How we cite our quotes: (Entry. Paragraph)
Quote #4
The visual barrier imposed itself. The observing self saw the Negro, surrounded by the sounds and smells of the ghetto, write "Darling" to a white woman. The chains of my blackness would not allow me to go on. Though I understood and could analyze what was happening, I could not break through. Never look at a white woman—look down or the other way. What do you mean, calling a white woman "darling" like that, boy? (10.252)
Earlier, Griffin learned that he's not even supposed to look at a white woman, so now he feels weird about writing to his wife. Even though Griffin doesn't mention it in the book, black men in the South were often killed for any kind of interaction with a white woman, so it's understandable why he would be a little scared.
Quote #5
This is how the white man can say, "They live like dogs," never realizing why they must, to save themselves, shout, get drunk, shake the hip, pour pleasures into bellies deprived of happiness. Otherwise, the sounds from the quarter would lose order and rhythm and become wails. (10.259)
Do you agree with Griffin's assessment? Or is he just making excuses/ overgeneralizing?
Quote #6
This man offered his services free to any Negro woman over twenty, offered to pay, on an ascending scale, from two dollars for a nineteen-year-old girl up to seven fifty for a fourteen-year-old and more for perversion dates. He gave a contact point for later in the evening and urged any Negro man who wanted to earn five dollars for himself to find him a date within this price category. (12.26)
This seems more than a little hypocritical when you remember that the white racists in Black Like Me say that black people are depraved. But posters like this are so common that when a black man sees it, he's not even surprised. Remind us, who are the depraved ones again?