‘The Color of Water’- James Mcbride: not Anti-Semitic
Outline
Introduction:
Thesis statement: the book ‘Color of Water’ is not Anti-Semitic
Body
Paragraph I
-Opening sentence
-the life of Ruth
-Difficulties and challenges
Paragraph II
-Ruth’s father
-His character as a racist and greed
-Ruth’s opposition of his father’s ways
Paragraph III
-Ruth’s marriage to a black man-not anti-Semitic
-Ruth’s lose of privileges
-Conversion to Christianity
-Ruth’s father racism pronounced as he denounces Ruth
Paragraph IV
-James’s life
-Adolescent crisis
-Identity crisis
-Acceptance
Paragraph V
-Stabilizing Ruth
-Presence of Andrew Mcbride
Conclusion
-Book not Anti-Semitic
-Book used to portray the hardships through the lives of James and Ruth
Introduction
It has been said that the book ‘The Color of Water’ is anti-Semitism. I strongly oppose the notion that James McBride’s book is anti-Semitic. Anti Semitism is the hatred and hostility towards the Jew community. It is portrayed through the prejudice of the Jew culture, religion and ethnic background. An anti-Semite sees the Jews as inferior.The book is about the life of Ruth and her son James; he was brought up in a chaotic home having been twelve siblings in the home.
James is black but his mother is white, polish to be precise. Unfortunately James does not get to meet his father as he passes away due to lung cancer before he is even born. His mother remarries another black man who opts to live out of their family house for the sake of his sanity. This meant that in most of the time it was Ruth, James’s mother and her children who struggled to make ends meet.
Body
The book should not be seen as anti-Semitic but as a good book that brought into light the problems that both the author and his mother faced as well as how they both overcome their problems and hardships. Through his mother, the book is able to show us the problems that Ruth faced such as racism and the anti-Semitic nature of the society she was brought up in. To effectively do this the author had to display the various instances that Ruth’s society showed racism and how religion and not just Christianity guides Ruth through her life as she did not at one point in her life become vengeful or angry.
She at all times tried to maintain peace with the world and all those that influenced her life.The book mainly focuses on Ruth, James’s mother. The readers are taken through her life journey as she migrated to US with her family. The fact that the book indicates how his father tried to capitalize on the fact he is a Rabbi so as to survive in the new country does not make the book anti-Semitic, this portyal is meant to show the character of Ruth’s father as greedy and opportunistic.Ruth’s father goes ahead and opens a store at Suffolk, Virginia where he is once again portrayed as a racist due to the fact that he overcharges the black customers that visit his store.
This statement should also not be analyzed to mean that the author had the intention of bringing the picture of the Jews as negative. The purpose of indicating that Ruth’s Jewish father was a racist was so that the readers could get a clearer perception of how his character was like and how Ruth found it difficult to cope with her father’s ways. The author then goes on to mention that Ruth who was also a Jew felt excluded from the general white population of the white community of that area.
This does not mean that she was being discriminated against, no! It meant that she could not relate with the white community because unlike them who fostered a tense and violent atmosphere towards the black community, Ruth sympathized and partly identified with the black community and their hardships.The notion that the book is anti-Semitic is wrong because the author goes ahead to show us that Ruth, his mother, goers ahead and marries a black man. This is a positive attribute to show that Ruth, though a Jew was not racist. She marries Andrew Dennis McBride and become Ruth McBride.
After the marriage Ruth lost the privileges she had and socializes with only the black people. Her conversion to Christianity should also not be seen as an anti-Semitic move, having been exposed and lived with the black community after her marriage, she converted to Christianity due to the Christian exposure she frequently received considering that her husband Andrew was a Catholic. Since Childhood, Ruth resented religion a whole not just Judaism this is because it was not imposed on her. She accepted to be converted to Christianity because she finally got to make a choice and discover religion on her own.
It is important to note that Ruth’s father denounced Ruth when she married a black man. The author does this to bring out Ruth’s father continuous racist nature. He did not denounce Ruth because she married a non-Jew but because she married a black man and Ruth father had always been a racist.From James point of view, he is the author and the narrator of the book ‘Color of Water’. He did not write the book with anti- Semitic intentions but with the sole purpose of discovering himself, understanding his racial, religious and social identity. To be able to achieve this he had to delve on his mothers past and speak about her upbringing and he also had to speak of his own past.
James takes us through his life as he tries to discover his racial identity having being raised by a white mother yet he was black. He particularly had difficulties reconciling the rise of the black power with the fact that his mother was white. James’s is embarrassed of his mothers’ whiteness not because he was a racist but because she was different. With age James finally accepts and understands why his mother is different and appreciates her for who she is. “Now a grown man, I feel privileged to have come from both worlds”.
James then takes us through his life and the challenges he faces such as use of drugs and his engaging in crime. Later, he also changes and become more responsible as it was just a phase.Though the book mainly focuses on the lives of Ruth and her son James, the readers cannot miss to pinpoint the important role that Andrew McBride faced in shaping the lives of Ruth and her son James. James acts as the stabilizing factor in Ruth life after a difficult childhood with her parents. It is also because of Andrew that Ruth accepted the Christian religion.
Conclusion
Supporters of the opinion that James McBride’s book is anti-Semitic are wrong. To effectively bring out the lives of Ruth and her son the author had to vividly shoe the readers the various challenges that Ruth faced in the hands of his father and also in her community. The fact that her father was Jewish did not matter in the book. What mattered is the negative character that he had. The book does not at one point state that Ruth’s father was the way he was because he was a Jew, or Ruth did not fit in the society because she was Jew. The book is clearly not anti-Semitic
Rerence:
McBride, J. (1996). The Color of Water. New York: Riverhead Books.
Is this your assignment or some part of it?
We can do it for you! Click to Order!
