Honky

Rating:
Summary: A family choosing to be poor
Review: "Honky" is an engaging, very readable, and pretty interesting story of a white family living in largely African American, lower east side Manhattan public housing projects. Accordingly, Conley, now a professor at NYU, has a perspective different from that of other white academics, and an appreciation for, as well as greater sensitivity to the poor African American subculture.

The story is fascinating in describing how Conley's mother navigated and manipulated the NYC housing and education bureaucracies to extract the maximum opportunities available through the system. Of course, it is intuitively obvious reading Conley's memoir that her success was primarily due to her being white, and by virtue of her greater education than the average African American born into such circumstances who is compelled to rely upon them by necessity, rather than by choice as was the case with Conley's family.

"Honky" is valuable in terms of its descriptions of the daily culture shock that Conley experienced from a poor home environment to the middle class milieu of the the elementary and high schools in which his mother managed to have her children placed. While sad to read about how he came to be ostracized and occasionally roughed up neighborhood black kids as he grew older, it was difficult to be entirely sympathetic recognizing that this was a transitory period in his family's life, and entirely due to his parents' choice.

This book is definitely worth reading; however, it is difficult not be left with a sense of irritation and injustice over Conley's parents' choices for their own convenience, and at their children's and the public's expense.

Rating:
Summary: A family choosing to be poor
Review: "Honky" is an engaging, very readable, and pretty interesting story of a white family living in largely African American, lower east side Manhattan public housing projects. Accordingly, Conley, now a professor at NYU, has a perspective different from that of other white academics, and an appreciation for, as well as greater sensitivity to the poor African American subculture.

The story is fascinating in describing how Conley's mother navigated and manipulated the NYC housing and education bureaucracies to extract the maximum opportunities available through the system. Of course, it is intuitively obvious reading Conley's memoir that her success was primarily due to her being white, and by virtue of her greater education than the average African American born into such circumstances who is compelled to rely upon them by necessity, rather than by choice as was the case with Conley's family.

"Honky" is valuable in terms of its descriptions of the daily culture shock that Conley experienced from a poor home environment to the middle class milieu of the the elementary and high schools in which his mother managed to have her children placed. While sad to read about how he came to be ostracized and occasionally roughed up neighborhood black kids as he grew older, it was difficult to be entirely sympathetic recognizing that this was a transitory period in his family's life, and entirely due to his parents' choice.

This book is definitely worth reading; however, it is difficult not be left with a sense of irritation and injustice over Conley's parents' choices for their own convenience, and at their children's and the public's expense.

Rating:
Summary: Honky in the Hood
Review: About midway through his excellent, humorous and poignant memoir of growing up white in the mostly minority inner-city that comprises the edges of Manhattan's Lower East Side, Dalton Conley strives to comprehend the forces that enabled him, unaccompanied by his non-white peers, to transcend the urban blight that characterized both the outer and inner landscapes of those living in his neighborhood. "I'll never know whether it was my mother's protectiveness, my expectations and aspirations, or simply my race that spared me from a worse fate," writes Conley. "I will never know the true cause and effect in the trajectory of my life. And maybe it is better this way. I can believe what I want to believe. This is the privilege of the middle and upper classes in America - the right to make up the reasons things turn out the way they do, to construct our own narratives rather than having the media and society do it for us." Honky, at its core, is Conley's construction of his own narrative, a thoughtful examination of the trajectories that were at force in his childhood, as well as a personal and moving account of his gradual childhood acknowledgement of the significance of his whiteness and the privileges of race and class while growing up in multiple, unequal worlds. Clearly his book has a lot to teach - and it does - but in a thoughtful and non-preachy manner.

As a coming-of-age story, Honky is a study in contrasts: a child of white, progressive, and poor parents growing up in an otherwise Black and Hispanic housing project, an inner-city boy predominantly schooled in upper middle class public schools, and a fledgling, awkward teenager slowly seeing and coming to understand what he lyrically claims are the "invisible contours of inequality" that peopled the many worlds he simultaneously inhabited. His account is as refreshingly straightforward as it is honest, as, for example, when he realizes after moving from the inner-city with his family into a mostly white neighborhood during his high-school years his own self-proclaimed social awkwardness. "I paced in circles," writes Conley, "like a dosed up laboratory animal, wishing I were back in our old neighborhood, where at least I had my skin color to blame for not fitting in."

Conley's aim throughout his memoir is not so much to preach but to demonstrate, and by demonstrating, uncover what are essentially both the paradoxes and determinants of race and class in America. "If the exception proves the rule," he declares, "I'm that exception." He is forthright about the "cultural capital" of his family, that which allowed them, for example, to work the public schooling system to their advantage, using the addresses of friends in better neighborhoods as their own so that the author and his sister could attend better schools - an advantage seldom available to their minority peers. And never more aware is Conley of the lingering scars he harbors, both physical and emotional, that are the remnants of the violence that plagued his neighborhood in the 1970's and 80's and of which he carries today in his adulthood.

Honky is a must-read for those interested in complexities of race and class in America today. It provides a first-hand account of one who was forced to grapple with the language and idioms of whiteness in a way that most non-minority Americans take for granted. And his take on poverty in America is especially clear and bleak, a reflection by one who was able to both live in and transcend its grasp. Conley, now a sociologist at Yale, who is trained to develop statistical models to examine sociological problems, quips at the end of his memoir that "what's gained in story is lost in numbers." As regards to Honky we are fortunate that is the case.

Brian T. Peterson, New York City

Rating:
Summary: Read this book.
Review: As a former thug child who grew up in and around the NYC area, I secretly wished for a childhood like that of Mr. Conley's. As a white kid, I always felt compelled to be tougher then my peers in order to prove myself. Regardless of where I was or who I was with, (usually minorities) I always held on to the comfort of knowing that at any given time, I could walk into a store and be treated better than my friends simply because of the color of my skin. It's not something that we discussed within my circle but we all knew it exsisted. This form of guilt followed me until I got older and learned more about racism and class. I think that Mr. Conley just spoon fed me the answer I've been searching for all these years. In retrospect, I think that it's ridiculous to have wished for a less fortunate life than the one I was granted. Mr. Conley didn't have the choice to grow up where he did, but I bet he wouldn't have changed it for the world. This is a brilliant and courageous man, and I hope that the next generation of leaders in this world think more like he does. I have three words for all of you...READ THIS BOOK. It can do everybody a lot of good.

Rating:
Summary: Lower East Side
Review: As a reader who also lived at Masaryk on Avenue D, Conley invoked all the culture, characters, bricks and attitudes of the Whites, Black and Hispanics that live together and sometimes clash. I especially like the "man hunt" scene that was part of growing up down there. I think that he portrays the events as one individual, not saying it was the same for every white or minority. When he moves to the "white" village, he still finds it hard to fit in, showing it is sometimes not a matter of race. This is an honest writer who delves into his life and is not afraid to show the so called "warts."

Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: As a white chick growing up in Takoma Park, MD and DC, this book really hit home! Similar to the author's experiences, I was stunned when my baby brother was born and he wasn't black (as I had expected), and I, too, coveted the amazing cornrows sported by my classmates (impossible in my white-girl hair). This book is so real, so honest about the way kids and adults view race/skin color in our society and isn't overburdened with "liberal white guilt". "Honky" made me feel that there is someone else out there who really understands how disconcerting it is to grow up as a "majority-minority" and discover how society REALLY views race. A totally awesome book---I wish there were more like this out there!

Rating:
Summary: Dalton Conley
Review: Dalton Conley claims that he was ghetto growing up and that as the only white honky at his school he claims that he never got beat on for being white. Yeah right. Those of us white honkys who grew up poor in a real ghetto know what it's really like. Dalton Conley is just another white liberal from NYU who grew up in a middle class neighborhood that was racially mixed. Conley is just a stooge for the liberal elite who wanna keep that garbage alive about "white privilege" and the need for affirmative action discrimination programs. The white liberal elite at places like NYU support affirmative action discrimination programs because they know that neither they nor their families will ever be discriminated against because they got money and upper class connections!

Rating:
Summary: An Insightful Book
Review: Dalton Conley did not just write this book, he lived this book. The sociology professor tells the amusing story of his childhood in a section of New York's low income housing as the only white family in his building.

Conley does an excellent job restating the era in which he grew up. He acurately states the fashions and music of the time. This alone is very amusing. However, his experiences are an excellent sociological barometer. Because of his skin color, he becomes the outcast in many situations. He develops friendship in spite of his color. He also experiences many of the problems in low income housing including being robbed, having a friend shot, and being held at knife point. His stories are set to the background of his hippy parents who located in the neighborhood to help their lives as artists. This story makes excellent fiction, but it actually happened.

The book is an easy read. I had trouble putting the book down as I found it so interesting. Regardless of your skin color, this book has a lot of valuable insights.

Rating:
Summary: An Insightful Book
Review: Dalton Conley did not just write this book, he lived this book. The sociology professor tells the amusing story of his childhood in a section of New York's low income housing as the only white family in his building.

Conley does an excellent job restating the era in which he grew up. He acurately states the fashions and music of the time. This alone is very amusing. However, his experiences are an excellent sociological barometer. Because of his skin color, he becomes the outcast in many situations. He develops friendship in spite of his color. He also experiences many of the problems in low income housing including being robbed, having a friend shot, and being held at knife point. His stories are set to the background of his hippy parents who located in the neighborhood to help their lives as artists. This story makes excellent fiction, but it actually happened.

The book is an easy read. I had trouble putting the book down as I found it so interesting. Regardless of your skin color, this book has a lot of valuable insights.

Rating:
Summary: Hail to Honky!
Review: Fascinating book about the social complexity of race. I loved the autobiographical tone that let the words flow from the page. Conley is a great writer of life experiences as well as a dissector of life's irregularities...