Zora Neale Hurston - Sense of Self

In the essay "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" Zora Neale Hurston recalls her upbringing in an all black town, and her move to a mostly white town in the heart of racist Alabama. The author is exposed to racism and through the interaction school of symbolic interaction; she feels above the ignorance of society and negotiates her sense of self as a woman rather than as a colored person. The interaction school describes how the author has an active role in deciding who she is. When colored people Hurston knows are shaping his or her sense of self around their perceived race identity, she doesn't follow their lead and shapes her own identity.…