How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
White folk! Who they think they kidding? They might as well go blow smoke up somebody else's you-know-what, 'cause a Black man's got no chance in this country. I be lucky if I make it to twenty-one with all these fools running round with AK-47s. (3.2)
Whoa. Tyrone has some pretty strong opinions on race here. Is he wrong to be distrustful of white people? Or does he have a point? After all, he did watch his own dad get gunned down. Maybe the future isn't looking so bright for a black kid from the inner city like him?
Quote #2
Trumpeter of Lenox and 7th
through Jesse B. Semple,
you simply celebrated
Blues and Be-bop
and being Black before
it was considered hip.
You dipped into
the muddy waters
of the Harlem River
and shouted "taste and see"
that we Black folk be good
at fanning hope
and stoking the fires
of dreams deferred.
You made sure
the world heard
about the beauty
of maple sugar children,
and the artfully tattooed backs of Black
sailors venturing out
to foreign places. (2.1)
Wesley's poem celebrates Langston Hughes, but also thanks the poet for showing the world what black people can do. Hughes's poem makes the black experience seem beautiful, something to be proud of. Wesley is really grateful to see these positive messages about his own life and his place in the world. Thanks, Langston.
Quote #3
My brothers laugh at me just 'cause they've been in the world a little longer. They say I'm loco en la cabeza, that ain't no spic gonna be no big-time artist in America. "First off," I tell them, "I ain't no spic. And second, watch me." (8.12)
Raul embraces his ethnicity and rejects anything that would label him as lesser because he's Latino. His brothers are right: there haven't been tons of big-time Latino artists in America. But Raul doesn't see that as an insurmountable obstacle. It's just a stumbling block he's prepared to leap right over.
Quote #4
I want to show the beauty of our people, that we are not all banditos like they show on TV, munching cuchfritos and sipping beer through chipped teeth. I will paint los niños scooping up laughter in the sunshine and splashing in the temporary pool of a fire hydrant. I will paint my cousins, turning the sidewalk into a dance floor when salsa or la bamba spills from the third-floor window. (9.15)
Raul's a little bit like Wesley. He sees the way Latino folks are portrayed on TV—as stereotypes—and he doesn't like it. He knows there's more to his people and that's what he wants to show the world.
Quote #5
What could I possibly have in common with these kids? I must've asked myself that question a million times a day when I moved here. I'm white, they're Black and Hispanic. I grew up in Westchester County. They grew up in New York City. I like Sheryl Crow, they like Lauryn Hill. Except for Raynard and Devon, who are into jazz. It's like we come from two different planets. (26.2)
Leslie is white, so she doesn't think she has much in common with the black and Latino kids in her class. She also grew up mostly around other white people and never really felt like she stood out before. Now, though, everything about her seems a little different—even the music she likes. She may feel like she comes from a different planet, but that doesn't mean she can't bridge the gap somehow. We're all the same on the inside, right?
Quote #6
It was the best I could do on my own. And it looked better than that time I washed it in detergent to kink it up so I could have an Afro like my cousins[…]
I'd walked past a group of would-be girlfriends who sucked their teeth at me and said my name like it was curdled milk they couldn't wait to spit out. "Here come Miss High-Yella, thinkin' she's all that, with her so-called 'good hair,' " said one. "Far's I'm concerned, she ain't nothin'," said another. "Less than nothin'," said a third. I shook off the memory.
"Look, Mom," I said. "You don't understand." But she wasn't listening.
"Most girls you know would kill to have your hair," she said.
"That's just it, Mom. They hate me for it and they hate my skin. I can't do anything about my skin, okay, but my hair I can fix." (38.4, 5-9)
Tanisha is black… but not black enough for some people. Lots of kids think her light skin and "good" hair are pretty, but other girls don't care for it much and claim she's a little bit too "white" to fit in. Tanisha's caught between two extremes and it's not easy.
Quote #7
It's the blood that tells:
slaves black as Mississippi mud
ring the trunk
of my family tree.
They speak through me
Black as they want to be.
The slaver's white drop
couldn't stop the spread
of African cells.
They're bred
in the bone,
past the slick hair,
the too-fair skin.
So don't tell me
I can't fit in. (39.1)
Tanisha's poem is all about her African heritage. Yes, she might have some European DNA mixed in there, but she's black through and through and no one can tell her otherwise.
Quote #8
I will not apologize because my eyes are blue.
I am cool with being me just like you're cool with you.
By the way, just 'cause you brothers put the H in hip
doesn't mean some of us white boys can't pick up a tip.
I can get down on the get-down. I know how to flow.
I be checking out Dr. Dre too, if you must know.
But enough of that, 'cause I've got something on my mind.
I have seen the News at Five and here is what I find:
There ain't nothing good on teens, don't matter where you look.
Black or white, screen time is strictly for the teenage crook.
Hear them tell it, drugs and violence is our only song.
For myself, I think it's time that we all prove them wrong. (62.3)
Steve may be white, but he shows the black kids in class that he can flow with the best of them. Steve doesn't make any apologies for who he is—he's white, but he grew up in a black and Latino neighborhood, so he embraces those cultures, too. Tyrone is pretty impressed.
Quote #9
Wesley put his hand on my shoulder. "Sheila," he said, "you want to hang with brothas and sistas, it ain't no big thing. Just don't try to be them […] Soon as you get out of here, you're going to go to a college or get a job where everybody else is as blond and blue-eyed as you. They walk like you and talk like you. What're you going to do, then? Change yourself back?"
The truth of his words pinned me to the wall. I never even stopped to think about the future, about leaving this school, this neighborhood, maybe even this city. All I ever think about is now, because now hurts so bad. (63.11-12)
Wesley's words really hit Sheila. She's trying hard to fit in, and she mistakenly thinks that she should change her identity in order to do so. Wesley doesn't see that as the way to go, though. Sheila might stand out now, but someday she'll leave town and join the white majority. What will she do then? Keep her "Africana" name or change herself again to fit in? Nope. Best thing to do is just be yourself.
Quote #10
My name is Mai Tren. I'm half Black, half Vietnamese. You try being me for a week, see how well you fit into this world. "Go back where you came from," kids say to me sometimes. And I think, Go where exactly? We left the village my mother grew up in many years ago, right after my father died. He was American, so my mother was able to bring our family to the United States. I have as much right to be here as anyone. But no one hears me. No one cares about that. They can't see past my slanted eyes. Not even the Black kids. Never mind that we're all people of color, that most of us live in single-parent homes, that we catch the same amount of grief from the white world. It's ridiculous. (78.2)
Mai Tren is having a rough time because he's mixed race. Since people can't easily fit him into a box, they reject him altogether. Instead of judging him for who he is, everyone is trying to categorize and label him. Maybe there's hope in Mr. Ward's class?