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Down These Mean Streets Part II: Conversion

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There is so much to think about with the second part of this book. It is difficult to analyze knowing that it is an autobiography, for what we are reading is part someone’s life. The author’s Afterword is very interesting, and I believe it has a really different tone than the actual work. I re-read the prologue and it seems as they oppose one another. Where the afterword is provides a hopeful tone, the prologue ends and exhibits with a grim reality. One is different from the other due to the Piri’s “conversion” in the second part of the novel.

I found the whole of the second part to be one long search. Piri is in search of his truth, his identity, his place in the world. It took being incarcerated for him to realize where he belonged. Up until his time in jail, his hate for the world, his circumstances just kept growing. We see this in his act of “revenge” with a “white broad” where he uses his Spanish language to get into a house that forbade black people and at the end of his revealing his identity as if he was some kind of monster. We see the same act of hate towards his father’s mistress whom he discovers to be white, shredding her photograph to bits. Mixed with the grief he had for his mother’s death we see that he completely despises his father. When his father confronts him Piri speaks back at him emulating a southern drawl. His father keeps showing his denial of his colour. This is how Piri leaves, and “losing” his family spirals him into an addiction (ch.21). From there he becomes a drug dealer. Then joins a gang, which blows over the top in his shooting a cop. Going to prison allowed him to acquire a different perspective on life. He starts referring the outside as the “freeside” and yearns for a break of routine. What I find interesting is that when living life on the “freeside” there is a routine to uphold as well. What is the difference between prison and the freeside when his life in Harlem had been a set of several prisons as well? Drugs, gang life, thieving, etc. When we reach this sort of impasse, that is where a conversion comes about. That is what religion did for Piri in prison. The kink is that race, identity, drugs had been for Piri were unknotted in this climax of his story.

In the Afterword Piri Thomas mentions that “children become what they are taught or not taught; children become what they learn or don’t learn”. I think this Afterword is an answer to the plea the author makes in his prologue. An answer that came much later in his life. I think we can attribute many failures to ignorance. Especially when it comes to matters of conscience, justice, and most importantly one’s own identity. I think this adds on to the duality we find in the book of light and dark: white vs. black, truth vs. ignorance, dream vs. reality. Denial further deepens the pit of ignorance, at some point we need to face the truth, and I believe this novel is a really good example of that. Furthermore considering the theme of conversion, we can attribute it as a general kink of the novel for its very definition according to cambridge dictionary is "the process of converting something from one thing to another". Maybe Piri is a kink among his friends and family from Harlem for "A lot of my boys were either hollowed-out junkies or in prison(...)" (p.321).

Comments

  1. JonFebruary 24, 2020 at 11:49 PM

    I completely agree that the "Afterword" has a very different tone from the book itself. And the contrast with the Prologue is especially stark. But which do you prefer? (Me, I'll tell you already: I find the Prologue much more interesting.)

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  2. CynthiaFebruary 25, 2020 at 6:49 AM

    Hi Maria, like you and Jon, I too agree that the "Afterword" has a very different tone than the book. Upon first reading it, I was a little bit confused because it was so completely different than the prologue. It is almost as if Piri was setting us up for the book through the prologue, but then with the "Afterword", winds us down by relating his story to the broader picture. Although to me, the "Afterword" seemed out of place; I too preferred the prologue.

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  3. Curtis HRFebruary 26, 2020 at 10:57 AM

    Hey Maria,

    I like that you really analyzed the afterword. Even though it is a good 30 years after the book is written, it gives an ever more subtle hint at what Piri Thomas's philosophy is. The "ignorance" in the beginning of the book definitely does lead to the anguish of Piri, but after his time in prison he learns about religion, community, and slowly lets go of his harsh ideas of race. It's interesting to see that when Piri was younger, he thought his beliefs were universal truth, but we can see that was simply because Piri shut off other ideas from challenging his own "facts" about society.

    See you tomorrow,
    -Curtis HR

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