Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. Honky Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles London Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. Honky Dalton Conley Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2000 by Dalton Conley Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Conley, Dalton, 1969– Honky / Dalton Conley. p. cm. isbn 0-520-21586-9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1.White children—New York (State)—New York—Social conditions. 2.Whites—New York (State)—New York—Race identity. 3.Whites— New York (State)—New York—Biography. 4.Afro- American children—New York (State)—New York—Social conditions. 5. Hispanic American chil- dren—New York (State)—New York—Social condi- tions. 6. Race awareness in children—New York (State)—New York. 7. Social classes—New York (State)—New York—History—20th century. 8. Lower East Side (New York, N.Y.)—Social conditions. I.Title. hq792.u5 c66 2000 305.26'09747—dc21 00-023774 cip Manufactured in the United States of America 9876543210 10987654321 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI / NISO Z39 0.48-1992(R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). ° Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. For Jerome Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. This page intentionally left blank Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. “Your mother is so white, she went to her own wedding naked.” Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. This page intentionally left blank Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. Prologue xi Contents one Black Babies 1 ten Welcome to America two 121 Trajectories 9 eleven No Soap Radio three 133 Downward Mobility 19 twelve Moving On Up four 143 Race Lessons 37 thirteen Disco Sucks five 151 Fear 55 fourteen Addictions six 165 Learning Class 67 fifteen Symmetry seven 177 The Hawk 79 sixteen Fire eight 191 Getting Paid 97 seventeen Cultural Capital nine 203 Sesame Street 111 Epilogue 219 Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright Author’s Note 229 Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. This page intentionally left blank Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. Prologue Prologue I am not your typical middle-class white male. I am middle class, despite the fact that my parents had no money; I am white, but I grew up in an inner-city housing project where most everyone was black or Hispanic. I enjoyed a range of privileges that were denied my neighbors but that most Amer- icans take for granted. In fact, my childhood was like a social science experiment: Find out what being middle class really means by raising a kid from a so-called good family in a so- called bad neighborhood. Define whiteness by putting a light- skinned kid in the midst of a community of color. If the excep- tion proves the rule, I’m that exception. Ask anyAfricanAmerican to list the adjectives that describe them and they will likely put black or African American at the top of the list. Ask someone of European descent the same ques- tion and white will be far down the list, if it’s there at all. Not so for me. I’ve studied whiteness the way I would a foreign lan- guage. I know its grammar, its parts of speech; I know the sub- tleties of its idioms, its vernacular words and phrases to which the native speaker has never given a second thought.There’s an Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. old saying that you never really know your own language until you study another. It’s the same with race and class. In fact, race and class are nothing more than a set of stories we tell ourselves to get through the world, to organize our re- ality.And there was no one who told more stories to me than my mother, Ellen. One of her favorites was how I had wanted a baby sister so badly that I kidnapped a black child in the play- ground of the housing complex. She told this story each time my real sister, Alexandra, and I were standing, arms crossed, facing away from each other after some squabble or fistfight. The moral of the story for my mother was that I should love my sister, since I had wanted to have her so desperately.The message I took away,however,was one of race. I was fascinated that I could have been oblivious to something that years later feels so natural, so innate as race does . Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright xii Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. one Black Babies As my mother tells it, the week before I kidnapped the black baby I broke free from her in the supermarket, ran to the back of the last aisle, and grabbed the manager’s microphone.“I want a baby sister,” I announced, my almost-three-year-old voice re- verberating off ceiling-high stacks of canned Goya beans. “I want a baby sister,” I repeated, evidently intrigued by the fact that my own voice seemed to be coming from every- where. Soon my mother’s shopping cart was rattling across the floor of the refrigerated back row where all the meats were kept. I can envision the two long braids on either side of her head flapping maniacally,as if they were wings trying to lift her and the cart off the ground. She was, in fact, pregnant. She had explained to me what this meant a week earlier, and I had be- come fixated on it, asking each day how much longer it would be. My parents tolerated this first of my many obsessions, happy that at least I was not resentful and jealous, though they wondered why I so much wanted the baby to be a girl and not another something like myself. Copyright © 2000. University of California Press. All rights reserved. of California Press. © 2000. University Copyright Conley, Dalton. Honky, University of California Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc/detail.action?docID=223254. Created from senc on 2021-06-09 08:58:49. “How old will I be when the baby’s born?” I asked one day. The next morning I continued my questioning: “When I’m five, how old will the baby be?” Soon after that I started to worry about its sex:“When will we know it’s a sister and not a brother?” Skin color never entered my line of questioning. My parents did their best to engage my curiosity, each in their own way.While my father, Steve, used colored pens to handicap the Racing Form, he gave me some markers and told me to draw a picture of the baby.