The Sellout Quotes
"Theirs not to reason what the fuck, Theirs but to shoot and duck."
"You want to make me happy? Then beat me. Beat me to within an inch of my worthless black life."
"Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die."
"To this day, when the census form arrives in the mail, under the 'RACE' question I check the box marked 'Some other race' and proudly write in 'Californian.'"
"Like any 'primitive' Negro child lucky enough to reach the formal operational stage, I’ve come to realize that I had a shitty upbringing that I’ll never be able to live down."
"True freedom is having the right to be a slave."
"In the history of the Los Angeles Police Department, do you know how many officers have been convicted of murder while in the line of duty?"
"It’s not even an emotion. What does being offended say about how you feel?"
"It’s the goddamn twenty-first century, people died so I could get this job, and I let your sick ass talk me into driving a segregated bus."
"The subtle message of the luxury car commercial is ‘We here at Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Lexus, Cadillac, or whatever the fuck, are an equal-opportunity opportunist."
"I’m bringing the city back. Bringing you back, too!"
"That’s the problem with history, we like to think it’s a book—that we can turn the page and move the fuck on."
"It hurts knowing that Dickens had been exiled to the netherworld of invisible L.A. communities."
"The voice inside your head (the one you swear up and down isn’t prejudice or racism) tells you to roll up the windows and lock the doors."
"The key to bodysurfing a good wave is timing. Swim two strokes ahead of the curl, and as soon as the current makes you feel weightless, lift your chin, throw one arm tight to your side and the other straight out in front, then just ride to shore."
"Some unions, like that of Tel Aviv and Berlin, Paris and Algiers, are designed to signal an end to hostilities and the beginning of peace and prosperity; arranged marriages in which the cities learn to love one another over time."
"I grabbed my atlas and tried to guess who would be the lucky ladies."
"Too embarrassed to tell Hominy that my efforts to find Dickens a sister city had failed, I stalled him with little black lies."
"Standing next to a sign hammered into the lawn: FOR SALE—PRE-OWNED NEGRO SLAVE—ONLY BEATEN ON THURSDAYS—GOOD CONVERSATION PIECE."
"The ironic thing about being the last Little Rascal is that you spend the rest of your life trying to escape the rascals."
"If I could figure out a way to decrease the water intake, the yield would be shit and I’d have wasted ten years and fifty pounds of imported Japanese fertilizer."
"I’ve experienced direct discrimination based on race only once in my life."
"They say never laugh at your own jokes, but all the best comics do."
"What the hell kind of grade is a ‘PR’?" "PR means shows proficiency."
"You can’t see the niggers for the plantation."
"You heard the saying, you can’t see the forest for the trees? Well, you can’t see the niggers for the plantation."
"You’re not worried about that all-white school?" "Naw, white kids need learnin’, too."
"Motherfuckers don’t believe I buried him in the backyard. But I did."
"I’m a farmer: we segregate in an effort to give every tree, every plant, every poor Mexican, every poor nigger, a chance for equal access to sunlight and water; we make sure every living organism has room to breathe."
"What, you going to dig up the yard like in ‘Unexpected Riches’?"
"I do and do for you niggers, and this is the thanks I get."
"Been working for him, according to this crazy fucker, the last four hundred years."
"Don’t say shit! Don’t run! Don’t resist arrest! Don’t say shit!"
"As a farmer, my client is an indispensable member of a minority community well documented for being malnourished and underfed."
"The irony is not lost on me that we sit here in this courtroom—a female state’s attorney general of black and Asian lineage, a black defendant, a black defense counselor, a Latina bailiff, and me, a Vietnamese-American district judge—setting the parameters for what is essentially a judicial argument about the applicability, the efficacy, and the very existence of white supremacy as expressed through our system of law."
"You’re goddamn right I did! And I’d do it again, because this pot is fucking unbelievable."
"The Supreme Court is where the country takes out its dick and tits and decides who’s going to get fucked and who’s getting a taste of mother’s milk."
"Your mama been on welfare so long, her face is on the food stamp."