Quote 37
You're nobody, son. You don't exist – can't you see that? The white folk tell everybody what to think – except men like me. I tell them; that's my life, telling white folk how to think about the things I know about…But you listen to me: I didn't make it, and I know that I can't change it. But I've made my place in it and I'll have every N***o in the country hanging on tree limbs by morning if it means staying where I am. (6.76)
This is the first time we see the narrator being told of his invisibility. Dr. Bledsoe has achieved a position of power incredibly rare among men of his race, but he feels no obligation to aid other black people, saying that he has no qualms with hanging every black man in the country if it means maintaining his power.
Quote 38
A black statue of a nude Nubian slave grinned out at me from beneath a turban of gold. I passed on to a window decorated with switches of wiry false hair, ointments guaranteed to produce the miracle of whitening black skin. "You too can be truly beautiful," a sign proclaimed. "Win greater happiness with whiter complexion. Be outstanding in your social set." (13.3)
In this society, whiteness is prized, celebrated, and sought after.
Quote 39
I felt that somehow they expected me to perform even those tasks for which nothing in my experience – except perhaps my imagination – had prepared me. Still it was nothing new, white folks seemed always to expect you to know those things which they'd done everything they could think of to prevent you from knowing. The thing to do was to be prepared (14.185)
The narrator says there is a double standard between white people's expectations and restrictions of black people.