“All de time de chillun growin’ de American folks dey picks at dem and tell de Afficky people dey kill folks and eatee de meat. Dey callee my chillun ig’nant savage and make out dey kin to monkey. “Derefo’, you unnerstand me, my boys dey fight. Dey got to fight all de time. Me and dey mama doan lak to hear our chillun call savage. It hurtee dey feelings. Derefo’ dey fight. Dey fight hard. When dey whip de other boys, dey folks come to our house and tellee us, ‘Yo’ boys mighty bad, Cudjo. We ’fraid they goin’ kill somebody.’

“Cudjo meetee de people at de gate and tellee dem, ‘You see de rattlesnake in de woods?’ Dey say, ‘Yeah.’ I say ‘If you bother wid him, he bite you. If you know de snake killee you, why you bother wid him? Same way wid my boys, you unnerstand me. If you leavee my boys alone, dey not bother nobody!’ “But dey keep on. All de time, ‘Aleck dis, Jimmy dat, Poe-lee dis an’ t’other. David a bad boy. Cudjo fightee my son.’ Nobody never say whut dey do to de Afficky savages. Dey say he ain’ no Christian. Dey tell whut de savages do to dem, just lakee we ain’ gottee no feelings to git hurtee. “We Afficans try raise our chillun right. When dey say we ign’nant we go together and build de school house. Den de county send us a teacher. We Afficky men doan wait lak de other colored people till de white folks gittee ready to build us a school. We build one for ourself den astee de county to send us de teacher.

Barracoon (Zora Neale Hurston)


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