When I first started reading this book, my initial reaction was that it would just be another boring memoir. However, now I know that is not the case. The book, The Color of Water by James McBride is a memoir about a black man's experience living with a white mother during the time of racial segregation, and it's full of interesting and important stories. I am currently on chapter 17 of this book, and I am already greatly impacted by this memoir.
One way that I am impacted is through the white mother's point of view. She often talks about her life at home as a child, and how her father is just a plain mean man who can be abusive. I've heard of child abuse and not getting along with parents before, but I never really thought deeply about how sad it is and how the child is really affected by it, from childhood to the rest of their life. By reading the mother's account of her being treated like this, it has struck me how bad this issue is. For example, page 62 talks about her father and how he treats her and her siblings. It says, "Sometimes the scolding made you feel worse than the hitting. 'You're stupid. You're nothing but a fool. A sinner. You're unredeemed before God,' he'd say." I can't imagine hearing someone tell me this, and also rather have physical abuse from someone versus verbal and emotional abuse (in this situation). My self esteem and confidence level would be in the negatives, and it is awful for a child to grow up feeling that. There is no love, and love is what one needs. See, before reading about this woman's experience with abuse as a child, I would never had thought this deeply about it. Now that I have read about it, it has impacted me and my thinking as well as emotions towards the subject.
Another way that I am impacted is through the black son's point of view in this memoir. I am obviously impacted in the way that I now know more about the awful secrets of not being white during the time of racial segregation. I've only heard about what it was like from sources like textbooks, not by actually hearing it from someone who lived during that time period who was an African American. Since I heard it from a black man's point of view who lived then, I am even more appalled by what they had to go through. However, I am also impacted from this man's writings in the memoir about his step-dad's death. I have never had someone in my immediate family (mom, dad, siblings) pass away, so I wouldn't know the pain and ways to deal with it. Reading about how James (the black man who wrote about it) felt and dealt with the situation gives me so much sympathy and sadness towards people who have lost an immediate family member they were very close to. I can't imagine what I would do, but reading about what James did impacts me greatly because I am seeing, in great detail, how this situation affects someone. Page 138-139 says, "...I spent as much time away from home as possible. I quit church... I was the first kid on my block to smoke cigarettes and reefer. I joined a soul band... We played Kool and Gang songs for hours, smoking weed, drinking Old English 800 malt liquor..." This quote really helps me understand how easy it is to go from having a nice life to an awful life. It saddens me when I hear more about how James twisted his life in a bad way because of his step-dad's death. I have only heard about depression and emotional pain from a death, not as much of what James did to deal with the situation. Both are super bad, but since my eyes were opened up to other ways people deal with struggles, I am greatly impacted in knowing this.
As you can see, this memoir is full of importance. I recommend reading it. I haven't even finished it yet, and I am already impacted by it, as shown above.
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