Chapter 4; page 58 (on iBooks)
“Then one day me and the boys sitting on some empty orange crate on the corner of Barry Street trying to catch some shade when Hampton look across the street and say, ‘That bwoy well out of his jurisdiction,’ which start me and Judge Finley laughing.
Finley say, ‘Where you get a word like that, bwoy?’
And Hampton lean over to him and say, ‘Is the wrong word?’ which set me and Finley off laughing even more.
I look over and see some skinny white boy standing outside the post office trying to look mean.
‘Is a white boy?’
‘No,’ Hampton say, ‘him just like to think so. Him papa white, but his mama just some whore from West Kingston.’
‘What, a real whore?’
‘They all whores, man.”
Kerry Young does an excellent job of packing loads of commentary about race, class, and gender in brief interactions and encounters. Riddled with instances of racism and mysogyny, Pao emerses the reader in this toxic environment while providing many important lessons about life. From this passage alone we can learn how whiteness, in this context, is not just based on appearance. Whiteness is also about inheritance and respect derived from patriarchal morals and capitalist ideology.
Another striking aspect about Pao – exhibited in this passage – is the variation in spelling certain words to evoke different voices and tones. Young uses an interplay of Patois and English words to create an atmosphere of colloquialism and authenticity. For example, “bwoy” and “boy” refer to the same subject, however the use of “boy” when Pao is questioning the subject’s race may be Young’s way of signaling the reader that a shift in the tone of the discussion has occured.