McBride Response

September 18, 2014  

English 1100_37

Black Power essay final draft

            In the passage black power from the book The Color of Water, written by James McBride. He talks about the black panthers and their impact on society.  He confused me through I was never really able to figure out what his main idea was.  McBride speaks on his life as well which I think that’s how I got confused.  He jumps back in fourth between his life and the black panthers, and then at points the two paths connected.  I also can’t tell if he trying to say that the black panthers are good or bad.  What is the main point?

            When McBride talks about the black panthers he says that he is scared they are going to kill his mother.  He thinks that because his mom is a white woman.  That already causes him not to like them.  An whenever he sees the black panthers portrayed by the media they always show a couple militant young men yelling at a group of angry African Americans.  So the media messes up his image of them portraying them as crazy and angry.  But when he comes in contact with the black panthers in person he doesn’t have any negative experiences. 

The first experience he has is with a drag racer.  And the way he describes him is as a celebrity he even went as far to say they thought he was a god.  I know that can be a good or bad thing but he is saying it in a good way. They were all cheering for him with their fist in the air saying black power.  The second encounter came when he was getting on the bus for his camp.  He seen the boy talking to his father who happen to be a black panther, he expected the guy to be aggressive.  But he the total opposite he was calm and a normal person.  He had a normal father son conversation with his child.  This caught McBride by surprise, but once he they got on the bus he went to a panic and was trying to yell out to his mom because he thought the man was going to kill her.  The man was a black panther and his mom was a white woman and he knew black panthers didn’t like white people, vice-versa. He was panicking so bad that he punch the son of the Black Panther in the chin. 

After reading the passage I think what James McBride uses as part of his identity is his race.  Throughout the story he mention race a lot by talking about how has mom is white, the black panthers, and the black vs white issues in the world.  He was always scared for his mom safety because he thought the black panthers would kill her because she was white.  At the beginning he question if she was really his mother because he didn’t have the same skin as him and his older brother told him he was adopted. 

I can relate to McBride because when I was younger I didn’t look like my dad because I was light skinned like my mom and my dad is dark skin and I didn’t have a lot of his features. And I as I started to keep older and gain his features and lost my mom people who didn’t know us questioned if my mom was my mom, because we didn’t look alike anymore and plus me and my mom have different last names.  It’s really annoying when people start question if your parents are really your parents.

 In conclusion I tried to understand the main point but could not figure out what it was.  I am actually still confused because of the told the story.  The key ideas that I got that could possibly be the main point are the black panthers, his family or the phase “black power.” McBride explains his identity to race which I can relate to.  After relating it to myself I think I finally understand his point of view and his main idea behind the story.  And why he had to explain it how he did.