How we cite our quotes: Paragraph
Quote #1
Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head turned in whichever way is farthest from them. (6)
Is it just us or does the phrase with one foot raised in flight suggest the narrator senses something pretty threatening, maybe even violent, about white men with whom she interacts? This probably isn't some paranoid delusion on the narrator's part. After all, she grew up in the first half of the 20th century, a time in which black people still lived under threats of lynch mob violence and race riots.
Quote #2
Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. (10)
The issue of whether being a lighter-skinned African American comes with certain benefits has a really long history (and is still discussed today). The argument goes all the way back to slavery, when enslaved people with fairer complexions were sometimes saved from work in the fields of the plantations and allowed to work in "easier" roles as house servants. In remarking that Dee is lighter than Maggie, the narrator may be subtly pointing out this legacy.
Quote #3
I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Don't ask me why: in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now. (13)
This quote suggests that living in the era of Jim Crow (when that whole bogus separate but equal law reigned supreme in the South) may have been even worse than the history books let on. It also hints that the era of black liberation in the 1960s may not have been as liberated as the books let on either. Now might be a good time to think about who wrote/writes most of those books…