Chapters thirteen and fourteen

Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen

Chapter 13 finds the author in middle school during an assembly in which the school votes for the music selections for an end-of-year party. He sits with his Black friend Jerome, and as he scans the students in their seats he notices the races are separated by the type of music they plan to vote for much like the neighborhoods these same kids came from “When word got around that the selection of music was the purpose of the assemble, the student body segregated into camps that were scaled-down versions of the neighborhoods from which we came” (Conley, 2000, p. 142). Conley also notices how each group is dressed and that the students within each group all dress very similar. For example, the students that are in favor of rock music at the party are white wearing concert T-shirts, jeans and sneakers. The students into punk rock have ripped T-shirts, skinny jeans and boots and are white. The students in favor of disco are Black or Hispanic and dress similarly to the white kids in favor of rock except their T-shirts aren’t from concerts but the local Dollar Store.

Conley then goes on to discuss his obsession with designer labels, specifically the Lacoste alligator label, and how he would search through his Grandparents clothes for old shirts that would have that logo and then rip them off and sew them on his own shirts. He’s desperate to fit into some group, any group, but really doesn’t belong to any. He can’t hang out with the white kids because he doesn’t live where they live. Conversely he can’t hang out with the Black or Hispanic kids because he’s a “honky”.

Chapter Fourteen

Conley starts skipping school in chapter fourteen in favor of hanging out at the local Twin Donut shop playing video games. He becomes obsessed with stealing money to feed his video game habit and has taken to stealing money from his father’s bureau and his mother’s purse. Conley’s grades start to slip and he’s eventually removed from the math and sciences track he was on and reassigned to the vocational curriculum. When Conley starts to notice who his classmates are in his new curriculum, he figures out the focus in these classes are honing life skills and not critical thinking “These classes were populated predominantly by minority students, a fact to which I failed to ascribe any importance at the time. Journalism has been replaced by sewing, history by typing, and science by wood shop” (Conley, 2000, p. 153). When Ellen, Conley’s mom, finds out he’s skipping school and letting his grades slip she intervenes by embarrassing him at the Twin Donut and dragging him out by his ear. That ends his school skipping days for good.