The Color of Water

by James McBride

Her lack of fear for her safety—particularly among blacks, where she often stuck out like a sore thumb and seemed an easy target for muggers—had me stumped. As a grown man, I understand now, understand how her Christian principles and trust in God

kept her going through all her life’s battles, but as a boy, my faith was not that strong.

cry in church?” I asked her one afternoon after service. “Because God makes me happy.” “Then why cry?” “I’m crying ‘cause I’m happy. Anything wrong with that?” “No,” I said, but there was, because happy people did not seem to cry like she did. Mommy’s tears seemed to come from somewhere else, a place far away, a place inside her that she never let any of us children visit, and even as a boy I felt there was pain behind them.

people better, and one afternoon on the way home from church I asked her whether God was black or white. A deep sigh. “Oh boy…God’s not black. He’s not white. He’s a spirit.” “Does he like black or white people better?” “He loves all people. He’s a spirit.” “What’s a spirit?” “A spirit’s a spirit.” “What color is God’s spirit?”

“It doesn’t have a color,” she said. “God is the color of water. Water doesn’t have a color.” I could buy that, and

“Don’t ever ever use that term.” “Am I black or white?” “You’re a human being,” she snapped. “Educate yourself or you’ll be a nobody!” “Will I be a black nobody or just a nobody?” “If you’re a nobody,” she said dryly, “it doesn’t matter what color you are.” “That doesn’t make sense,” I said. She sighed and sat down. “I bet

‘Tell us about different kinds of beans.’ “The first little boy says, ‘There’s pinto beans.’ “‘Correct,’ says the teacher. “Another boy raises his hand. ‘There’s lima beans.’ “‘Very good,’ says the teacher. “Then a little girl in the back raises her hand and says, ‘We’re all human beans!”’

The question of race was like the power of the moon in my house. It’s what made the river flow, the ocean swell, and the tide rise, but it was a silent power, intractable, indomitable, indisputable, and thus completely ignorable. Mommy kept us at a frantic living pace that left no time for the problem.

We did not consider ourselves poor or deprived, or depressed, for the rules of the outside world seemed meaningless to us as children. But as we grew up and fanned out into the world as teenagers and college students, we brought the outside world home with us, and the world that Mommy had so painstakingly created began to fall apart.

Now, as a grown man, I feel privileged to have come from two worlds. My view of the world is not merely that of a black man but that of a black man with something of a Jewish soul. I don’t consider myself Jewish, but when I look at Holocaust photographs of Jewish women whose children have been wrenched from them by Nazi soldiers, the women look like my

There but for the grace of God goes my own mother—and by extension, myself.

I don’t belong to any of those groups. I belong to the world of one God, one people. But as a kid, I preferred the black side, and often wished that Mommy had sent me to black schools like my friends.

He never judged me. That’s the first thing I liked about him, in fact that’s what I liked about black folks all my life: They never judged me. My black friends never asked me how much money I made, or what school my children went to, or anything like that. They just said, “Come as you are.” Blacks have always been peaceful and trusting. I don’t care what they show on TV, these stupid boys with guns and

always felt that way about the South, that beneath the smiles and southern hospitality and politeness were a lot of guns and liquor and secrets. A lot of those secrets ended up floating down the Nansemond River just down the road from us. Folks would go down to the wharf and throw out nets for crabs and turtles and haul in human bodies. I remember one of our

They were all trying hard to be American, you know, not knowing what to keep and what to leave behind. But you know what happens when you do that. If you throw water on the floor it will always find a hole, believe me.

“What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” She played each note separately, as if they had no connection to each other, and they echoed through the house and landed on the walls like tears. I couldn’t stand to hear it. I would cover my ears at night, or better still, I would just go

“You have to choose between what the world expects of you and what you want for yourself,” my sister Jack told me several times. “Put yourself in God’s hands and you can’t

knew Jack was right, and when I got back to New York in the fall of 1973 for my junior year in high school I resolved to jump back into my studies and rebuild myself. Like my own mother did in times of stress, I turned to God. I lay in bed at night praying to Him to make me strong, to rid me of anger, to make me a man, and He listened, and I began to change.

Weed was my friend, weed kept me running from the truth. And the truth was my mother was falling apart. Looking back, I see it took about ten years for Mommy to recover from my stepfather’s death. It wasn’t just that her husband was suddenly gone, it was the accumulation of a lifetime of silent suffering, some of which my siblings and I never knew about. Her past had always been a secret to us, and remained so even after my stepfather died, but what she had left behind was so big, so complete

While she never seemed on the verge of losing her mind, there were moments when she teetered close to the edge, lost in space. Even in my own self-absorbed funk, I was worried about her, because as my siblings and I slowly got to our emotional feet, Mommy staggered about in an emotional stupor for nearly a year.

Ma was utterly confused about all but one thing: Jesus. The young Jewish girl who at one time could not allow herself to walk into a gentile church now couldn’t do without it; her Orthodox Jewish ways had long since translated themselves into full-blown Christianity. Jesus gave Mommy hope. Jesus was Mommy’s salvation. Jesus pressed her forward. Each and every Sunday, no matter how tired, depressed, or broke, she got up early, dressed in her best, and headed for church. When we kids

Sometimes it seemed like the truth was a bandy-legged soul who dashed from one side of the world to the other and I could never find him.

“Racism is a problem that should end just about the time we graduate.” Instead it smashed me across the face like a bottle when I walked into the real world. Boston was not an easy place to have a racial identity crisis either. Its racial problems are complicated, spilling over into matters of class, history, politics, even education.

“It’s all right, Mameh, it’s all right,” but she just cried and cried. Just weeping. I can still hear her weeping now sometimes. I know the exact sound of it, like a note you hear or a song that keeps spinning around in your head and you can’t forget it. Every once in a while when I’m walking down the street I think I hear it, just a quick sniffle noise, like an “oh!” and I turn around and no one’s there.

It helped me to hear the Christian way, because I needed help, I needed to let Mameh go, and that’s when I started to become a Christian and the Jew in me began to die. The Jew in me was dying anyway, but it truly died when my mother died.

A penetrating loneliness covered me, lay on me so heavily I had to sit down and cover my face. I had no tears to shed. They were done long ago, but a new pain and a new awareness were born inside me. The uncertainty that lived inside me began to dissipate; the ache that the little boy who stared in the mirror felt was gone.

There’s such a big difference between being dead and alive, I told myself, and the greatest gift that anyone can give 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

The few problems I had with black folks were nothing compared to the grief white folks dished out. With whites it was no question. You weren’t accepted to be with a black man and that was that. They’d say forget it. Are you crazy? A nigger and you? No way. They called you white trash. That’s what they called me. Nowadays these mixed couples

See, a marriage needs love. And God. And a little money. That’s all. The rest you can deal with. It’s not about black or white. It’s about God and don’t let anyone tell you different. All this Jungle fever! Shoot! That Jungle fever goes away, honey, and then what are you gonna do? I say that now in hindsight, because Dennis was afraid to marry

That man was the finest preacher I’ve ever heard to this day. He could make a frog stand up straight and get happy with Jesus. You never heard anything like him. He was not fire and brimstone. He brought God into your everyday life in a way that made you think heaven was right next door. Harlem loved him.

I accepted Jesus that day and He has never let me down from that day to this. I later got on as the church secretary, typing

He came from a home where kindness was a way of life. I wanted to be in this kind of family. I was proud to join it, and they were happy to have me.

“It’s so final. You know time is not promised,” she says, wagging a finger. “That’s why you better get to know Jesus.” If it takes as long to know Jesus as it took to know you, I think, I’m in trouble. It took many years to find out who she was, partly because I never knew who I was.

Most of my immediate editors were white women, whom I found in general to be the most compassionate, humane, and often brightest in the newsroom, yet they rarely rose to the top—even when compared to their more conservative black male

Mommy won’t mind when midnight arrives; she has perspective. She toasts her good luck, knowing that while fame is fleeting, God is forever. “I’m blessed beyond measure,” she says. She says that often.

truth is that you’d have an easier time standing in the middle of the Mississippi River and requesting that it flow backward than to expect people of different races and backgrounds to stop loving each other, stop marrying each other, stop starting families, stop enjoying the dreams that love inspires. Love is unstoppable. It is our greatest weapon, a natural force, created by God.

them understand that family love, a mother’s love, gives us grace, courage, and power beyond measure. No one understands that power more than Mommy, who, when asked about her celebrity status, will be the first to confess, “I did nothing special.” Or when asked how she raised twelve kids will say, “Y’all raised yourselves,” or she’ll say, “God raised you.”

But at the end of the day, there are some questions that have no answers, and then one answer that has no question: love rules the game.

For me, this book has always been, and will forever be, a book about a mother and her children, and how that mother raised her children with love and respect and God. About a mother’s love, a father’s love, family love. In all the important ways, my family’s story is not unique. It plays out across the world, on every continent, in every nation, city, town, and village every day. Family love: It is firm footing, something to cling to in a frightened world that seems to

spin out of control with war, turmoil, terrorism, and uncertainty. It is our highest calling...

So if you see a woman driving in Trenton with her blinkers on, look out. Back off. Give her some space. She could go left, she could go right. She could go up into Heaven clear out of sight! But no matter which way she goes, she’s not likely going your way. And if she is, don’...

Thanks and Acknowledgments My mother and I would like to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for His love and faithfulness to all generations. Thanks to my loving wife, Stephanie Payne, who stood me up when I could no longer stand, who would

“In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs, 3:6