Essay on Honky Book Report - 3136 Words

Minority Autobiography Analysis (Book Report) Title: Honky Author: Dalton Conley Summary Honky 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†¦show more content†¦Dalton and Jerome drift apart and Dalton becomes good friends with another classmate named Raphael. He is Latino, lives near the school and his parents have money. Dalton and Raphael accidentally set fire to Raphaels apartment playing a game with matches. Both kids were found to blame for the incident and neither was punished severely. Dalton knows this would have been different if he had been black and the fire had been in one of the tenements near his home. When Jerome had been shot, Daltons mother had placed their name on a waiting list for low-income housing in Roosevelt Long Island and just before Dalton enters high school, the family moves. Dalton is puzzled as to why they were given the housing instead of one of his neighbors and finds his parents being artists played a big role. Dalton had been accepted into a quality, public school known for its academics where he makes friends with the kids of working class families who commuted great distances, as he once did, to school. After high school, he leaves his family, moves to San Francisco, and attends Berkley. After college, he returns to New York, lives in Manhattan just a few miles from where he grew up, and is a professor at Yale. Theoretical Application Daltons experiences growing up reflect many of the theories we covered during class. Early on he has little concept of what race is and considers himself part of the neighborhood in which he is growing up. Everyone around him is eitherShow MoreRelatedGeorge Schuyler, Black No More1591 Words   |  7 Pagesbe the first African-American science fiction writer. Nisi Shaw’s list of African American science fiction writers in her article â€Å"A Crash Course in the History of Black Science Fiction† proves that there other black writers in that genre who had books published before Schuyler. Martin Delaney s Blake, or Huts of America, published in 1859 concerns a â€Å"slave revolt† and the possibilities of a new, perfect society (â€Å"utopia†).Speculating about a future â€Å"utopia† is one of the hallmarks of science fictionRead MoreSummary Of The Iconoclast s Black No More 1718 Words   |  7 Pagesuse hair straightening supplies again (Black No More, 14). It is probable that the name of Schuyler’s book is based on the name of that product. Included in the preface as well are the statements of a Japanese doctor (Dr. Yusaburo) and an American engineer (Mr. Bela Gati), who each said that had invented a process to change a Negro into a white man (Black No More, v). In fact, Schuyler reports Dr. Yusaburo as saying he could transform the Japanese race into â€Å"tall blue-eyed blonds† (Black No MoreRead MoreI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou6502 Words   |  27 Pagesaugmenting her feelings of rejection and guilt. Even though Maya further isolates herself in the library, the books do more good than harm. On the one hand, Maya’s favorite stories and fairy-tales teach her the culturally accepted notion that women cannot be heroes, causing her to wish that she could be male. Nevertheless, Maya ceases to want or need Mr. Freeman’s attention because books provide her with companionship. When Mr. Freeman rapes her, he uses the need for affection she previously expressed