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Of course, I must say that I don’t think America is God’s gift to anybody—if it is, God’s days have got to be numbered. That God these people say they serve—and do serve, in ways that they don’t know—has got a very nasty sense of humor.
This comment falls early in the book, as an aside in the section describing Sharon’s early life. This interjection shows Tish’s anger and disgust at American society and links the novel’s theme of the corruption at the heart of America to the pattern within the text of the destructive aspects of religion. In this passage, God and America are both cruel authority figures, deriving power from the oppression of their people. This God is exemplified in the book by Mrs. Hunt’s sanctimonious belief system, in which only the morally pure and those saved through religious devotion are worthy of good lives. Her refusal to fight against the system that has wrongfully imprisoned her son reflects her understanding that powerful authority figures are implicitly just and will ultimately reward the righteous. The detail in this quotation that God’s days are numbered reflects Tish’s belief that unjust systems will ultimately fall in the face of resistance, a standpoint illustrated by the raised-fist salute she and Fonny give each other at each parting, a sign of their commitment to Black Power
…his eyes were as blank as George Washington’s eyes. But I was beginning to learn something about the blankness of those eyes. What I was learning was beginning to frighten me to death. If you look steadily into that unblinking blue, into that pinpoint at the center of the eye, you discover a bottomless cruelty, a viciousness cold and icy
This passage occurs near the end of Part One of the novel when Tish describes Officer Bell. Her description begins by detailing Bell’s cruelty, stupidity, and childishness. At the same time, it notes his resemblance to cowboy actor John Wayne and his empowerment to invoke the law to remove people like Fonny, who do not fit the societal ideal. The comparison drawn between Bell and first president George Washington links Bell’s wickedness explicitly to the foundation of the United States—an example of the novel’s theme of the corruption at the heart of America. The image of the unblinking eye as blue implicitly confirms that the corrupt power is rooted in whiteness, a connection strengthened later in the passage by the image of the snowy field marred by the presence of the black figure who is killed and covered with snow to return the world to its ideal state of pure white.
"I don’t speak no Spanish and they don’t speak no English. But we on the same garbage dump. For the same reason.” She looks at me. “For the same reason. I had never thought about it like that before. Whoever discovered America deserved to be dragged home, in chains, to die."
Sharon says this in Part Two of the novel when she is telling the story of finding Victoria in the favela. This passage extends the theme of the corruption at the heart of America to include the New World as a whole. During her time in Puerto Rico, Sharon comes to see how the life of the poor in Puerto Rico resembles the life of oppressed people in mainland United States. She recognizes their struggles as linked to hers as a Black woman, despite the differences in the specific histories of the mainland U.S. and the American territory of Puerto Rico. Sharon’s realization mirrors Tish’s inclusion of Puerto Ricans alongside Black people as people who should not be ashamed about having loved ones in jail, since they have been incarcerated by a racist system. Here, Sharon implicates the Europeans said to have discovered the New World as the source of the moral and physical decay present in both places. Both Black people and Puerto Ricans live in a world broken by the effects of slavery and colonization. Although the book is set in the 20th century, the moral corruption in the foundation of both places continues to poison them centuries later.
