“You killed my baby!” she screamed. “You killed him!” (page 14)

This sentence is spoken by Rufus’ mother who had accused Dana, the woman who was trying to save Rufus from dying from drowning in a river, of killing her son when in fact she was just trying to help him by giving him mouth to mouth at the moment.  She screams “you killed my baby” twice at Dana, suggesting an interesting idea of how Rufus’ mother, a white lady, saw Dana who was a black woman in that moment.  An idea that portrays that even when Dana was trying her level best to bring good to the situation, she was only still labeled as a killer.  Maybe this was because of her skin color or maybe it wasn’t.  Sadly, this was the prevailing idea brought upon this situation.

I find it shocking that these words came out of Rufus’ mother’s mouth because she did witness Dana trying to save Rufus at the time.  Even Rufus’ dad came out of nowhere with a long rifle pointed towards Dana, after she had saved him which suggests a major idea of a prejudice mentality.  A prejudice mentality like that can be unfortunately supported since it was 1976, as people were still getting used to black people being around everyone else as if it were normal.  This sentence justifies this theme of preconceiving an opinion that is not based on reason by Rufus’ mother and father by the actions they took when Dana saved their son.