Pride: A Pride and Prejudice Remix

The topic of gentrification again takes a prominent role in this cluster of chapters. Zuri’s visit to the Bushwick Farm restaurant introduces the fact that it was once an auto body shop. While there, Zuri describes feeling invisible: “The people who come here to eat mostly are white, mostly are rich, and mostly ignore us as if we’re ghosts” (210). Zuri being seen as a “ghost” speaks to the way in which gentrification often pushes out a community’s original inhabitants, making way for newer, richer people to take over.

The party at Carrie’s house is another reminder of the gentrification underway in Brooklyn, as Carrie lives in a more upscale part of the borough, Park Slope. The questions Darius’s schoolmates ask about Bushwick—“Is it safe? Is it loud? Are there gangs? Did he meet any drug dealers?”—highlights the stark contrasts within Brooklyn (230). The party at Carrie’s also explores the theme of race and its relationship to class disparities and gentrification. Throughout the book, Zuri’s character’s voice has served to criticize the ways in which classicism and racism are often intertwined. She’s also flagged how race factors into gentrification. Carrie’s party, set in a fancy part of Brooklyn and full of kids that are privileged, rich, and mostly white, epitomizes how tightly classicism and racism are intertwined in American culture.

The book’s thematic treatment of racism, classicism, and gentrification reaches its climax when Darius uses a racial slur while depicting a person partying. Zuri points out that she’s never said words like this and shouts at him. The fact that Zuri flags the location as part of the problem shows how keenly aware she is of the race and class issues that influence gentrification.

With her reaction, Zuri expresses her opinion over normalizing racial slurs. By pointing out the location in which Darius speaks the term—a party attended by mostly white people—she points to the damage that is done. Darius’s speech could encourage his white peers to imitate him. Zuri highlights the fact that she’s never spoken the word aloud, combatting the stereotypes she knows she is viewed through as well. Darius’s use of the slur in a white neighborhood points to a normalization of the term that is problematic.

These chapters also present a climactic moment in Darius’s and Zuri’s romantic arc. After their fight at Carrie’s party, Zuri tells Darius: “I was right about you, Darius. We’re just too different. This can’t work” (236). Zuri has internalized their class differences as she watches Darius and his behaviors at his school’s party and has decided it impedes a romantic relationship. The romantic protagonist sticking to this kind of belief is another standard trait of a romantic story arc.

Another common romantic ideal is evident in Darius’s fighting Warren. The hero and the anti-hero have their final showdown in this moment. The fact that Darius, who is typically nonconfrontational, is willing to get into a physical altercation to protect the Benitez family, is significant. This storyline closely mimics a central subplot in Pride and Prejudice, in which the heroine Elizabeth’s love interest Mr. Darcy saves Elizabeth’s little sister Lydia from social ruin by convincing the man she ran away with—Mr. Wickham—to marry her. In the context of Pride and Prejudice, a girl who ran away with a man would be considered “ruined” in the eyes of society and would never be able to find a husband.

Zuri’s character is set up for a final transformation by highlighting her insistence that she’s not going to change at all. Throughout the narrative, Zuri has slowly opened herself up to changing, for example when she visits Howard and feels it could be “home” and when she dates Darius. However, Zuri returns to her initial belief that she and Darius are too different to date and that her Bushwick neighborhood is the only place she belongs. She can’t even feel at ease in another part of Brooklyn, Park Slope, and when she leaves Carrie’s party, she thinks: “I know my place. I know where I come from. I know where I belong” (236).

In the end, Zuri will be proven wrong. She will overcome the class difference and find that she and Darius can happily date. She will overcome her belief that only Bushwick can be home and move to another part of Brooklyn with her family. And she will overall be more open to the world beyond Brooklyn and the diversity of people she might find outside of it.

Madrina’s character will play a pivotal role in all these transformative moments. Throughout the book, Madrina has been a guide for Zuri, and Zuri frequently seeks comfort from Madrina. For example, after the Darcy’s cocktail party, Zuri went to Madrina’s party and had her transformative experience, becoming a daughter of Ochún” (126). It’s thus fitting that Zuri seeks Madrina’s counsel when struggling with romantic issues—as she does at the start of Chapter 21, after she’s dumped Warren and kissed Darius. Madrina’s illness at the start of Chapter 21 foreshadows her impending death, an event that will transform Zuri’s world practically—requiring her family to move—and spiritually.