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Kenya Dunston
Juanita Mae Jenkins is a Black author whose debut novel, We’s Lives In Da Ghetto, receives glowing praise from critics and mainstream audiences alike—and immense critical success. Monk loathes the book, Jenkins, and authors like her, who he feels are hacks who write offensive books that rely on tired stereotypes of Black people to make money. In anger, Monk writes My Pafology, a satire of We’s Lives In Da Ghetto and books like it, under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh. To Monk’s shock and disgust, publishers fail to recognize his novella for the parody it clearly is, and it receives glowing reviews and movie deals just as Jenkins’s work did before it.
Juanita Mae Jenkins Quotes in Erasure
The Erasure quotes below are all either spoken by Juanita Mae Jenkins or refer to Juanita Mae Jenkins. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 6
Quotes
I went to what had been my father’s study, and perhaps still was his study, but now it was where I worked. I sat and stared at Juanita Mae Jenkins’ face on Time magazine. [...] I remembered passages of Native Son and The Color Purple and Amos and Andy and my hands began to shake, the world opening around me, tree roots trembling on the ground outside, people in the street shouting dint, ax, fo, screet and fahvre! and I was screaming inside, complaining that I didn’t sound like that, that my mother didn’t sound like that, that my father didn’t sound like that and I imagined myself sitting on a park bench counting the knives in my switchblade collection and a man came up to me and he asked me what I was doing and my mouth opened and I couldn’t help what came out, ‘Why fo you be axin?”
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
My Pafology: Too
Quotes
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“You ain’t shit,” I say.
“Well, you is shit,” Yellow say.
Chapter 11
Quotes
“Have you ever known anybody who talks like they do in that book?” I could hear the edge on my voice and though I didn’t want it there, I knew that once detected, it could never be erased.
Chapter 14
Quotes
[...] There were books by John Grisham and Tom Clancy, a paperback of John MacDonald and things like that. Those books didn’t bother me. Though I had never read one completely through, I had peeked at pages, and although I did not find any depth of artistic expression or any abundance of irony or play with language or ideas, I found them well enough written, the way a technical manual can be well enough written. Oh, so that’s tab A. So, why did Juanita Mae Jenkins send me running for the toilet? I imagine it was because Tom Clancy was not trying to sell his book to me by suggesting that the crew of his high-tech submarine was a representation of his race (however fitting a metaphor). Nor was his publisher marketing it in that way. If you didn’t like Clancy’s white people, you could go out and read about some others.
Get the entire Erasure LitChart as a printable PDF.
Juanita Mae Jenkins Quotes in Erasure
The Erasure quotes below are all either spoken by Juanita Mae Jenkins or refer to Juanita Mae Jenkins. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 6
Quotes
I went to what had been my father’s study, and perhaps still was his study, but now it was where I worked. I sat and stared at Juanita Mae Jenkins’ face on Time magazine. [...] I remembered passages of Native Son and The Color Purple and Amos and Andy and my hands began to shake, the world opening around me, tree roots trembling on the ground outside, people in the street shouting dint, ax, fo, screet and fahvre! and I was screaming inside, complaining that I didn’t sound like that, that my mother didn’t sound like that, that my father didn’t sound like that and I imagined myself sitting on a park bench counting the knives in my switchblade collection and a man came up to me and he asked me what I was doing and my mouth opened and I couldn’t help what came out, ‘Why fo you be axin?”
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
My Pafology: Too
Quotes
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Yellow say.
“You ain’t shit,” I say.
“Well, you is shit,” Yellow say.
Chapter 11
Quotes
“Have you ever known anybody who talks like they do in that book?” I could hear the edge on my voice and though I didn’t want it there, I knew that once detected, it could never be erased.
Chapter 14
Quotes
[...] There were books by John Grisham and Tom Clancy, a paperback of John MacDonald and things like that. Those books didn’t bother me. Though I had never read one completely through, I had peeked at pages, and although I did not find any depth of artistic expression or any abundance of irony or play with language or ideas, I found them well enough written, the way a technical manual can be well enough written. Oh, so that’s tab A. So, why did Juanita Mae Jenkins send me running for the toilet? I imagine it was because Tom Clancy was not trying to sell his book to me by suggesting that the crew of his high-tech submarine was a representation of his race (however fitting a metaphor). Nor was his publisher marketing it in that way. If you didn’t like Clancy’s white people, you could go out and read about some others.
