{
  "type": "quote",
  "site": {
    "name": "Leafy Quotes",
    "language": "en",
    "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com"
  },
  "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.",
  "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison/beloved/whitepeople-believed-that",
  "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison/beloved/whitepeople-believed-that.json",
  "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison/beloved/whitepeople-believed-that.md",
  "id": "74e5354b-38bd-496c-8241-a2fbafee9f52",
  "slug": "whitepeople-believed-that",
  "text": "Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the jungle grew inside. But it wasn’t the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread. In, through and after life, it spread, until it invaded the whites who had made it. Touched them every one. Changed and altered them. Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own.",
  "language": "en",
  "author": {
    "name": "Toni Morrison",
    "slug": "toni-morrison",
    "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison"
  },
  "book": {
    "title": "Beloved",
    "slug": "beloved",
    "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison/beloved"
  },
  "character": null,
  "chapter": null,
  "chapter_parent": null,
  "page": null,
  "verified": false,
  "original": null,
  "other_languages": [],
  "topics": [
    {
      "name": "racism",
      "slug": "racism",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/racism"
    }
  ],
  "source": {
    "name": "Wikiquote",
    "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison#Beloved_(1987)",
    "license": {
      "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
      "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
    }
  },
  "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:01",
  "more_from_book": [
    {
      "id": "e4b8e265-513e-454c-b8cc-d8f6dbbb1b3d",
      "slug": "anybody-white-could",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison/beloved/anybody-white-could",
      "text": "Anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own. The best things she was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing — the part of her that was clean.",
      "language": "en",
      "character": null,
      "chapter": null,
      "chapter_parent": null,
      "page": null,
      "verified": false,
      "original": null,
      "other_languages": [],
      "topics": [
        {
          "name": "racism",
          "slug": "racism",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/racism"
        },
        {
          "name": "motherhood",
          "slug": "motherhood",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/motherhood"
        }
      ],
      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison#Beloved_(1987)",
        "license": {
          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
          "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
        }
      },
      "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:02"
    },
    {
      "id": "bd4782c7-4c48-4310-8ebb-ba7f2211aa1e",
      "slug": "whats-fair-aint",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison/beloved/whats-fair-aint",
      "text": "What's fair ain't necessarily true.",
      "language": "en",
      "character": null,
      "chapter": null,
      "chapter_parent": null,
      "page": null,
      "verified": false,
      "original": null,
      "other_languages": [],
      "topics": [
        {
          "name": "truth",
          "slug": "truth",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth"
        },
        {
          "name": "justice",
          "slug": "justice",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/justice"
        }
      ],
      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison#Beloved_(1987)",
        "license": {
          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
          "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
        }
      },
      "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:02"
    },
    {
      "id": "a8c6d6d0-53b0-4e9a-aa4e-ff766bd21950",
      "slug": "human-life-is-holy",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison/beloved/human-life-is-holy",
      "text": "Human life is holy, all of it.",
      "language": "en",
      "character": null,
      "chapter": null,
      "chapter_parent": null,
      "page": null,
      "verified": false,
      "original": null,
      "other_languages": [],
      "topics": [
        {
          "name": "life",
          "slug": "life",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life"
        }
      ],
      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison#Beloved_(1987)",
        "license": {
          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
          "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
        }
      },
      "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:02"
    }
  ]
}