What in this book was not disruptive? From the beginning, his seeming loss of innocence was a disruption in and of itself as he began to realize how race was an issue that it previously had not been for him. I found it disruptive that he did not begin to feel a sense of superiority over his multi-racial neighbors until he started going to a middle-class, white school. The level of privilege that white kids seemed to get, even when they were in the heart of other cultural centers, was disrupting to me as well. For example, when he brought his rich white friend with him back home, he was really worried that his friend would not have the cultural capital necessary and would make him look like a fool. However, his friend seemed to cope with the people there just fine, if not better, than he did. It helped me realize that cultural capital in a culture of power often ends up being more important than having cultural capital in your own culture, which I think was pretty disruptive. Additionally, I often had the question of "How can we ever do race right?" come to my mind as I was reading. For example, the story about his younger sister getting a white doll and all the black girls in her class getting black dolls was fairly disturbing to me. The fact that all the black girls were vying after her white doll, when she did not really care about what race her doll was, made me realize more how much ingrained the culture of power idea is even from an early age in cultures of less power. The fact that even 3 or 4 year olds could feel this distinction tells me that racial problems are not just caused by the culture of power, but are reinforced by the cultures not in power.
Clarifying Examples
The doll story was a good example of the influence of a culture of power, and often how unaware the culture in power is of its existence. His privilege as a white kid in a slum community often was shown by his experiences or lack thereof. His family was similar in most ways to others in their neighborhood--poor, working-class, on food stamps, living in government-subsidized housing, etc. However, because he was white, he had access to things other kids did not. For example, his mom used her friend's address to get him into a more white, middle-class school. However, if he had been a black kid trying to do that, he would have stuck out there, and therefore it is unlikely that using someone else's address would have worked to get him in there. Or it is likely that a black family may not have the social capital of knowing someone who lives in a good school district to be able to get them in there. The idea of cultural capital was also very prevalent in the book. He had cultural capital within his neighborhood, but when he moved to the middle-class white school, he struggled because he lacked the social capital to understand what other kids were talking about. I loved the example of how he did not know who Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford was when all the other kids in his school had opinions on it. He had to listen to his friends' conversations, pick up on the main points, and then used what he picked up to help him fit in, even though he knew nothing really about it. I loved that he even stumped for Jimmy Carter after just having heard about him and really not caring at all so that he could win friends. Then after school he would go home and research all the things his friends had been talking about at school. So even though he was white, he had to acquire white capital to fit into that community.
Application as a Teacher
Honestly, this book left me kind of at a loss as to how to address race in a productive way that would not isolate or marginalize or assume anything about any race. I would like to not make assumptions about students' funds of knowledge because of their race, as this book showed that there can be a pretty wide variety of cultural capital and experiences that students will bring to the classroom. I realized more in reading how much the idea of race and ethnicity ties into shaping personal identity, something that is obviously very important to students. Students will use race to stick out or to fit in. I do not want to be the one who is creating or altering their identity because of my perceptions about race; rather, I would like to let them define themselves, and then let me interact with them in the way they want to be interacted with. I also want to be aware that just because kids are white does not mean that they have money. I found his examples of wanting to buy pizza with his friends and having to use his emergency money or resorting to stealing in order to fit in pretty compelling. I hope to not assign things or expect things of students that would require them to spend money to successfully achieve, when they could be on food stamps for all I know. I also want to be sure I do not unintentionally alter expectations for students based on race or class, expecting less of students who I might think would have a harder time being successful based on their background. Instead, I want to be able to give them the same assignments, ask them the same questions, and expect the same results from a group of black students as I would from a group of white students. Obviously what they bring to the table would vary, but I don't want to give them an education based on what I think is their ability to perform in school, but rather on their actual ability to achieve in school. I don't want race or class to make so much of a difference.
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