Autobiography of an ex-coloured man

I like The Autobiography of An Ex-Coloured Man.  It’s a good book, it is short enough not to be boring at points and it explores a topic I find very interesting. I find the concept of racial, religious and social differences and they’re effect on society to be an interesting topic. I’ve never seen the point of basing your opinion of someone on their race, religion or class. So I get very curious as to why some people put such a big emphasis on these things; it’s something I like asking people about although I admit it has occasionally gotten me into arguments.

However there were a few scenes that stuck out in my mind. The first one was in the school; the scene where the teacher asks the class to raise depending on their skin colour, it’s the first time in the novel where it is pointed out that the main character is black blood, I’m assuming that comes from the one drop rule. It seems unnecessarily cruel as the only reason for the teacher to do this, is to point out the differences within the class.

The other scene that really stuck in my mind was the lynching scene. I’m not going to lie; I may have cried a little reading that scene and seeing the way people reacted to it. The lynching itself was horrible however the reaction of the crowd was worse, not so much the people cheering but the people who knew what was happening was wrong but did nothing to stop it.  I’ve always been of the opinion that if you don’t try to stop something bad happening then you are just as bad as the people committing the act. Therefore to see people stand back and watch this happening was kind of horrifying. I mean I can’t imagine what it would have been like to speak out against it but I can’t believe that people would stand there and watch.