Monday, May 2, 2016

The Color of Water by James McBride


I found this book, The Color of Water, to be quite fascinating.....

James tells the story of his White mother raising twelve Black children, and they all graduated from college and went on to have successful careers.

Now, here are a few things that I have been reflecting on since finishing this book:

James’ mother, Ruth, first husband died when she was pregnant with her eighth child. After he died, she married another man and had four more children. James is the child that she was pregnant with when her first husband died. So, of course James does not talk about what her life was like when his mother and father were raising the seven children together. So, based on this book, the reader can not determine if Ruth raised her children differently when her husband was alive. However, based on James’ recollection, his mother was not a good housekeeper, not a good cook, and she seemed to not be a great decision maker either; however, she managed to send all twelve of her children to college.

Now, when we think about education and children at risk, it would appear that these children should have been perfect candidates to drop out school: poor and living in the projects. However, college was in their future. James even talked about a period of his life, during high school, when he stopped going to school for awhile, but it was already instilled in him, maybe from seeing his older siblings go off to college or by his mother, that he would go to college. His mom gave him the bus fair, and off he went to college.

My people, we know that this strong women did quite a few things right, and I am curious to know what were some of the determining factors that contributed to this incredible woman sending all of her children to college, and they went on to become doctors, teachers, writers, nurses etc.

Also, since reading this book, I have been thinking about public transportation. Yes, public transportation!! I read this article that was talking about poverty in the South and places where there is limited to no public transportation and how the lack of public transportation negatively impacts the poor.

So, in New York, James’ family had no trouble getting around because of public transportation. However, once they moved to Delaware, without a car, even going to the grocery story was a big deal and could be quite costly. The lack of public transportation drastically changed their lives. Now, I know that the lack of public transportation greatly impacts the poor, and I am not sure what we should do about it, but I know that we should do something.

Race, Race, Race was throughout this book!!!

James did not seem to even notice that his mother was White until other people brought it to his attention by saying inappropriate comments or staring. Which leads me to believe that racism is definitely taught. Also, Ruth was estranged from her entire White, Jewish family, her father was a Rabbi, because she married a Black man. She made her way into the Black community, and that is where she stayed for most of her adult life. She refused to talk about race or being White until she was asked by James in order to write this book. James nor his siblings did not know until the writing of this book that they had White, Jewish blood running through their veins.

This book confirms that race is complex and rules this country, and I am not sure what we can do about this.

Ruth went to Temple University at the age of sixty-five and earned a degree in social work, and she used that degree after she earned it. “She worked as a volunteer in a Philadelphia social service agency that helped pregnant unwed mothers; then she moved on to run a weekly reading group for literate and illiterate senior citizens at the local library.”

This, I found fascinating and made me think about my own 80 year old mother who wants to go to her senior activities every day; folks need purpose. I just believe that we need to stop living when we die and not one day before....

This is a well-written thought provoking book that I think is very relevant to add to the conversations on race that we are having today. Consider reading this book to get another perspective on being Black in America.

By the way, I read the Good Lord Bird which is also by James McBride, and I loved every word. You may want to try that one also.

Let’s get busy, My People!

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...