Cultural Diversity: Ghetto Cowboy

Picture from Amazon.com

Bibliography

Neri, G. Ghetto Cowboy. Somerville: Candlewick Press, 2011. Print

Summary

When twelve-year-old Cole’s truancy gets him suspended and at risk of repeating 7th grade, his beleaguered single mother shuffles him into the car and makes a midnight streak from Detroit to Philadelphia. She is convinced that only a man’s firm discipline can save him from the streets. That man is a distant father who Cole scarcely knows about and bitterly resents for abandoning them. Initially surly and embittered, Cole marvels at how his father has transformed a dilapidated neighborhood riddled with drugs, gangs, and row houses into a horse sanctuary and riding team for kids. With kindred spirit Boo the horse and the riding troupe of Black cowboys, he is swept up into the same magic that kept his dad away his whole life. When the oppressive city government threatens the only outlet that the community has, his fight for the horses becomes a fight for his own future and the identification of a purpose he did not know he had. 

Critical Analysis

Cowboy explores the themes of pride and dignity in hard work extensively. When readers meet Cole, he is not a bad kid. He is aimless and does not know where he fits; he does not believe he is capable of anything significant. His mother’s long work hours and her own frustration with life contribute to loneliness and boredom. One of his first interactions with his father is when Harper gives him a job – to muck out the stables. The young man positively blooms as he feeds, brushes, trains, rides, and eventually saves the horses. The kids on the block flourish once they feel useful and important. This is a message that young adults can benefit from. There is much intrinsic value in working hard and helping out (i.e. babysitting, working at a family business, an after school job, running errands for an elderly family member or neighbor, etc.).

Racism and classism are concepts that readers desperately need to understand at the young adult level. They will be entering the world where they will either encounter prejudice as minorities, or will have to take a stand against and be sensitive to others as the privileged majority. One of the best aspects of Cowboy is that it addresses covert racism. The city neglects the dilapidated Chester Avenue for decades, letting it devolve into a ghetto. Once it hits an all-time low and they see a lucrative opportunity, government officials mastermind a smear campaign to tear everything down. They strategically deny the community civic services like waste collection and use the media to capture the worst side of life in the ‘hood. Harper and the Riders do not act out violently; that is what society expects. They read up on laws such as homesteader’s rights and use media scrutiny as a platform to expose injustice. It is imperative that budding adults know about second-tier discrimination, that job denials, school zoning, restrictive laws that target minorities, and the like are realities. This book will sharpen their acuity for spotting it, and hopefully inspire them to speak out peacefully and knowledgeably.

Maturity is a thematic thread woven throughout Cowboy. Because Cole is young, he has ample room to show growth, and his wise, observant nature make him receptive to life lessons.

In the beginning, he is surly and selfish. He feels like his mother owes him care, that it is her job to do for him, but he does not hold up his end of the bargain by attending school regularly. He does not care about anything in particular and is just ambling through life, looking for delinquent adventures. He evolves when his father allows him to make his own decisions and deal with the consequences; Harper does not beg or appease Cole, but treats him like the world would. When he realizes that pouting and acting out are ineffective and self-deprecating, he is forced to fall in line to get attention by working the stables like all the neighborhood kids. Harper, even as an adult, exhibits immaturity. He loses everything because he put his love for horses above that of family. They both must choose a path: Cole is at a crossroads between thug life and the straight-and-narrow, and Harper faces enduring isolation. So much of adolescence is about maturity – defining who you want to be and changing for the better, even when it is painful.

Finally, Ghetto Cowboy implores the young adult audience to know their roots and take pride in their history. With so many negative portrayals of men of color, Cole and many readers like him do not know that ethnic people originated the cowboy way of life. Through stories of Tex and the other horseman, Neri takes back the traditions of his people. He shows readers the beauty and ingenuity of Black culture.

Some reviewers contend that the heavy use of dialect is distracting and hard to follow, but in terms of authenticity, it is indeed one of the strongest features of the book. Cole’s subjects and verbs disagree more often than not, but it is beautiful, poetic imperfection. G. Neri strikes a delicate balance in that his characters are unabashedly ethnic in their speech, but obviously very intelligent and socially conscious. Young readers, especially Black readers, will have no trouble at all with the colloquialisms, as they mimic natural language for urban youth; actually, the slang increases the book’s appeal to reluctant/struggling readers and those who think reading is a “soft” pastime. Cole and his Chester Avenue family are witty, street-smart, wise, and mouthy, which makes for lots of humor. Some quotables that exemplify humor and dialect: “Earn his trust? He just a horse! And you just a boy,” he says. “I ain’t no Harry Potter. And I ain’t living in no closet.” “…dumb ol’ black Clint Eastwood” (Neri, pg. 24-26). Neri also preaches the power of rechanneling negativity into something productive and fulfilling. Cole, Cousin Smush, and his sidekick, Snapper, lived varying degrees of street life. Harper and the Chester Ave. riders catchthem at pivotal points and show them how to transform the boredom, apathy, frustration, and lack of confidence by caring for horses. Teens can learn that there are opportunities for them beyond their immediate circumstances. This could motivate them to explore community service, the arts, music, sports, academic clubs – anything that keeps them out of trouble and builds their self-esteem.

Like any other great book, Cowboy is not without its weaknesses, mainly because it feeds into stereotypes. Cole is abandoned first by his father, then by his mother, perpetuating the stereotype of the irresponsible Black parent who has children s/he cannot financially support and emotionally nurture. He is raised by a single mom, another troubling motif in Black literature. Some will find Harper infuriating because he cares so tenderly for the horses and the children of the neighborhood, but was adamantly uninvolved in Cole’s life. There are several times where Harper reads as detached and cold to his son (i.e. letting him sleep in the closet, not cooking for him, accusing him of gang-banging). His hustle mentality can be disconcerting. He explains to Cole that he works odd jobs to “survive,” – he has no career and no real interest in one, outside of being a horseman, which validates the shiftless label placed on Blacks. With all of the senseless violence in cities like Philadelphia, Cowboy is chaste to a fault. All of the kids are “redeemed” by the horses. Smush and Snapper spend time in juvie and are very small-time drug dealers, but it would have been nice to see a casualty of street life – whether drugs, drive-bys, robbery, etc. – to juxtapose the rider kids. In real life, there will be ones who get away, and young readers cannot truly grasp the message if they do not have a full, even gritty understanding of what they are up against.

This book has a firm place in young adult literature. The dialect and references to poverty and violence in urban communities make it so timely. More importantly, it not only tells of the problems, but gives hope; it is a hand to navigate kids out of their circumstances. The way that it balances a rich, little known tradition of Black horsemanship with the current problems that plague Black youth, coupled with all of the honors it has garnered, will elevate Cowboy to classic status in the coming years.

Awards 

• 2013 Bluebonnet Master List
• 2012 ALA Odyssey Award
• 2012 Horace Man Upstanders Book Award
• 2011 Junior Library Guild Pick
• 2011 VOYA Top Shelf for Middle School Readers
• 2011 Cybil Award Finalist

Published Review

McDuffie, Ann. Rev. of the book Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri. Voice of Youth Advocates 01 October 2011. Web. Accessed June 27, 2015.

Extension Activities

1. Ruff Riders ––Watch a mini-documentary, “The American Life:  Horses in North Philly,” to learn about how the Philadelphia riding troupes have positively impacted the lives of urban youth at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcEMghqgjcg. 
2. No Rhinestones for Cowboys: View photos and read captions from “The Concrete Cowboys of Philadelphia at http://www.wsj.com/articles/photos-the-concrete-cowboys-of-philadelphia-1419366049.  Compare and contrast information in the article to events in Ghetto Cowboy.
3. You’re at Home on the Range – Visit PBS’s Texas Ranch House at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ranchhouse/index.html. There, click on 1867: Places, People, and Events and read “African American Cowboys” and “Buffalo Soldiers on the Frontier” to learn more about the history of notable Black frontiersmen and their accomplishments.
4. Postcards from the Ghetto – Write and illustrate a postcard or letter from Cole to his mother that describes some of his stand-out experiences with his dad and the Chester Avenue riders.  *Listen to “My Favorite Things” by John Coltrane for added inspiration.
5. Based on a True Story – Interview an older relative about a job or tradition that is important to your family.  Summarize your findings and make an oral presentation to the group/class.

Related Literature

• Neri, G. Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty. New York: Lee and Low Books, 2010. Print. ISBN: 978-1584302674 – Like Ghetto Cowboy, this book by the same author explores how poverty, parental absence, violence, and a system rigged to fail him take their tolls on Yummy, an eleven-year-old who commits murder. This book exposes a grittier side of ghetto life, which is a nice pairing to the mostly upbeat Cowboy.
• Booth, Coe. Tyrell. New York: Push Publishing, 2007. Print. ISBN: 978-0439838801 – The title character, like Cole, is walking a tightrope between succumbing to the perils of his environment and doing the right thing. However, he lacks the positive role models that Cole has, as his mother is a drug addict, his father is incarcerated, and he is homeless. 
• Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. New York: Amistad Publishing, 2004. Print. ISBN: 978-0064407311 – Steve is not a bad kid. He gets swept up into a bad predicament and eventually stands trial for the murder of a store clerk. While awaiting his sentence, he channels his jail experience into a promising screen play to cope.