The Water Is Wide: A Memoir

Racism appears in various forms throughout the book. The author describes the casual, yet violent racism of his childhood, in which he and his friends “hunted” black people and threw watermelons at them. This same overt racism is embodied by Ted Stone, who refers to the black people on Yamacraw Island as “filthy savages” and threatens violence against them (76).

The author also acknowledges more complex forms of racism. For example, Zeke and Ida Skimberry use racist language and appear to hold racist ideas about black people in general, but they accept individual black people into their home and refuse to take part in overt efforts to discriminate against black people. Similarly, the author encounters numerous white people on the mainland who are racist in the abstract but open-minded in the specific. For example, when the author brings his students from Yamacraw Island to the mainland, the white people expect the children to be the “filthy savages” that Ted Stone sees them as; yet, they are also willing to host the children in their homes and are warmly welcoming to the children when they meet them.

Mrs. Brown demonstrates another form of racism: internalized racism.