Quote by Ann Petry

“Mom,' he said, 'why do white people want colored people shining shoes?' She turned toward him, completely at a loss as to what to say, for she had never been able to figure it out for herself. She looked down at her hands. They were brown and strong, the fingers were long and well-shaped. Perhaps because she was born with skin that color, she couldn't see anything wrong with it. She was used to it. Perhaps it was a shock just to look at skins that were dark if you were born with a skin that was white. Yet dark skins were smooth to the touch; they were warm from the blood that ran through the veins under the skin; they covered bodies that were just as well put together as the bodies that were covered with white skins. Even if it were a shock to look at people whose skins were dark, she had never been able to figure out why people with white skins hated people who had dark skins. It must be hate that made them wrap all Negroes up in a neat package labeled 'colored'; a package that called for certain kinds of jobs and a special kind of treatment. But she really didn't know what it was. 'I don't know, Bub,' she said finally. 'But it's for the same reason we can't live anywhere else but in places like this'—she indicated the cracked ceiling, the worn top of the set tub, and the narrow window, with a wave of the paring knife in her hand.”

Quote by Ann Petry