Quote 43
Shake him, shake him, you cannot break him For he's Sambo, the dancing, Sambo, the prancing, Sambo, the entrancing, Sambo Boogie Woogie paper doll. And all for twenty-five cents, the quarter part of a dollar… Ladies and gentlemen, he'll bring you joy, step up and meet him, Sambo the – (20.71-5)
There is a lot to unpack in this brief ditty. First, it suggests resilience on the part of black people, who, "shake them" as you might, you cannot break. Second, it suggests a role of black people as entertainers – but as entertainers whose strings you can pull and control. Third, this can also be viewed as not having anything to do with race and everything to do with the narrator as Sambo, being cruelly played by others. Lastly, the ditty suggests that black people can be bought.
Quote 44
That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality. (Prologue.2)
The narrator sets up the importance of a physical eye in this passage, which later comes in handy when analyzing Reverend Barbee and Brother Jack.
Quote 45
For instance, I have been carrying on a fight with Monopolated Light and Power for some time now. I use their service and pay them nothing at all, and they don't know it. Oh, they suspect that power is being drained off, but they don't know where. All they know is that according to the master meter back there in their power station a hell of a lot of free current is disappearing somewhere into the jungle of Harlem. The joke, of course, is that I don't live in Harlem but in a border area. (Prologue.7)
Ripping off the power company is the narrator's form of social protest while maintaining his invisibility.