How we cite our quotes: (Story.Section.Paragraph) or (Story.Paragraph)
Quote #1
[…] I would just think of how different his son Bubba was from his daddy! Do you understand what I'm saying. I thought he loved me. That meant something to me. What did I know about "equal rights"? What did I care about "integration"? I was sixteen! I wanted somebody to tell me I was pretty and he was telling me all the time. (Lawyer.10)
FYI, Bubba doesn't love the narrator of this story. Bubba is raping her. But the young woman—who lives a harsh and isolated life—has been manipulated into believing that he's a good, white man who sees her true beauty. It's no surprise, then, that she reacts as she does when she sees him for what he is.
Quote #2
They carefully burned Uncle Albert to ashes in the incinerator of their high school, and each of them kept a bottle of his ashes. (Elethia.7)
Elethia and her friends take action when they realize that the "effigy" of Albert Porter in the window of a local restaurant is, in fact, really Albert Porter. They decide to give him as proper a cremation as they can manage. It's possible that Elethia and her boys are acting simply out of outrage and a sense of justice. But it's also certain that they're acting out of love and respect for the man Albert Porter was, and to make up for the indignities he suffered in his life—and after it.
Quote #3
Well, she was a fraud, anyway. She had known after a year of marriage that it bored her. "The Experience of Having a Child" was to distract her from this fact. Still, she expected him to "take care of her." (Abortion.19)
Like the narrator of "Porn" and "The Lover," Imani finds out too late that the whole marriage thing is not for her. Her husband, Clarence, tries to remind her that she loves him—but does she really? To be fair, Imani is dealing with a lot of things. It seems impossible for her to move beyond the suffering and oppression she feels to love anyone else.