Right before we got into the cardboard jungle we passed the white people with the coughing baby at their own little fire […] All they're eating is dandelion greens soup, they're broke, their clothes are falling off of them, their baby's sick but when someone took them some food and blankets, the man said, "Thank you very much, but we're white people. We ain't in need of a handout." (8.186-187)

Oh, brother. Because of social pressures to act a certain way, the white family feels like even though they are at the bottom of the pit, they still can't sink lower by accepting help from a black family. This shows that even though all of these people are in the same boat, it's still hard for some of them to get past prejudice and stereotypes.