color of water conflicts

In this book I believe that there are many conflicts pushed on Ruth her family and James. Ruth has to deal with her past. She has made peace with it but it has shaped her whole life and how she raises her family. How she treats others. And how she deals with loss. James has a different set of conflicts. His moms hidden past and the fact that she is white and he is black plays a huge role on how he functions and reacts in situations. Black power has run through his house hold taking almost all of his siblings with it in the fight. James was pulled in too. He was embarrassed by his white mother and didn't want to be seen with her. To counter act this feeling he turned to drugs such as reefer and drank too much booze. He started to fail school. With his addictions and his white mother he did not know who he was and if he was a proud black man with a white mother who he loved or if she was a stranger and his real black mother was still out there. Ruth had to push him to make the right decisions. She sent him to Kentucky. He got some sense knocked into him when his friend The Chicken Man offered some helpful advise. As the book continues some of the conflicts resolve and others grow. The many conflicts shape the way the family interacts with each other and is a very big part of this book.