How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
She is brown—all-over brown—hair, eyes, skin. So brown the youngest daughter used to say, "I can eat you like a chocolate bar, Ma," which made the mother laugh. Her mother's brown reminds her of everything she loves: Chocolate. Dark wool. The smell of earth. Trees. The girl and her sister's own skin is coppery—somewhere between their mother's deep brown and their father's lighter skin. (Prologue.3)
Toswiah describes her family's skin colors by comparing the shades to things she loves, which tells us how much she loves her family. If you had to describe your own skin color in the same way, what would you say?
Quote #2
There weren't a whole lot of other blacks in Denver. Cops were our family. Cops were our friends. Daddy was the only black one in his precinct. It was different there, though. Black. White. It didn't matter. Cops were cops. We were all one big family. All on the same side of the law. We were the good guys. For years and years that was true. (3.2)
Here, Toswiah talks about a part of her father's identity that is more important to him than race. She says the fact that cops are all family is "true," but that family quickly splinters apart after Raymond Taylor's shooting. Some family…
Quote #3
As my father talked about the boy, he became more real. I didn't know his name, but I felt like I didn't have to. He was black and I was black, and maybe somewhere along the way we would've met. Maybe we would've become friends. I imagined the boy holding a basketball above his head, saying Like this, Toswiah. Just let it roll off your fingers and fly. (4.12)
Why does Toswiah feel like she knows Raymond Taylor, without knowing anything about him but the fact that he was also black? Is there some universal element of the experience of being black that she has not acknowledged even to herself that makes her feel connected to him?