Dalton Conley

While Dalton Conley’s Honky may be a good primer for many privileged kids, it does nothing to expand on the social conditions of those living in poverty. The trajectory of the author’s life as he tells it, seems to widen the racial gap even further. For a great part of the narrative, the author does count his blessings, and although I don’t blame him, he fails to see his opportunities from the eyes of his neighbors who didn’t have the same cultural capital as his family did. More often than not, he reflects on the what ifs of his life, beginning with “I wonder what would have happened had my mother not been white,” when she entered a hospital lab without permission, to questioning what would have befallen him if he were not white after starting a fire in a upscale Chelsea loft. Conley pulls away from expanding on what might have happened if he were of a different race thus taking away from further discussion on the issues of race.

Throughout the book, he develops friendships with the neighborhood kids, but they seem to be used as a device for comparing the lives they had and eventually led. Conley could have done a better job examining the causes of these life differences rather than merely pointing to the fact that he was very lucky because of his skin color. One example of this is when he first started school and did not receive corporal punishment when those around him did. By examining why “the other parents had requested that their children be physically disciplined,” he could have drawn on the works of Albert Memmi and the historical impacts of colonization. It is unfortunate his family could not afford to live in a better neighborhood, but they had the chance to move up. Those around him did not, and pausing to examine why for the reader would have strengthened the story. Conley writes about the advantages he had growing up, but fails to explain why such opportunities were available to him and not to others.… (mer)