How do tom and daisy feel about race? why does fitzgerald include this information? what does this say about the context of society

Tom believes white people are superior and should do everything in their power to prevent black people from taking over. Daisy's behavior is ambiguous, but she does not seem to completely agree with Tom.

Explanation:

In the first chapter of "The Great Gatsby", the narrator Nick has dinner at his wealthy cousin's house. His cousin, Daisy, is married to a brute and unfaithful man, Tom Buchanan. Over dinner, Tom asks Nick if he has read a book called "The Rise of the Colored Empires". He then proceeds to explain that the book has opened his eyes to the fact that black people will try to subdue them, the white people. Daisy, who often shows an ambiguous, type of passive-aggressive behavior, does not clearly disagree with her husband. However, she winks at her cousin twice and reveals through her expression that she is disappointed in what her husband reads and thinks. Study the excerpt below:

"Tom's getting very profound," said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. "He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we..."

"Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. it's up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things."

"We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

[...]

"This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and..." After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again [...]

There has been some discussion on Tom's being racist or not. Some defend the character by saying he's an elitist, not necessarily a racist. Tom believes himself to be superior to people in general, and that's all. However, Tom is a representative of the powerful portion of society, the portion that would much rather maintain the status quo that benefits them so instead of accepting other people's worth.

in the problem you wrote said that the taxi charges $0.070 per mile(which would be 7 cents per mile), but then in your suggested equation you have it as $0.70 per mile (which is 70 cents per mile).

the latter seems more realistic, so i will assume that the taxi costs $5.00 and charges $0.70 per mile with tolls costing an additional $3.50. and it asks you to find how far you can travel on $36.50.

let x the number of miles traveled. since the taxi charges $0.70 per mile, multiplying this by the miles traveled (x) will yield the cost of the taxi ride as far as how far it took you. then adding this amount to the cost of the taxi ($5.00) and the additional cost for the tolls ($3.50) will give you the total cost of the taxi ride ($36.50)

that is,

            (0.70)x + 5.00 + 3.50 = 36.50

adding the like terms on the left-hand side of this equation, we arrive at the following:

            (0.70)x + 8.50 = 36.50

subtracting 8.50 from both sides of the equation, we get:

            (0.70)x = 28.00

to solve for x, divide both sides of the equation above by the coefficient of x (that being, 0.70):

            x = 40

thus, you can travel up to 40 miles on $36.50