Hidden Intellectualism

One instance where Graff displays a mix of academic and non-academic language is on page 299. He describes the Chicago neighborhood he grew up in as a melting pot with African American, Native Americans, and "hillbilly" whites who had fled the South and Appalachia. The term "hillbilly" is a slang term that stands out in the sentence used to associate the whites in his neighborhood as being the dumbass white people from the South. This mix was effective even though he used the derogatory "hillbilly" term, because it helps the reader understand that these weren't the "sophisticated" whites that most minorities in urban areas associate the term "white" with.
Another instance is on page 300. In one paragraph, he uses the term "egghead" to describe the world in which he was trying to adapt to. He began his essay by describing himself as a sports-nut an not intellectual, but here he is saying that he was "practicing being an intellectual before he knew that was what he wanted to be".