How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"You seem to have something personal against him."
Mapes grunted. "That's where you're wrong. I admire the n*****. He's a better man than most I've met, Black or white. But he killed a man—and she's not getting him out of it. If she had any sense at all, she would have taken him to jail hours ago. Because if Fix doesn't show up, others may. And they won't be coming here to talk." (8.174-5)
Mapes has got that right for sure. Of course, you can tell that Mapes is about as bigoted as the same folks he's worried about by how casually he uses that mean and nasty racist word, in spite of all his talk about "respect." Can you say "hypocrite?"
Quote #5
"I wish I was the sheriff around here," the deputy said. All this time, he had been standing on the side, looking mad, but staying quiet. "I bet you wouldn't talk to me like that."
"And what would you do, you little no-butt nothing?" Tucker said to the deputy.
The people laughed. The little deputy turned red.
"Shut up," Mapes said to him.
"I ain't used to no n*****s talking to me like that," the deputy said.
"Just stick around long enough," Beulah said, from the steps.
"We go'n just stand here and take this?" the deputy asked Mapes.
"You can go for a walk," Mapes said. "I'll call you if I need you." (9.113-119)
Yup, you read that right. Deputy Griffin is even more of a racist than Sheriff Mapes. How can Griffin even be expected to do what he's supposed to do and fairly enforce the law?
Quote #6
"Now, ain't that just like white folks! […] Black people get lynched, get drowned, get shot, guts all hanging out—and here he come up with ain't no proof who did it. The proof was them two children laying there in them two coffins. That's proof enough they was dead. And let's don't be getting off into that thirty-five, forty, fifty years ago stuff, either. Things ain't changed that much round here. In them demonstrations, somebody was always coming up missing. So let's don't be putting it all on no thirty-five, forty, fifty years ago like everything is so nicey-nice now. No, his seeds is still around. Even if he is old now, the rest of them had their hands in some of that dirt [...]
When it come to the kind of dirt been slung in this Black woman's face—yes, sir, Sheriff, I reckon I do know more than you do." ( 9.226)
Whoa—women might not get to say much in Gaines's novel, but Beulah sure does get to make a seriously important point here.