Schooled

Content Warning: This section discusses racism, substance use, and physical abuse.

Paul Langan explores the dreams and challenges of a Black teenager living in a predominantly Black urban neighborhood. Langan seeks to provide a realistic portrayal of teenage life and the social issues that drive youth experiences. Lionel, the story’s protagonist, lives in an inner-city neighborhood described as plagued by gang violence, drugs, and poverty. Lionel’s psyche is impacted by his social environment: He feels powerless at the inequities around him, which fuels his rage. His family is economically disadvantaged, and Lionel hates that his father must work all week and that his mother took a military job overseas to make ends meet. Lionel is also traumatized by violence in the community; he experienced nightmares as a kid after the shooting of one of his neighbors. His distress makes him feel that the world has “too much news, too many choices, too much chaos” (44). The social context of the novel is thus key, suggesting that issues like discrimination and economic disparities impede Lionel from achieving his dreams.

Lionel’s educational struggles are another large social issue explored in the novel. Lionel has unaddressed learning differences that impact his performance as a student, as well as his self-confidence. At school, he struggles with reading and writing. He often feels that he is disappointing his parents, who desire to see him as an honor student, and believes he is intellectually inferior to his classmates. These factors lead Lionel to devalue education as an obstacle rather than a path to opportunity. However, the novel points out that poor school performance is not the only reason inner city Black teenagers dismiss the value of school. Dontrell, who unlike Lionel reads and writes at grade level, also does not find meaning in education. The education system has failed both young men, complicating the struggling Black student trope that white narratives about Black people often present. Teachers have failed to identify Lionel’s learning differences, instead attributing his lack of academic achievement to inattentiveness or laziness: “They said nothing when he withdrew to the back of the room with the other kids who hated school. They didn’t yell as much when his homework was late or when he acted up in class” (6-7). School thus reinforces Lionel’s sense of failure, indicating the insufficiency of the educational system in under-resourced Black communities.

The Black “ghetto” setting has been widely stereotyped in dominant cultural narratives and sensationalized by the white gaze. Langan’s novel echoes other stories that conflate Black identity and experience with the “hood” stereotype. Langan does not profoundly explore the historical factors of racism and discrimination that have defined Black urban communities. Still, through his protagonist the author seeks to illustrate the possibilities of resistance and hope against adversity and injustice, as Lionel survives and confronts his struggles.