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Our Country Friends

Book by Gary Shteyngart · 16 quotes · America, Life, Police

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Our Country Friends Quotes

“But now he wondered if the Asian girl at the end of the commercials was not there to sell the Hostess spurting pastry or whatnot, but rather to sell America. Like the Statue of Liberty showing off her armpit at the end of the Sure commercial, the girl spoke more to a Cold War ideal of America--look who we let in! Hardworking Asians! Whereas a Vinod-type presence in one of his white V-neck sweaters (all three brothers wore them on special occasions, cute as lambs) might have confused the audience. Why isn't that Brown guy selling us a taco shell that won't break?”

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“The news affected Senderovsky more than it did the others. He watched the video footage of the Midwestern murder-by-cop over and over while he was on the toilet locked in the upstairs bathroom. He memorized the scene. The ugly institutional shoes, the ugly institutional pants, the baton and flashlight and walkie-talkie, the upturned sunglasses worn high over the buzz cut, and beneath all that brute institutional force, a dying man crying out the last word that was likely also his first, those two repeating syllables, Ma and Ma. And then he was a man no more, but a lifeless slab hoisted on an institutional gurney, and there was static and instructions and dispatch codes. All of it perfectly commonplace, like an order for Gruyere cheese placed at the local market for curbside pickup.”

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“As an immigrant his mission had been simple. He was brought here by his parents to make money off what an important Jewish author had once termed "the American berserk." You came, they laughed at your accent on an urban playground, and then you were given your degrees and guided into battle. By which point, you were just a scab sent in to reinforce the established order. In the video, as the white policeman was draining the air from his Black victim's lungs with his knee, another cop, a Hmong immigrant, stood in front of him in a wide-open stance, daring anyone to come to the dying man's aid. He could have been a Russian, a Korean, a Gujarati. All of us, Senderovsky thought, are in service to an order that has long predated us. All of us have come to feast on this land of bondage. And all of us are useful and expendable in turn.”

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