Toledo Character Analysis

CUTLER: Well, until you get your own band where you can play what you want, you just play the piece and stop complaining. I told you when you came on here, this ain’t none of them hot bands. This is an accompaniment band. You play Ma’s music when you here.

LEVEE: I got sense enough to know that. Hell, I can look at you all and see what kind of band it is. I can look at Toledo and see what kind of band it is.

TOLEDO: That’s African.

SLOW DRAG: What? What you talking about? What’s African?

LEVEE: I know he ain’t talking about me. You don’t see me running around in no jungle with no bone between my nose.

TOLEDO: Levee, you worse than ignorant. You ignorant without a premise.

(Pauses.)

Now, what I was saying is what Slow Drag was doing is African. That’s what you call an African conceptualization. That’s when you name the gods or call on the ancestors to achieve whatever your desires are.

SLOW DRAG: Nigger, I ain’t no African! I ain’t doing no African nothing!

TOLEDO: Naming all those things you and Cutler done together is like trying to solicit some reefer based on a bond of kinship. That’s African. An ancestral retention. Only you forgot the name of the gods.

TOLEDO: See, now...I’ll tell you something. As long as the colored man look to white folks to put the crown on what he say...as long as he looks to white folks for approval...then he ain’t never gonna find out who he is and what he’s about. He’s just gonna be about what white folks want him to be about. That’s one sure thing.

TOLEDO: Everybody worried about having a good time. Ain’t nobody thinking about what kind of world they gonna leave their youngens. “Just give me the good time, that’s all I want.” It just makes me sick.

SLOW DRAG: Well, the colored man’s gonna be all right. He got through slavery, and he’ll get through whatever else the white man put on him. I ain’t worried about that. Good times is what makes life worth living. Now, you take the white man...The white man don’t know how to have a good time. That’s why he’s troubled all the time. He don’t know how to have a good time. He don’t know how to laugh at life.

TOLEDO: It ain’t just me, fool! It’s everybody! What you think…I’m gonna solve the colored man’s problems by myself. I said, we. You understand that? We. That’s every living colored man in the world got to do his share. Got to do his part. I ain’t talking about what I’m gonna do...or what you or Cutler or Slow Drag or anybody else. I’m talking about all of us together. What all of us is gonna do.

The white man knows you just a leftover. ‘Cause he the one who done the eating and he know what he done ate. But we don’t know that we been took and made history out of. Done went and filled the white man’s belly and now he’s full and tired and wants you to get out the way and let him be by himself. Now, I know what I’m talking about. And if you wanna find out, you just ask Mr. Irvin what he had for supper yesterday. And if he’s an honest white man...which is asking for a whole heap of a lot...he’ll tell you he done ate your black ass and if you please I’m full up with you...so go on and get off the plate and let me eat something else.

CUTLER: I done told you about that blasphemy. Taking about selling your soul to the devil.

TOLEDO: We done the same thing, Cutler. There ain’t no difference. We done sold Africa for the price of tomatoes. We done sold ourselves to the white man in order to be like him. Look at the way you dressed...That ain’t African. That’s the white man. We trying to be just like him. We done sold who we are in order to become someone else. We’s imitation white men.

CUTLER: Well, until you get your own band where you can play what you want, you just play the piece and stop complaining. I told you when you came on here, this ain’t none of them hot bands. This is an accompaniment band. You play Ma’s music when you here.

LEVEE: I got sense enough to know that. Hell, I can look at you all and see what kind of band it is. I can look at Toledo and see what kind of band it is.

TOLEDO: That’s African.

SLOW DRAG: What? What you talking about? What’s African?

LEVEE: I know he ain’t talking about me. You don’t see me running around in no jungle with no bone between my nose.

TOLEDO: Levee, you worse than ignorant. You ignorant without a premise.

(Pauses.)

Now, what I was saying is what Slow Drag was doing is African. That’s what you call an African conceptualization. That’s when you name the gods or call on the ancestors to achieve whatever your desires are.

SLOW DRAG: Nigger, I ain’t no African! I ain’t doing no African nothing!

TOLEDO: Naming all those things you and Cutler done together is like trying to solicit some reefer based on a bond of kinship. That’s African. An ancestral retention. Only you forgot the name of the gods.

TOLEDO: See, now...I’ll tell you something. As long as the colored man look to white folks to put the crown on what he say...as long as he looks to white folks for approval...then he ain’t never gonna find out who he is and what he’s about. He’s just gonna be about what white folks want him to be about. That’s one sure thing.

TOLEDO: Everybody worried about having a good time. Ain’t nobody thinking about what kind of world they gonna leave their youngens. “Just give me the good time, that’s all I want.” It just makes me sick.

SLOW DRAG: Well, the colored man’s gonna be all right. He got through slavery, and he’ll get through whatever else the white man put on him. I ain’t worried about that. Good times is what makes life worth living. Now, you take the white man...The white man don’t know how to have a good time. That’s why he’s troubled all the time. He don’t know how to have a good time. He don’t know how to laugh at life.

TOLEDO: It ain’t just me, fool! It’s everybody! What you think…I’m gonna solve the colored man’s problems by myself. I said, we. You understand that? We. That’s every living colored man in the world got to do his share. Got to do his part. I ain’t talking about what I’m gonna do...or what you or Cutler or Slow Drag or anybody else. I’m talking about all of us together. What all of us is gonna do.

The white man knows you just a leftover. ‘Cause he the one who done the eating and he know what he done ate. But we don’t know that we been took and made history out of. Done went and filled the white man’s belly and now he’s full and tired and wants you to get out the way and let him be by himself. Now, I know what I’m talking about. And if you wanna find out, you just ask Mr. Irvin what he had for supper yesterday. And if he’s an honest white man...which is asking for a whole heap of a lot...he’ll tell you he done ate your black ass and if you please I’m full up with you...so go on and get off the plate and let me eat something else.

CUTLER: I done told you about that blasphemy. Taking about selling your soul to the devil.

TOLEDO: We done the same thing, Cutler. There ain’t no difference. We done sold Africa for the price of tomatoes. We done sold ourselves to the white man in order to be like him. Look at the way you dressed...That ain’t African. That’s the white man. We trying to be just like him. We done sold who we are in order to become someone else. We’s imitation white men.