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Social Inequalities In Honky By Dalton Conley

1306 Words6 Pages

Growing up in the projects of 1970s and 1980s New York, Dalton Conley witnessed the blatant social inequalities embedded in his environment and many others. His experiences were unique compared to his peers, especially due to the fact he was one of the only white boys in a predominantly black and Hispanic area. Conley recognized that he had privileges that many of his peers did not have and often rejected the present social inequalities. Throughout the course of Conley’s book, Honky, he also examines the social structures of class and race and how affected the trajectory of his peers and himself. Although Conley’s parents were just as poor as the rest of their minority neighbors, they received much better opportunities. His mother and father …show more content…

The author reflects that “by the time I left the Mini School, I had learned what the concept of race meant… Teachers usually did a good job of ignoring the fact that one kid was shorter than another or another was fatter, but it was they, not the other students, who made my skin color an issue,” (p. 53-54). Throughout the course of his education, Conley had to constantly go between an environment where his race defined him or it did not. Growing up in these unstable conditions detrimentally affected his development, but these unique circumstances gave him an incredible perspective on the social structures evident in urban areas of the 1970s and …show more content…

Through this experience, he was able to notice the unfair treatment that his peers were receiving, which is similar to Tim Wise’s reflection on his childhood in the documentary White Like Me. Although their experiences were slightly different, they both walked away with a sense of social consciousness that many white adolescents their age did not have. Another obvious application of this course’s lectures is our discussion of inequality in education. Bowles and Gintis’s theories on school participation in social reproduction are supported by Conley’s accounts of his educational experience. It especially applies to the separation between the academic and vocational tracks in school. Schools are purposefully deciding the futures of the students by preparing them for what they think they will do outside of high school. Instead, they should have been preparing them for the outside world without any bias or

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