And yet to this day "RACISM" and "CULTURAL DIFFERENCES" seem to be one of the biggest controversies in our so called "society". Reading this passage by Kozol made me realuze he wrote over 13 pages of the same thing just over and over. We've read a million articles pertaining to racism within people, within the government, within authority figures but this article tends to lean more towards the influence of racism in the school system and the media. I do believe that this article does make alot of sense. If you realize where kids get most of their teachings and motivations from, it's usually from the family and school. To me school's dont only influence and affect kids in cultural diversity but also in politics, society, etc. "Pineapple" was a perfect example of how kids only get one side of the story and dont know what else is out there. She wondered what it was like "over there"? One of the major disadvantages for kids like these who dont get the best of both world's is that they aren't presented with possibilities, for example, he explains how he speaks with students who are doing extremely good in school and are capable of attending schools like Cornell, Columbia, NYU, etc. but when mentioning those schools, they had no idea what he was talking about. Why? because teachers,"guidance counselors" (or so they're called") and principal's dont give them hope or something to look forward too, because THEY dont think that kids like these can make it. Point is that racism is everywhere, not just in the liquor store around the corner, where the ordinary white guy will get attended before the usual black guy, who later turns out to be a famous basketball player who spent three times as much as the white guy. It's everywhere, the streets, the neighborhood, the government, the schools and especially between people themselves. Our society has been in complete denial for years thinking that racism doesn't excist among us anymore and unfortunately, we're wrong. It will always be haunting us, not just by color, but by gender, sexuality, color, background, language, anything that doesn't fit into people's "perfect socities".Thursday, November 29, 2007
Jonathan Kozol.
And yet to this day "RACISM" and "CULTURAL DIFFERENCES" seem to be one of the biggest controversies in our so called "society". Reading this passage by Kozol made me realuze he wrote over 13 pages of the same thing just over and over. We've read a million articles pertaining to racism within people, within the government, within authority figures but this article tends to lean more towards the influence of racism in the school system and the media. I do believe that this article does make alot of sense. If you realize where kids get most of their teachings and motivations from, it's usually from the family and school. To me school's dont only influence and affect kids in cultural diversity but also in politics, society, etc. "Pineapple" was a perfect example of how kids only get one side of the story and dont know what else is out there. She wondered what it was like "over there"? One of the major disadvantages for kids like these who dont get the best of both world's is that they aren't presented with possibilities, for example, he explains how he speaks with students who are doing extremely good in school and are capable of attending schools like Cornell, Columbia, NYU, etc. but when mentioning those schools, they had no idea what he was talking about. Why? because teachers,"guidance counselors" (or so they're called") and principal's dont give them hope or something to look forward too, because THEY dont think that kids like these can make it. Point is that racism is everywhere, not just in the liquor store around the corner, where the ordinary white guy will get attended before the usual black guy, who later turns out to be a famous basketball player who spent three times as much as the white guy. It's everywhere, the streets, the neighborhood, the government, the schools and especially between people themselves. Our society has been in complete denial for years thinking that racism doesn't excist among us anymore and unfortunately, we're wrong. It will always be haunting us, not just by color, but by gender, sexuality, color, background, language, anything that doesn't fit into people's "perfect socities".