James Mcbride Essay, Research Paper

John Paul Figaro

Susan Piontkowski

English 1A

Paper #4

James McBride Critique

Multi-Cultural Awareness week kicked off with James McBride, the author of The Color of Water, speaking in front of about 100 people. He seemed like a real person, who wasn?t out for the money but to get his mothers story told. I thought he was an extremely reliable source because who better to tell a story then someone who was there. One person who I know thought he wasn?t reliable was the Jewish English professor who felt he wasn?t responsible in explaining the Jewish aspect well enough. Mr. McBride is not speaking outside the realm of his knowledge, he is speaking because he experienced all this in his lifetime. He does though leave out many things that were only answered because questions were asked by the audience.

The book spoke throughly about his mothers tale of woe. Describing all about how she fought through the hardships of where she lived and about being an single parent with 12 children to feed. McBride was able to describe vivdly through his writing of what she went through. I did feel that he is a reliable source because of all the examples he uses in his book and he lived through those instances so he is able to be considered accurate. The teacher who argued with him about how he didn?t research the jewish values good enough, I think she was speaking with to much emotion and not really thinking about how this book was about his mother and not a research book about jewish values. She did not have any valdity to her statements and it sounded like she was almost having a little attitude with him. He was able to use different methods of keeping the audience alert and showed that he was a real person. The language he used and his non-chalant attitude aloud the students to enjoy and feel connected more to the ideas he had.

The audience I feel was very receptive to what he had to say because of his knowledgeable background being a re-known author. He lived a life that people would have nightmares about having to live with 11 brothers and sisters it was a struggle for him to survive. I liked the fact that he had an attitude of thats how life is and you can?t do anything about it but get on with his life. He was a man who spoke intelligently about issues he knew about. There was no fabrications to his stories because he is a real person just looking to explain his mothers story and not out to make up lies inorder to get people interested in what he had to say. He made the people interested by speaking very realxed and speaking about important topics. By doing this it allowed th eaudience to feel comfortable with him inorder to ask questions that he didn?t speak about during his speech.

He did not speak that indepth about his life or his mothers life during his speech. He mentioned some aspects from his book but overall the only real important things I learned were because of the questiond asked. He could have spent more time describing more of what he thought and more of how the book effected him and not go to the question answer period so quickly. I would have like to have heard more about what he thought and less about what questions people had for him.

He was a very interesting speaker with quality points and objectives that were absorbed by his audience?s fastionation with his views. He conducted himself with great pride for the story he was telling. He didn?t care that his mothers story wasn?t showing his family in a wonderful light all he cared about was that people knew what a struggle it was for his mother to do what she did for her family. It showed real class and dignity for him and his family. I didn?t want to go before I got there but now that I experienced it I?m glad I went.