How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I was glad nobody wanted to cut off my hands. Because Jesus made me white, I reckon they wouldn't. (2.2.29)
As young as five, Ruth May learned about white privilege. But, oops: the Prices quickly learn they're not immune. In the Congo, it's not the color of your skin, but where you are, that has consequences. Ruth May finds herself in the same place as a snake, and the consequence is death.
Quote #2
Mrs. Underdown tried to make friends with Mother by complaining about her houseboy. [...] "Honestly, Orleanna, he would steal everything except the children." (2.7.4)
The Underdowns live in luxury, have an excess of food and personal comforts, pay their servants very little … and still manage to complain about them. Must be nice.
Quote #3
"Your King Baudouin is living off the fat of this land [...] and leaving it up to penniless mission doctors and selfless men like my husband to take care of their every simple need. Is that how a father rules?" (2.7.44)
Try capitalizing "Father" and then asking the same question. Nathan Price's Father (a.k.a. God) is an absent ruler who takes all of the credit and none of the blame for events in the human world. Is that how God rules?
Quote #4
According to my Baptist Sunday-school teacher, a child is denied entrance to heaven merely for being born in the Congo. (2.8.4)
Once again, white privilege rears its ugly head. This is an imaginary injustice that leads to an actual injustice: when these people think the dark races of the Congo need "saving." The only thing they need to be saved from is these people.
Quote #5
Bongo Bango Bingo. That is the story of Congo they are telling now in America: a story of cannibals. [...] The guilty blame the damaged. (2.8.14)
The Americans' ignorance of the Congo isn't entirely their fault. It's also the fault of the American media, making the Congolese out to be communists or carefree bums.
Quote #6
Leopoldville [has] nice paved streets for the whites, and surrounding it, for miles and miles, nothing but dusty run-down shacks for the Congolese. [...] Americans would never stand for this kind of unequal treatment. (2.11.13)
America being, at the time, the country of Jim Crow laws. And Rachel thinks they wouldn't stand for unequal treatment? LOL.
Quote #7
"Don't try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you are good, bad things can still happen. And if you are bad, you can still be lucky." (3.21.35)
Anatole tries to get Leah to understand that things just aren't fair. Give it a few decades: she's going to realize the truth of this firsthand.
Quote #8
I live among men and women who've simply always understood their whole existence is worth less than a banana to white people. I see it in their eyes when they glance up at me. (5.6.34)
Okay, seriously. This is too sad for words. These people believe their lives are worthless because they've been treated that way by the whites that run the mines. (Plus, they probably don't even get paid enough to afford a banana.)
Quote #9
How can this be, a castle with spires and a moat? Why doesn't the world just open its jaws like a whale and swallow this brazenness in one gulp? (5.8.8)
Er … has it ever? Mobutu's crimes against the people of Congo are reprehensible. He's the 1% with 99% of the people's money—but the people are so oppressed that they can't even imagine revolting.
Quote #10
There is not justice in this world. [...] This world has brought one vile abomination after another down on the heads of the gentle, and I'll not live to see the meek inherit anything. (6.2.26)
Here's Leah a couple decades later. Now, she doesn't only believe that the world is unfair, she's believes there's a complete lack of justice in the world. Is she being realistic or pessimistic?