The Complex of color...every colored man feels it sooner or later. It gets in the way of his dreams, of his education, of his marriage, of the rearing of his children.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the challenges faced by people of color, illustrating how societal perceptions can obstruct personal aspirations.
Jessie Redmon Fauset's quote underscores the pervasive impact of racial identity on various aspects of life, such as education, relationships, and parenting. It conveys the idea that systemic racism and societal color biases create barriers that hinder individuals from achieving their dreams and living fulfilling lives. This struggle affects not just the individual, but also their families and communities, suggesting a deep-rooted societal issue that needs to be addressed.
In practice
In a discussion about racial inequality, this quote can emphasize the hidden obstacles faced by people of color.
Hospitality is gold in this City; you have to be clever to figure out how to be welcoming and defensive at the same time. When to love something and when to quit. If you don't know how, you can end up out of control or controlled by some outside thing like that hard case last winter.
Nobody listens anymore. I can't talk to the walls because they're yelling at me, I can't talk to my wife; she listens to the walls. I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. And I want you to teach me to understand what I read.
Men and women aren't the same. And they won't be the same. That doesn't mean that they can't be treated fairly.
Once I heard my mother say that each of us lives in a separate universe, one we have dreamed into being. We love pople when their dream coincides with ours, the way two cutout designs laid one on top of the other might match. But dream worlds are not static like cutouts; sooner or later they change shape, leading to misunderstanding, loneliness and loss of love.
So time doesn't count, and place does?' I said this to tease her. When I was a man, I liked teasing her and she went along with it, consenting, for it reminded us both of a sadness that had passed.
We can experience an erosion of self-esteem when we're lonely, as we come to believe that it's because we're not likable or because something is broken inside of us. And that can just compound that loneliness further and further.
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