Honky Book Report Essay Example For Students

Honky Book Report Essay Minority Autobiography Analysis(Book Report)Title: Honky SummaryHonky is the true story of Dalton Conley, a white kid, growing up in a minority community. The story takes place beginning at the end of the 1960s and concluding in the early 1980s and takes us from the authors early childhood to college. Dalton Conley was white, with a Jewish mother and an Irish/English father. Both of Daltons patents were artists. His mother, Ellen, grew up in northern Pennsylvania, the daughter of a dentist, and was a graduate of Penn State University. She was active in the civil rights movement in the early sixties and later spent time in Haiti as a volunteer. She is probably best described as somewhat of a Flower child. Daltons father, Steve, grew up in Connecticut with moderately wealthy parents. He attended college at a small liberal arts school in Wisconsin but never graduated. During his junior year, his father lost his job and business and could no longer afford the tuition. Daltons parents wer e the starving artist type and lived in a tenement in Manhattan. The apartment was in a crime-ridden area and they were robbed several times. The last time they were robbed Daltons mother was able to identify the thief and have him arrested. The thief threatened to kill the entire family upon his release so they decided to move. They applied for and were accepted into a new housing project, The Masaryk Towers, which was largely Black and Hispanic. Living in a predominately minority community and Dalton has no concept of race early on. When told his mother is pregnant he is almost three and completely unaware that both his parents being white will result in a white child. Dalton experiences being a minority among minorities and sees first hand how the cultural differences affect society. Living in a minority area, he attends predominantly a black school where he learns of some differences between the cultures. In school finds, he is the only student who cannot be disciplined with cor poral punishment because black teachers are fearful of striking a white child and his parents are steadfastly against it. Daltons parents use some connections and the address of a friend to have him transferred to a mostly white school after a child molester is caught castrating boys in the bathroom of his school. There he learns what it is like to be white and finds the popular kids are those with the richest parents. Dalton finds himself in a unique spot in his new school because even though he is white, he is poor. On days, he sleeps at a friends house he is unable to buy snacks after school the way his white friends do. He decides he needs money to fit in and takes a job in a local store but is fired because of labor laws relating to minors. Dalton had considered himself a member of both the white school he attended and the minority neighborhood in which he lived. That image was challenged when he realized he was embarrassed to bring his white friend to his house and when his baseball glove was stolen at knifepoint and his neighborhood friends did little to help. This was the point he realized he was an outsider in both worlds. Dalton spent his summers in middle class Pennsylvania camping near his grandparents house. Both he and his sister hated this but knew they were getting to do things their neighborhood peers could only dream about. Dalton and his sister had a difficult time making friends during the summer because they were city kids and the PA kids were rural. When Dalton is about twelve, he becomes friends with a boy names Jerome who lives in his neighborhood. Jerome is the only other boy in his neighborhood who attends his school predominantly white school. He is the type of kid who is liked by all, accepted by both the white and black population. About a year, after they become friends Jerome is shot by a stray bullet and becomes paralyzed. Dalton has trouble dealing with this and ultimately becomes obsessive compulsive having to do everything in twos for fear of bad luck. Government Internet Intervention EssayOne of the stories uses the term nigger to define the villain and this is upsetting to her. The use of this word, by people who for the most part have never interacted with minorities shows how minorities can be guilty until proven innocent. They never even considered the people this was referring to, it was just a foregone conclusion that Blacks were niggers and bad people. These kids were apparently taught racial hatred at an early age. It seems the result of being a minority and forced to grow up in the ghetto started you on a treadmill where escape was almost impossible. But a white kid in the same environment was given more and different opportunities and therefore had a much better chance to improve his/her life situation. Critical Evaluation I found Honky to be an interesting book. It allowed me to gain some perspective on the neighborhood where I grew up and better understand many of the privileges associated with growing up white. I was raised in Roxborough, a predominantly white area in North West Philadelphia. Here, the streets were relatively clean, you could walk to the store without fear, and the schools were among the best in the city. I had taken for granted that this is how things were everywhere and was led to believe that if a neighborhood was bad then the residents were to blame. I wont say I was shocked by what I read because deep down I think everyone knows that growing up in a poor neighborhood affords you fewer of lifes opportunities. I will say that after reading this book you get a much better understanding of how and why some neighborhoods are as they are and why minorities have such a difficult time making a better life for themselves. This book makes it clear that not all neighborhoods are created equal and the minorities who are unfortunate enough to have to live in the depressed areas are caught in a trap. The book makes a strong argument for better means of integration. It tells me that people are a product of their environment and if you live in an area where crime is prevalent then you stand a good chance of becoming a criminal or possibly worse, being labeled a criminal because of your skin color. It also shows me that institutional discrimination is a very real situation and not to be taken lightly. The book makes a strong argument for integration and assimilating the black minority into the mainstream. It is pointed out several times that the people in the neighborhood are doing their best to educate their children but the schools are lacking. Its clear that most of the people who reside in the projects are no different from those in the dominant group. They want what is best for their children and what is best for them but are denied some of the basic services we take for granted that are necessary to make this happen. It also points out that stereotyping makes integration a difficult task. When white kids refer to blacks as niggers, it shows a difficult road ahead. The book makes a compelling argument for integration. We are shown a group of people who, through no fault of their own, are stuck in a cycle of poverty. Daltons escape from this poverty shows the privileges bestowed on whites that made his escape possible. Others in his neighborhood could not have made the transition nearly as easily simply because they were black. Through integration, we could reduce or eliminate the black ghetto. If, for example, schools were funded equally many could escape. Dalton uses the address of a family friend to gain entrance into the better school but this possibility doesnt exist for the black kids because they have no friends in the white neighborhood. The book does however lack some details. We are not introduced to the families of the kids in the projects and have to draw our own conclusions. For example, Daltons mother is diligent in making sure he follows the right path by forcing him to sign contracts stating he wont do this or that. We are not told about the parents of the kids on the bench drinking beer or why parents allowed teachers to use corporal punishment on their children. The picture is sort of one dimensional in that we only are shown the minority group from Daltons perspective. I understand that this is an autobiography but some insight into the other minority families in the story may have helped clarify some points. After reading this book (and taking this class), I find many of the statements and observations of friends and family to be extremely offensive and shortsighted. I would recommend some people I know read this book but they would also need to take this class. I have always been labeled the Only Democrat in the Republican stronghold and my interpretation of this book brings proves that to me. If I were to give this book to some of the people I know, they would discount many of the points made in the book and I would hear things like Of course Dalton succeeded, he is white. That is a sad commentary on some of my friends but unfortunately, it is true. Overall, I found the book both interesting and educational. I hate to admit it but I expected to find the story contained instances of how Dalton was mistreated in the projects. Reading about the experiences Dalton had growing up makes it clear that the rules of the game are different if you are a minority.