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" My tears were not for Bailey or Mother or even myself but for the helplessness of mortals who live on the sufferance of life"

How apt are these words and how true they ring? People really do take their lives for granted. It is of course a suffering. From birth to death. We should be shedding tears for the complete ignorance we carry ourselves for the reality the world offers which we fail to see, yet is it worth it? All those tears.

It would be considered in a certain fact that reading this book during the current turbulent days is certainly fitting in a certain manner but some might think one is trying to be part of something they are not. Truth be told being a brown girl (as we've been constantly labeled) in a brown country surrounded by the ocean and other brown countries, I personally have not faced racism. In fact I have been brought up in my own cocoon. I am part of the majority that inhabit our tiny island, thus I have not received any judgement from any. The first time I felt out of my box was around 2 years ago. I was in Italy happily travelling by train from Milan to Switzerland when a certain Italian boy was curiously looking at me. I thought I was mistaken and ignored it. Later it came to my attention that he went as far as pointing at me and telling something to his mother. Me with zero knowledge of that language just smiled at him. I did not suspect anything until my aunt came to me and turned me away from them and took me away from there and told to just ignore them. Although she did not explicitly mention what was conversed between mother and child, I knew it was nothing good. This was my first time I ever felt as if I was an alien in another planet. It was the first time I felt as I was not accepted. Although this was for a very brief moment I felt a certain level of sadness, not anger but sadness. Not even knowing what they were saying I felt that I was accused of a crime I cannot even help. Now that I read this book, I cannot even fathom what colored people, let them be black, brown or yellow feel at a regular basis.

Now that I have called myself brown and given the term yellow and black to others, what do I really try to achieve? Am I not putting the same labels that they have forced upon us? At times looking at the situation in the world a certain fear runs through my blood. Would we be next? Will there be a day that all colored people would be washed out of the world? Reasons are truly unfathomable for me. So many questions run through my mind when I see the blatant disgust people have towards each other.

Why are we dirty?

Black, brown, yellow, why are we so different from them?

At the end aren't we all the same?

Strip us down to the bones, won't we all be the same?

Aren't we all made of the same tiny atoms?

It is not that I am trying to bring up an argument by raising these questions, neither am I accusing anyone but in the end there is a certain kind of sadness that courses through my blood. No one deserves this. Why is it that even almost a century after these happening in the book that we have not changed at all?

I will admit that I am speaking about things in general rather than book here but I do not think there is much to say about this. Maya Angelou has proven herself worthy of the praise. I am only sad that I did not pick this book up earlier. I do not know if it was the captivating words or lilting prose in the book but I truly felt as if I was in the embrace of a motherly bosom and listening to a fairy-tale while I was reading this. It truly captivated me and sent me to another realm. The story started with a simple yet small girl and ended with that small girl becoming woman when she was not a woman at all. At times I felt anger towards my own ignorance of the world and at time I felt anger at the world in general but I can easily discern that this book really was an eye opener and it truly did change my world. In the end I was not left with that anger but a bitter sadness in my heart. Will it ever end?

”All asked the same questions. How long, oh God? How long��