Emotional Reaction

           After James McBride visited a synagogue in Suffolk, Virginia he gets to look at his ancestors. He was surprised when he was treated like a Jew because he was darker than everyone else there. He looks past his Jewish mother and black father and realizes that both sides of his family suffered either discrimination or Anti- Semitism. While at the motel, McBride wakes up and takes a walk along the Nansemond River and begins to reminisce about life and his grandmother: “There’s such as big difference between being dead and alive, I told myself, and the greatest gift that anyone can give to anyone else is life. And the greatest sin a person can do to another is to take away that life. Next to that, all the rules and religions in the world are secondary; mere words and beliefs that people choose to believe and kill and hate by. My life won’t be lived that way, and neither, I hope, will my children’s. I left for New York happy in the knowledge that my grandmother had not suffered and not died for nothing” (229). This quote touched me the most because McBride does not want his kids to go through life worrying about the color of their skin. Even though he married a black woman they wouldn’t have to wonder why they aren’t the same color as Mommy or Daddy. He wants them to go through life knowing that they are the same as everyone despite skin color. Also,McBride is talking about how the Nazi’s took away the life of many Jews and how their lives were taken away because of their religion and beliefs. After I read this quote I smiled because McBride doesn’t want what happened to his grandmother to happen ever again. He doesn’t want to live in a world of racism again. He wishes for his kids to be able to play and get along with all colors of people. Although his children would be black in skin color they will be Jewish at heart. That’s all that matters because they are all equal.