How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Line)
Quote #1
Trevor turned to the boy and whispered, "Don't no pale faces go to this school. You need to get your white butt back across the highway." (1.21)
Well, that's rude. Trevor makes it clear right away that Jesus Boy isn't welcome here… and it's not because of his long hair, or his weird clothes, or even his attitude. It's because he's white.
Quote #2
Trevor was light, lighter than most of the other kids who went to our school, and blue-eyed. On the first day of school, Rayray made the mistake of asking him if he was part white and Trevor hit him. Hard. (1.32)
One thing that you should never bring up with Trevor is the fact that he's half-white. He's pretty much disowned any relationship with his father… just like his father disowned Trevor.
Quote #3
"It's the nineteen seventies," I said. "Not the fifties. There's no more segregation, remember?"
"Try telling that to the people on the other side of the highway," Maribel said. "Or the people on this side. It's strange. Strange that he's coming to this side where he doesn't belong." (2.30-31)
Talk about a weird time. It's the 1970s, so technically there is no longer segregation, but even the kids at school know that it's not the way things truly are. Things are still pretty separate for the different races.
Quote #4
"That boy is white, Samantha! You could almost see through his skin. He's like blue-white! That's even whiter than white."
"But," Samantha said calmly, "He says he's not white. We don't know what the world looks like from inside his eyes. For all we know, you're white." (6.43-44)
What's up with Jesus Boy telling everyone that he's not white? It's hard for Frannie to wrap her mind around the idea that someone could present as a white person and yet identify as something else.
Quote #5
"It would have been okay for me. But it wasn't okay for my mom and dad," he said. "It was hard for them. People can be so stupid. Once this cop stopped us and asked me if I knew my dad. Me and my dad were fooling around, kinda wrestling and stuff. He thought my dad was hurting me."
He looked at me, then said, "I don't look like him, I guess." (10.61-62)
Even though Jesus Boy is totally white, he's seen some racial discrimination in his lifetime. He gets that people are going to discriminate against his parents for being black, and he hates it.
Quote #6
"I ain't your man, white boy!"
The Jesus Boy looked at him calmly and said, "Well, I ain't your white boy, man."
[…] but then the door opened and a tall, dark-skinned man came in, looked around, then saw us.
"You ready," he said to the Jesus Boy.
The Jesus Boy nodded. "This is Frannie. Frannie, this is my pops. That's Trevor." (10.76-83)
Surprise—it turns out that all this time, Jesus Boy has been telling everyone that he's not white because he comes from a black family. That's definitely not what they expected.
Quote #7
"You know the world's changing, Frannie. I don't want to hear about you messing with that boy just because he's white." (11.33)
Frannie's grandma may have grown up in a different time, but she still believes in compassion and the changes of the future. She wants her grandkids to be compassionate and accepting regardless of race—she wants them to set an example.
Quote #8
"I ain't your white boy," the Jesus Boy said. "You color-blind?" He stepped away from the fence. A step closer to Trevor. Trevor didn't back up, though.
I took a deep breath. I couldn't believe he was standing up there, trying to tell them he wasn't white. Even if he did have a brown daddy, there wasn't anything about him that looked Not White. (14.38-39)
Jesus Boy is really sticking to his "I'm not white" party line. Even though all the other kids at school would beg to differ, he doesn't see himself as a white person. He sees himself as the son of his father—a black man.
Quote #9
"My mama isn't white and my daddy isn't white and as far as I know it, you're the one with the white daddy living across the highway." He took another step toward Trevor, but even as he said those words, his voice stayed quiet. (14.43)
Well, there's one thing that Jesus Boy and Trevor have in common: Neither of them wants to identify as a white person. They could both be considered white—or at least part-white—but that's not a part of their personal identity.
Quote #10
And the hurting proved to all of us that the Jesus Boy was just a boy. A white-black boy. A human boy all complicated and crazy as the rest of us. (15.23)
Even though he's the first white kid to come into their classroom, Jesus Boy doesn't end up being very different from the rest of them. It turns out that the color of his skin doesn't really matter—he's pretty much like all the other kids.