EDUCATE YOURSELF!

In the book we are reading called The Color of Water by James McBride, James, the main character, thinks as everyone as equal when he is a little kid. His mom Ruth influences him to thinking that is true. “ It doesn’t have a color,” she said. “God is the color of water. Water doesn’t have a color”(McBride51). Everyday she would tell him to educate himself and she wouldn’t tell him the whole truth. When James went to school he always thought how weird it was that he was the only black boy in the school but to him everything just seemed equal. Ruth, the mother of James, never stopped pushing the fact that he needed to educate himself. “ You’re a human being.” She snapped. “Educate yourself or you’ll be a nobody”(McBride 92)! She never told them about the world and how everyone preserves it. She wanted them to figure it out for them self’s. This relates to common life because how you’re brought up shows how you will be when you’re older. When people are brought up thinking that black people are bad. They will always think that. I think that Ruth is trying to get the kids to find out for them self and be their own person. When Ruth was brought up she was part of a Jewish family and they were very strict. She hated every minute of it. That is why she is letting her kids figure out what they want to see the world as. She doesn’t want them to end up like her. This connects to my friend’s life in a way she was brought up in a strict family and they were very strict about there religion but now she’s in collage and she left all of her strict traditions behind herm and moved on and swears that she will never bring up a family like the one that brought her up.