Does she mean the western civilization? That she would not have been part of the USA as she was then had it not been for slavery?

They were protective of her, then? They cared for her in a more sincere way separate from the superficial way the whites treated her despite the treatment being more "positive" towards her "joyful tendencies".

I wonder why though - is it because they felt the coloredness clearly and constantly unlike Zora and therefore could not share the joy she freely did in her childlike innocence?

I honestly don't understand what she means by this. Help?

I wonder what about the exchanges were queer to her. Did they compliment each other out of politeness about things they didn't really mean, which struck her, even as a young child, to be strange?

I can imagine this statement being very powerful in the social context of that time. When "people of color" was thrown around normatively, this sentence would have made many reconsider their idea of colored was and how one can be considered as such.

On a personal level, I can relate to this very well. As someone who grew up in Asia, I never considered myself a person of color or a minority or any other label that would not only distinguish but also made me inferior in one phrase. We had different ethnicities and different races, sure, but it didn't give me the feeling of somehow being less than "poc" in the USA does, even as the people of color themselves are trying to reclaim these terms as empowerment.

I can't decide if this is a sign of my privilege and luck previously as I am part of the major ethnic group in Burma while Singapore takes extraneous pains to ensure racial harmony and balance, or if it's just an imbalance in the part of the United States.

The instructions above used this as an example of how Zora Neale Hurston was not ashamed to be colored when to me, I interpreted it as her highlighting some sort of shortcoming on her part at that point of time that didn't make her "colored-ness" less severe.