It’s a horrible world. White people try to tell us that everything will be just fine when we go to heaven. My question is, Will they be there? If so,… - Percival Everett

Why are people so fucked up?” I asked
“Maybe you do need college, Poiter,” Everett said. “You want to know why people are so fucked up? Son, that’s about the only question I can answer with even a small measure of authority. It’s because they’re people. People, my friend, are worse than anybody.

I was just lucky enough to find a truck with the black-power flag already on it.

She had to know, and I’m certain she did, that even the simple matter of dark skin would be a cause of consternation for her parents. I came to imagine them as Ward and June Cleaver. I recalled my mother happening upon me watching that television show one afternoon. It launched her into such a fit of hysteria that I was afraid she might become pregnant again.
“How dare they put that propaganda on the television?” my mother barked. “But of course that’s what the box is for, isn’t it? Here is my black son sitting here in his black neighborhood watching some bucktoothed little rat and his washed-out, anally stabbed Nazi-Christian parents.”
“There’s a brother, too,” I said, being six or so and not really understanding the tirade.
“Oh, a brother, too. I see him there, an older lily white acorn fallen so close to the tree. Turn that crap off. No, leave it on. Study the problem, Not Sidney. Soak it in.” With that she marched off to make cookies.