“You knew you were abnormal- the way the nasty ones were too nasty and the nice ones too nice. The old white women who muttered and glared at him, the black men who shook their heads at you, the black women whose pitiful eyes bemoaned your lack of self-esteem, your self-loathing. Or the black women who smiled swift, secret solidarity smiles, the black men who tried too hard to forgive you, saying a too obvious hi to him, the white woman who said “what a good looking pair” too brightly, too loudly, as though to prove their own tolerance to themselves.”

The people around the narrator are suspicious and uncomfortable with their relationship. They seem to resent to the pairing of a black woman and white man. It is seemed odd yet none of these people have the audacity to outright reject this pairing. This quotation proves that although legally the segregation of races may be illegal, we still continue to think and operate un-cohesively.