A painting of me

Still Separate, Still Unequal

   29 August 2005, lunch time

“Dear Mr. Kozol,” wrote the eight-year-old, “we do not have the things you have. You have Clean things. We do not have. You have a clean bathroom. We do not have that. You have Parks and we do not have Parks. You have all the thing and we do not have all the thing. Can you help us?”

Jonothan Kozol writes about the absolutely appalling conditions of inner city schools in a great article in the September issue of Harper’s. It sounds like the education of inner-city black and Hispanic children in the United States is in a sorry state. Kozol describes schools run almost like factories or prisons in grim detail. According to Kozol, US Schools are quite quickly becoming functionally segregated. Kozol lists the demographics of a slew of public schools in the states, named after prominent civil rights activists, whose classrooms are upwards of 97% black and Hispanic — in some cases despite being in neighbourhoods that are predominantly white. It has been over 50 years since Brown vs. Board of Education. It is sad to read about the state of things today.

Update: I was reminded of this article again when reading an article by Steve Sailer.

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