“So when we looked at de picture and everybody got pointed out there wasn’t nobody left except a real dark little girl with long hair standing by Eleanor. Dat’s where Ah wuz s’posed to be, but Ah couldn’t recognize dat dark chile as me. So Ah ast, ‘where is me? Ah don’t see me.’

“Everybody laughed, even Mr. Washburn. Miss Nellie, de Mama of de chillun who come back home after her husband dead, she pointed to de dark one and said, ‘Dat’s you, Alphabet, don’t you know yo’ ownself?’

“... Ah looked at de picture a long time and seen it was mah dress and mah hair so Ah said:

“ ‘Aw, aw! Ah’m colored!’”

Den dey all laughed real hard. But before Ah seen de picture Ah thought Ah wuz just like de rest.” (p. 9)

As Janie recounts, she spent so much her early childhood playing with the White children of her grandmother’s employers, the Washburns, that she didn’t realize that she was Black until a visiting photographer showed her a picture of herself. This was the first time society told her that she wasn’t “just like de rest.” Throughout her life, the societal importance of this difference would become both more significant, and less humorous.

Think back to a moment of self-realization in your own life about some kind of difference, and find a way to express your thoughts about this difference. What does it mean to society? What does it mean to you? How has it shaped the course of your life? Use whatever medium you think best suited to your expression. You may be as concrete or as abstract you see fit.