"Way Past Cool"

Paper Summary:

Discussion of Jess Mowry's novel about Oakland, California gang members. Plot of rival ghetto gangs set up against each other. The major characters and their cultural conflicts. Themes of invisibility, acceptance of violence as a way of life, alienation of youth. Indifference of media and police toward young black kids.

From the Paper:

"Jess Mowry's novel Way Past Cool focuses on young Oakland, California gang members with compassion and insight. It's a violent, compelling and sad picture of gang culture which depicts 12 and 13-year-old boys who are coming of age under the most dire circumstances. This paper will discuss the novel's major characters and their cultural conflicts as well as how invisibility is reinforced.
In Ralph Ellison's 1962 novel The Invisible Man, the author uses the title of his book to emphasize the struggle of African-Americans for identity in White America. The title of Ellison's book suggests that what the power structure sees in Blacks, especially poor Blacks, is what they want to see, and therefore Blacks are invisible because people refuse to see them. "When they approach me they see only my surroundings themselves, or ..."

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