A Story of Identity Problem Portrayed in the Autobiographical Incident Book, the Color of Water

The Color of Water is an autobiographical book that parallels the life of the author, James McBride, and his mother Ruth. The story is about a man who is confused about his identity. As a young boy James realized that was not sure of who is mother was either. All he knew was that they lived in Black neighborhoods, his siblings and himself had tan skin, but yet their mother was white.

The story of Ruth starts with her life being born in Poland to a strict Orthodox Jewish family. Her father was a rabbi and a stern and strong man. When Ruth was seven they moved in with her grandparents in the United States. Her family religiously followed the Jewish faith. They ate kosher, which was different meals and place settings, and every Friday at sundown they had to light candles and pray to Sabbath (McBride, 17).

Ruths family traveled a lot when she was a child. When she was eight, they moved to Suffolk, Virginia. This is where her family settled and her father ran a store. The people in the neighborhood seemed to enjoy new things except for Jewish people. In school children would call Ruth Christ killer, or Jew Baby (McBride, p. 40). This was just the beginning of the resentment towards Ruth and her family.

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Ruth resented the fact that people did not accept her for being Jewish. Her family, however, did not like what they called gentiles, or Black people. Ruths father made this perfectly clear. Ruth ended up falling in love with a Black boy. He gave her love and affection, something she was not used to. This was the beginning of Ruths transformation.

As Ruth got older she started to resent being Jewish more and more everyday. She ended up marrying a Black man by the name of Andrew McBride. Standing by her husband, she now turned her Jewish faith into the Baptist faith. She was going to all Black churches and even helped her husband run sermons from their home. After Andrew died, Ruth married Hunter Jordan. Hunter was also an African-American. After both the marriages Ruth had twelve half Black, half Jewish children.

Along the description of Ruths life were the trials and tribulations that James and his siblings had to go through. James and his family had to deal with the discrimination of Whites, while going to an all- White school. They had to deal with the fact their family were poor, therefore they had the bare necessities. At one point James went to live with his older sister away from home because he was not attending school and getting into trouble. James experienced a lot when he would visit his sister, including a man being killed.

Many of the concepts that were presented in Ethnicity and Race and Race and Ethnicity in the United States were noticed throughout The Color of Water. The constructionist approach is clearly demonstrated throughout the book. The essence of constructionist approach is that a persons ethnic identity changes over time as the forces that impinge on them change, and as the claims made by both group members and others change as well (Cornell & Hartmann, p. 74).

The constructionist approach was demonstrated starting with Ruth being born as an Orthodox Jew. As she got older, she realized she did not like that religion. She married two Black men, even though she knew her father despised them. She integrated their faith as her own. Ruth lived with her family in Black neighborhoods and had Black friends. She left the life of Orthodox behind her.

Race became an important aspect of life, because society put importance to it. This is the social construction of race. When people such as Hitler put importance on the Jewish race, this concerned to Nazi camps killing million of Jewish people (Shaefer, p.12). There is a belief that certain races are superior to others. Race is significant only because people have given it significance (Shaefer, p.12).

The social construction of race was illustrated throughout the book on a couple different occasions. The first example was when Ruth was a little girl living in Suffolk. The children made fun of her in school because she was Jewish. Throughout school she only had one close friend. Society had the importance of being white and anyone different was an outcast.

The second example of this is when James did not feel like he fit in anywhere. His skin color was light, so some Black people commented on that. When he went to he White school he was discriminated against because he was Black. If a person had one-drop of black blood then you were considered to be black. To both of the races he did not fit in. This was all part of the social construction.

The normative approach is one theory of prejudice that is displayed in the Color of water. The normative approach is the view that prejudice is influenced by societal norms and situations that serve to encourage or discourage the tolerance of minorities (Schaefer, p. 50).

An example of the normative approach is when James was in elementary school in Queens. He had to take a bus to attend a Jewish school, where he was the only Black child in the class. James was a well-mannered boy despite the racist attitudes of many of the teachers, who were happy to knock his 95 test scores down to 85s and 80s over the most trivial mistakes (McBride p. 89). This was the same for his brothers and sisters who attended the school as well.

Another incident demonstrating the normative approach was when James was in class and they were learning about African-American history. One of his classmates yelled out, James is a Nigger (McBride p. 89). The teacher merely hushed the child. She did not correct or discipline them in any way. This illustrates that society accepts any form of prejudice.

A stereotype is an unreliable generalization about all members of a group that do not take into account individual differences within the group (Schaefer, p.19). One stereotype that was discussed in the text of the book was about Jesus. James felt that his mother went to Black church because God liked black people better. Once when James was in church with his mother, he had asked her if Jesus was white. Ruth told him that God was not Black or white. She told him that God was a spirit, which does not have any color. Then she said, God is the color of water (McBride, p.51).

Due to stereotypes about God, certain people do not know whether God is Black or white, yellow or purple. As a stereotype many people assume that Black families are always poor and do not amount too much except criminals. This is proved wrong by the simple fact that Ruth McBride raised twelve children, almost by herself. All twelve children went to college and are successful professionals. Just because they were poor did not stop any of them in making it in this tough world.

One way suggested to eliminate prejudice is by creating statutes against prejudice. There are historical statutes up to date such as the Civil Rights Movement in 1964. Much has been done to have equality between whites and blacks. There is still a fine line between those rights. Laws have been made such as Affirmative Action that is to help blacks have equal treatment.

McBride discussed a whole chapter on Black Power. He discussed the effects around the death of Malcolm X and the force of the Black panthers. A lot was going on at that time about Black revolution. James was always in fear of his mothers life because of the revolution. She did not have a care in the world when she walked down the road by herself. Ruths motto was, If it doesnt involve your going to school or church, I could care less about it and my answer is no whatever it is, (McBride, p. 27). There was much controversy between Blacks and Whites and the only way to stop any sort of prejudice is through the law. That does not always work either. From the words of James McBride,

White men ruled the kingdom, finding clever ways to gut the careers of fine Black reporters who came in the business full of piss and vinegar, (McBride, p. 263).

I feel that a lot of the concepts that we discussed in our textbooks were relevant to our discussion of the Color of Water. I truly felt that Ruth transformed herself from one identity to another because of everything around her. She did not accept her fate of being an Orthodox Jew. She did not feel loved or cared for by her family, so she integrated into a different one. An identity where she felt loved and complete. It was amazing hw a white woman could be so brave as to bring up her children in a different faith from which she was born. It is difficult for Black people as well to accept a person of another race.

Ruth walked down her street with pride and was not ashamed to have children who were part of her and her late husbands. There was just a part of her that she did not want to expose her children too. She did not want her children to experience the hurt of not having the love she was deprived of. When she decided to be with a Black man, she left that part of her Jewish life behind. Her father forbade her to be a part of a gentile. How ironic was it that she fell in love and married a Black man.

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