Integration

When Gunnar moves from Santa Monica to Hillside he has a decidedly difficult time acclimatizing himself to his new environment. Obviously he experiences culture shock switching from growing up in a mostly white society, to living in a predominantly black society. Not only is he unfamiliar with the type of neighborhood he's in, but he has a remarkably hard time making friends with the other kids in the neighborhood. They see him as being too "white", and after his first few attempts to assimilate himself he gets himself quite thoroughly beaten up.

The first place that Gunnar finds himself finally making friends is in his drama class, where he manages to befriend the "nerds" in this group. This doesn't really settle very well with him, however, and he soon grows tired of these new found companions. As he says on page 65, "I was cooler than this, I had to be -- I just didn't know how to show my latent hipness to the world." All this changes, however, when one day in drama class Gunnar meets a guy who will be a life long friend of his, Nick Scoby.

When we first meet Nick, we immediately are painted a picture of a very cool and collected individual. Nick sits apart from everyone else, with his headphones on, enjoying his Cannonball Adderley. Simply put Nick is real cool, and immediately Gunnar starts to fall for him. Admittedly I was crushing pretty hard on him as well. But what's so special about Nick is that he not only accepts Gunnar, but uses a term to address him that puts Gunnar into a state of elation.  On page 67, as Gunnar asks "You wanna learn the monologue together?" Scoby eventually responds with "Yeah, nigger, let's get together later this week. Cool? Later." Gunnar is animated. As he says himself "He called me "nigger."My euphoria was as palpable as the loud clap of our hands colliding in my first soul shake"For Gunnar this is a very important moment in the novel. It represents his first "integration" into the black culture that surrounds him.

Two things about his interaction with Nick combine to make Gunnar so happy. The first is that Nick while not exactly a popular kid, is respected throughout the school. The second is that Nick accepts Gunnar, but not just in anyway, Nick accepts him with his use of the N-word. Now Gunnar had been called this before by other people around Hillside, but this is the first time that any other black person has addressed Gunnar like that as a term of affection. I think in this use of the word it would be very similar to Nick addressing Gunnar as brother. The affect that this has on Gunnar is that it makes him feel as if finally he is being accepted into the black culture he's been striving so hard to work himself into. It's no wonder that after his talking with Scoby that he "skated away cool" and "pimp-daddied back to his seat."