Color Me Real by J. California Cooper
"Color Me Real" by J. California Cooper is a poignant narrative exploring themes of identity, race, and love through the experiences of Minna, a young African American woman, and her daughter, Era. Set in a small southern town, the story begins with Minna, who faces exploitation from her white employer, resulting in two children. In a complex twist of fate, Minna uses herbal means to blind him, yet she cares for him until his death, highlighting the intricate dynamics of power and survival.
The narrative then shifts to Era, who aspires for a better life in New York, choosing to live as a white woman to gain societal advantages. Her journey is marked by personal trials, including a failed marriage that reveals the harsh realities of racial identity and self-perception. Era's confrontations with societal expectations and her relationships with men lead her to reflect on her choices and emotions. Ultimately, it is her reconnection with George, a childhood friend, that brings her to a deeper understanding of love and authenticity, culminating in a lasting relationship that transcends the struggles they face. The novel delves into the complexities of race, familial ties, and the quest for genuine connection in a world often defined by societal labels.
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Color Me Real by J. California Cooper
First published: 1984
Type of plot: Character study
Time of work: The 1980's
Locale: Rural South, New York, Chicago
Principal Characters:
Era , a light-skinned African American woman who lives as a white personMinna , her mother, seduced by her white employerHer biological father George , her childhood protector and eventual mateHer white husband Reggie , her black husband
The Story
In "Color Me Real," a third-person narrator relates how Minna, a thirteen-year-old African American girl in a small southern town, is seduced by her white employer and bears him two children, Era and her brother. Because he will not pay her the money he owes her and still insists on sex, Minna uses herbs and roots to make a potion that blinds him and eventually makes him impotent. Despite the way she has been treated, she tends the man until he dies. As the children grow older, she works in a schoolhouse so that they can get an education.
The story's focus shifts from Minna to her daughter, Era, who at age seventeen, rejects her childhood protector, George, and leaves for New York with four hundred dollars of her father's money. To get ahead more quickly, the light-skinned young woman chooses to live as a white person. She attends secretarial school and secures a job at a brokerage firm. She marries one of the firm's clients and is happy until she finds him in bed with a black woman. When she tells him that she also is black, he beats her and divorces her.
Era returns home, meets George again, has an argument with her brother at her mother's wedding to Arthur, and leaves for Chicago a short time later. While working for a black political candidate, she meets Reggie, a black lawyer, who believes that she is white. At a party at which the guests consist mostly of black men married to white women, the conversation turns to the inferiority of black women, and Reggie declares that he will tell his son not to marry a black woman. Era confronts Reggie, verbally attacks the black men for criticizing black women, and reminds him that she never told him she was white. Embarrassed, Reggie beats and rapes her after the guests leave.
When Era again returns home, she encounters George, who is working in his garden. They verbally spar with one another, she urging him to get married, and he reminding her that marriage has not benefitted her. In the course of the conversation, he declares, "I'm gonna marry the woman I love. I don't love them women I fool with." When she presses him about who these women are, he says that he goes up the highway to get sex. Other conversations follow, and Era begins to realize that he is "deeper" than she thought and that she is not as "deep" as she thought. He forces her to realize that she helped her husbands see what they wanted to see and that she was too concerned with appearances and too little with her feelings. George finally admits that he has always loved her, but because he is afraid of another big heartache, he will do nothing about his love. Resorting to coyness, she avoids George, thinking that he will come running to her. When he does not but instead pays two visits up the highway, she thinks she is angry, but she is really jealous.
George's question "How you FEELING, Ms. Era?" makes Era think about her life and reality. She wears "new cute shorts outfits" to work in her yard, and George spends a lot of time in his garden. In response to his question as to whether she is going to paint the house, Era replies "If I FEEL like it!" Although George leaves, apparently for another trip up the road, he quickly returns and meets her in the yard. After a discussion about love and feeling, they embrace, and at that point, the omniscient narrator returns to inform readers that their love lasted until death parted them and that they had many beautiful brown children.