The Edge of Whiteness

1969. Brooklyn smolders after the race riots. The Montaperto family reluctantly flees their beloved Italian neighborhood for a New Jersey suburb so painfully white that it makes the TV show "My Three Sons" appear exotic. The only excitement young Joey Montaperto gets is breaking into the neighbor's house with his cousin Skinny on Saturday afternoons - to steal the raisins from their Raisin Bran. Until that first day of school in 1973. Forced integration delivers two busloads of inner city black kids to Roselle High, sending a collective shiver through the all-white student body.
      "One by one they pour out, laughing, cursing and jive talking. Giants. Imposing black giants - and those were the girls! Then the boys swagger off the bus - or should I say grown men?"
      Nothing would ever be the same.
      It isn't long before the racial conflict becomes personal. After he's saved from a hallway ambush by Na-Na, a brutal yet artistic loner, their unlikely friendship turns Joey on to the cool world of black culture. Fascinated by the music of Etta James, Marvin Gaye, and The Funkadelics, he embraces the happenin' scene. Soon he's pimped out in purple Swedish knits( which were never worn in Sweden), Isaac Hayes glasses, and a sizzling Puerto Rican hairdresser on his arm, Esperanza. As she gives him a mod shag afro, Joey becomes obsessed with her. he whips himself into shape, boxing at a ghetto gym, and finds a job washing dishes at an Italian restaurant, so he can afford to take her out. Only to discover that she already has a boyfriend, a dealer who;s getting her hooked on heroin.
      Reeling with heartbreak, joey searches for meaning in his life, finding inspiration in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. His parent's think he's gone mad when he refuses his mother's homemade Italian sausage, announcing "It's hard to be a good Muslim in this house." Joey freaks out his entire Catholic family - and the Mafia guys at work - as he finds his "soul".