In her essay "How It Feels to be Coloured," Zora Neale Hurston discusses how she personally feels about being black in a predominantly white country. In her opinion, she has just as many advantages as disadvantages.

In some ways, she says that white people are at more of a disadvantage because they have to cope with the guilt of slavery. White people she says are haunted by dark ghosts who "pulls up a chair" and sit next to them while they eat. In comparison, she says that, for her, slavery is sixty years in the past. It no longer has any effect on how she lives her life. Her relatives may have suffered, but they suffered for her freedom. As she says, "the terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said "On the line!" The Reconstruction said "Get set!" and the generation before said, "Go!" She is now off and running with the world at her feet, and in her eyes, no one has ever had a better chance of success.

In this regard, her greatest advantage is her attitude. Instead of giving in to the idea that she should be sorrowful for the past, she embraces the present. As she understands it, the world is good to the strong, regardless of color or gender.