How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Well, you try to root a few out. We need them. I swear to God the only people in this country with any guts seem to be Negroes. Mind you," he said, "I don't want to keep Negroes out of the hero business, but I'm damned if I want them to corner the market. You dig me up ten white, able-bodied Americans who aren't afraid to have a conviction, an idea, or an opinion in an unpopular field, and I'll have the major part of a standing army." (3.7.8)
Steinbeck's journalist friend claims that he thinks there are no real men left in America at that point, aside from African Americans. It's a weird moment; he apparently is trying to backpedal on appearing racist with his statement, but he also seems to think it's somehow important for white men in particular to reclaim their manliness. Hmm...
Quote #2
The Texans, they say, didn't want to pay taxes and, second, Mexico had abolished slavery in 1829, and Texas, being part of Mexico, was required to free its slaves. Of course there were other causes of revolt, but these two are spectacular to a European, and rarely mentioned here. (4.1.8)
Steinbeck is musing on the origins of Texas and its desires to break free of Mexico back in the day. As you can see, slavery played a role in that whole rigmarole, although apparently Americans and Texans are less ready to talk about it than Europeans.
Quote #3
I knew, as everyone knows, the true but incomplete statement of the problem—that an original sin of the fathers was being visited on the children of succeeding generations. I have many Southern friends, both Negro and white, many of them of superb minds and characters, and often, when not the problem but the mere suggestion of the Negro-white subject has come up, I have seen and felt them go into a room of experience into which I cannot enter. (4.2.5)
Steinbeck knows he's viewing a lot of the racial tensions going on in the U.S. as an outsider, since the real hotbed of these problems has been the South and he's definitely not a southerner. Here, he's reflecting on how his friends on both sides of the racial "divide" understand the problem and experience it in a way that he can't.