High Price

most of the people around me. They couldn’t teach me what they didn’t know. Nonetheless, I did learn many critical skills from them, among them the ability to listen, to patiently observe, and to be aware of myself. I learned to read other people, to pay attention to body language, tone of voice—all types of nonverbal cues. Data from recent studies show that children from working-class backgrounds like mine have greater empathy: they are both better able to read other people’s emotions and more likely to respond kindly to them. 2
    As we’ll see throughout this book, what look like disadvantages from one perspective may be advantages from another—and ways of knowing and responding may be advantageous and adaptive in one environment and disadvantageous and disruptive in another. Much of my life has been spent trying to negotiate the different reactions and requirements of the world I came from and the one I live in now. Over time, I had to become fluent in several different languages, including the often-nonverbal vernacular of my home and the street, mainstream English, and the highly technical language of neuroscience.
    It wasn’t long, however, before I began to appreciate what mainstream language could do for me. My awareness of what I was missing rose gradually, from an initial sense that the teachers were almost speaking a foreign tongue when I started school to a flickering awakening to the possibilities that a greater vocabulary and education more generally might offer over time. One incident stands out in my mind. Though most of my primary and secondary educational experiences were dismal, one seventh-grade teacher took an interest in me. She was about twenty-five, with long straight hair, caramel-colored skin, and full lips—one of the few black teachers at Henry D. Perry Middle School and a woman who could get any twelve-year-old boy’s attention.
    New to teaching, she was on a mission to inspire the black students, to get us to see the importance of academic achievement. Some of the other black teachers tried to protect us by toughening us up and lowering our expectations to reduce what they saw as inevitable future disappointment, but she saw it differently. She taught me the word sarcastic , and I remember practicing spelling it and using it at home.
    Before that, the only way I’d been able to express the idea of sarcasm was in phrases like “you trying to be funny?” but here was one word that captured a complex, specific idea. Rap music would soon add cool new words like copacetic to my life. But it wasn’t until I joined the air force and began taking college courses that I fully recognized the power of language.
    In my neighborhood, I think our conversations were restricted mainly by our limited vocabulary and inability to pronounce certain words. I remember being embarrassed when I learned from a white high school classmate that the correct pronunciation for the word whore was not “ho.” Also, I, as well as most of my family, had great difficulties pronouncing words beginning with str . For example, I would pronounce the word straight as “scrate.”
    As a result, verbal exchanges in my neighborhood were minimized. Someone might not even reply to a greeting or question, simply looking up and nodding respect with a hint of eye contact or signaling negation with a small, almost imperceptible turn of the head. These signals were all much more subtle than the language. They weren’t appreciated or often even recognized at all by mainstream America.
    Consequently, my confidence rose when I began to work to expand my vocabulary: I could take charge when I knew more mainstream apt and apposite words. I soon recognized the sheer power that precise language could give me. It was liberating, even exhilarating at times. But as a child, of course, I didn’t know what I wasn’t being exposed to.
    I did learn early on to observe and pay attention before I spoke. Growing up, the worst thing of all was to look foolish or uncool: it was best to stay quiet unless you were absolutely sure you were right. Being strong and silent meant that you never looked stupid. Even if I didn’t care much then about being seen as smart by teachers, I certainly cared about not looking dumb, especially in front of friends. Always, I had to be cool.
    Another study also captures some key differences between my family of origin and my current family. Sociologist Annette Lareau and her team spent two years