“We had all accepted things from white skins that none of us would have brooked from our own people.” 

This quote explains how white colonizers were able to get away with more than anyone else, because of the difference in power between the races. Because independence is so fresh, the main characters of A Man of the People often compare their present situation to before the nation was made independent—and to the racial inequality that resulted from subjugation to Britain.

“You see this old woman, quite an illiterate pagan, who most probably worshipped this very god herself.” 

The assumption that an elderly woman disliked a sculpture of a god (when in fact she revered it) shows a cultural divide between two different groups of people. Additionally, the condescension in this quote shows a negative view of the group to which the elderly woman belongs.