How is this quote important to The Color of Water? "But there was a part of me that feared black power very deeply for the obvious reason. I thought...

The
quotation is important because it illustrates one of the book's main themes: how difficult it
was for McBride to come to terms with his mixed racial heritage and forge his own
identity.

Though brought up black in a black neighborhood, the very notion of
black power still filled him with much foreboding. He internalized white society's prevailing
racist notions to such an extent that he shared the generalized fear of black people as somehow
dangerous and savage. McBride therefore needed to overcome this fear if he was to develop a
stable racial identity.

But this was easier said than done. First, he needed
to accept that black power is not necessarily the same as black domination and that it therefore
represents no threat to people like his white Jewish mother. Only then was he be
able...