to glean some spiritual inspiration before returning home to start life as a pastor. However, things do not quite work out for James the way he envisions them. Immediately upon his arrival in Israel and before he can even make it to the famed city, he is unjustly thrown into jail, then "sold" into a kind of paid slavery to the business man who ponies up his bail. James is forced to live in a kind of community barracks with other young men in his situation and is sent around town to do cleaning, gardening and an assortment of other odd jobs. As James toils at his labors and interacts with both his "superiors" and peers, he learns a great deal about life in a land where the weak are taken advantage of by the strong and where friendly words and acts of seeming kindness are doled out with an air of class-conscious racism and condescension.

In James’ case he knew that if he worked hard at school he could gain his fathers approval. However it seemed that he was in the shadow of his brother, who was also under the same pressure. He had turned to cheating to get better marks to avoid his father’s disapproval. James’ own sense of right and wrong were being clouded by his loyalty to- and competition with his brother, also his need for approval from his father and his sense of duty to protect his frail mother by “not

He opened up and started to embrace what the world is really capable of doing. James met a girl within his stay at rehab who opened him up, and gave him the chance to speak. She turned him into a different person. One who would count the blessing and to live in the moment and forget about the past. James became free willing towards him self and started to understand what the facility was really doing. James shared memories of the past and began to achieve relationships with other rehab patients. He made his time there go by quicker. James had self-reliance with the friends he made. He decided whether he wanted to be liked or admired, or to be able to fit in is more important then knowing what he was doing at the facility. He counted on his friends to be always there for him which gave him the courage to become freer and let go of his trapped world that he had previously came in with. When James's parents told him that they were going to undergo in the parenting group at the facility James couldn't piece together why they would want to. He never gave them the respect that a kid should. He couldn't bare to see his parents cry at the mistakes he made. He wasn't keen on the decision that his parents had made, but James had his friends who helped him to understand and be happy that his parents actually cared. James became welcoming to his parents and gave them the chance to listen and to speak. James made the stay with

Arthur has advanced political views about equality, which, after his death, his father adopts. James then begins to try to help the broken city of Johannesburg by helping out the black community. This journey he goes through helps convey the theme of racial division and justice within Johannesburg. Before his son died, James Jarvis

	James Tyrone is faced with many a problem. Through this tough time he is faced with personal, family, and financial conflicts, thus attributing to the plot. Besides having to deal with his wife’s addiction, his sons’ ill health and drinking problems, and his financial decisions, (which have proven to be for the worse), James struggles with a personal conflict throughout the play. He believes that he may be the cause of some of the family problems and that he has dealt with them in an improper manner. "So I’m to blame!…" (39)

All of James' life he thought that he was just a simple man and that he would die, perfectly ordinary, in his small village. For 18 years he had lived life as it came to him, growing up in Thornwood. His life was peaceful and dull. Every day since he was young he gathered edibles and alchemy ingredients from the forest, to be sold at a small price. It was an easy job that he was good enough at, but for a long time, he had held a secret dream, to leave this place. If only he had more money, more power, he could do whatever he wanted.

James McBride grows up in a racially segregated New York City. Ruth, his white mother, raises them in a small house in a majority black neighborhood. Ruth understands that being a white mother to black children in the neighborhood could cause trouble, leading her to avoid socializing with other neighbors and parents of her children’s friends. James begins to question his mothers actions of not socializing with the neighbors in which she replies that private life should remain private, and that he should hang out with his siblings instead of leaving the house. This protects her children from the many negative vibes about white people. In one instance, James asks his mother “How come you don’t look like me” in which she replies not to worry about it and focus on his education, a response that she tended to