Chapters five and six

Chapter Five

 As a child growing up in the projects, Conley’s mom had instilled a heavy dose of fear in him that in her mind was necessary to keep him and his sister safe.  This came in the way of instructions on what to do if someone knocked at the door, if the elevator was broken or if someone was in the stairwell lurking about.  Because of this, the author lived in a state of fear that in many ways was justified when their apartment was broken into and their possessions were stolen.  The steel door that locked out the rest of the world was no longer adequate in Conley’s mind and after being robbed a second time, his parents installed bars on all the windows “From then on we lived in a prison-like apartment unit, wriggling our hands through the bars whenever we wanted to open or shut the window” (Conley, 2000, p. 56).  The bars made Conley feel safe in his own home again, but also made him feel imprisoned as well.

Also during this time Conley and his father take karate lessons from a Black Muslim named Rahim who exposed the author to the practice of praying five times a day while facing Mecca.  The entire purpose of enrolling Conley in karate was to help the child feel safer and secure in his own neighborhood. Unfortunately when Rahim was killed later that year, Conely rationalized that even a black belt in karate could do little against a mugger with a gun.  The instructor was shot at point blank range which implied that he was not randomly mugged but instead shot for drugs so Conley went through a period of time trying to figure out the reasons for Rahim’s death; drugs or being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 This chapter shows the fear and brutality Conley experienced in his own neighborhood which is why his mom’s rules of how to handle certain situations made sense. 

 

Chapter Six

Ellen, Conley’s mom, decides it’s time to send her son to a better school.  So she decides to use the address of an artist friend of her husbands in Greenwich Village which is where he resumes his education; at P.S. 41.

 The author soon discovers that this third grade world of education is not about hiding your intelligence to avoid being cast as a nerd but instead to answer the questions and learn the material.  Conley was befriended by two kids, Michael and Ozan, who spoke eloquently and debated on the national presidential election as well as the methodology behind producing crystal radios.  Neither topic was familiar to the author but he managed to pick up enough while listening to the boys speak that he could fake his way through having an opinion on the discussion.

 At P.S. 41 the author starts to understand and learn his way around class.  He was able to make the connection that the most popular kids were the ones that came from the wealthiest of families, or  families where the parents held prestigious jobs, and how these kids were treated at home is how they treated others at school “Only by spending time with some of them after class, in their homes, did I make a connection between the relative opulence of their residences, the profession, style, and grace of their parents, and how they behaved and were treated by the other kids at school”  (Conley, 2000, p. 73).  This is an important turning point in the author’s young life because he’s learning that it’s not the kid with the biggest stick that gets the most respect in the school yard but instead the kid that uses his words to remove the violence from a situation without losing face.

(Conley D 2000 Honky)Conley, D. (Ed.). (2000). Honky. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.