How we cite our quotes: (Story.Section.Paragraph) or (Story.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The place stunk, especially in the summer. And children were always screaming and men were always cussing and women were always yelling about something…It was nothing for a girl or woman to be raped. I was raped myself, when I was twelve, and my Mama never knew and I never told anybody. For, what could they do? (Lawyer.5)
This young girl lives a life deprived of safety, dignity, and kindness. The violence itself in the context of such deep poverty probably isn't shocking, but the sense of utter helplessness in the face of it is. It also comes as no surprise when Bubba persuades her to think that, nah, he didn't really rape her—she must have some feelings for a guy who pretends to be kind to her. Yeah, right.
Quote #2
They dug up her grave when I started agitating in the Movement. One morning I found her dust dumped over my verbena bed, a splintery leg bone had fell among my petunias. (Petunias.5)
This comes from the diary of a woman who is eventually killed in an explosion caused by her son, who has just come home from Vietnam. There's a lot of irony in this short piece—not least of which is the name of the town: Tranquil, Mississippi.
Not only has the war in Vietnam literally come home with this woman's son, but there's also the lingering violence of white supremacy. At any rate, the peacefulness of the garden is undercut before the desecrated remains of her great-grandmother are dumped there as petunias can symbolize anger and resentment.
Quote #3
[…] I would have argued that the more ancient roots of modern pornography are to be found in the almost always pornographic treatment of black women, who, from the moment they entered slavery, even in their own homelands, were subjected to rape as the "logical" convergence of sex and violence. Conquest, in short. (Coming Apart.3)
Walker takes the opportunity in this story—and in "Porn" and "A Letter of the Times, or Should This Sado-Masochism Be Saved?"—to make clear that pornography = violence against women. This is because pornography not only objectifies women, it also plays on the stereotypes that promote the idea that rape and slavery are something desirable to women, even part of their fantasy lives. In this way of thinking, rape and sex become one thing—when in reality, the two do NOT overlap. Rape is violence, not sensuality.