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reading this...

so, i've always loved to read. i mean, loved. stay up late at night, read while traveling (and while at work), carry a book with me at all times, etc. i've even been known to be so into a book that when i have to put it down to go somewhere, it comes with me and i read it in snippets at stop lights....
however, i've never been a big fan of reading multiple books at one time. i've always wanted to finish one book and then start a new one. that's changed recently -- i think i'm in the middle of at leadt 5 books right now. and i've got 3 more i need to start.
anyway, one of the books i'm reading is savage inequalities by jonathan kozol. it's about the public school system in america. specifically concerning urban schools. he looks a lot at the differences between these schools and their suburban counterparts, and the injustices that these urban children are facing in their schools on a day to day basis. although i'm only halfway through it, it's really made me think. and made me angry. and sad. so i wanted to share some quotes from the book that really hit me.


after he shares the stories of some schools in east st. louis (really...heart-wrenching), he says, "these are innocent children, after all. they have done nothing wrong. they have committed no crime. they are too young to have offended us in any way at all. one searched for some way to understand why a society as rich and, frequently, as generous as ours would leave these children in their penury and squalor for so lone -- and with so little public indignation. is this just a strange mistake of history? is it unusual? is it an american anomaly? even if the destitution and the racial segregation and the toxic dangers of the air and the soil cannot be immediately addressed, why is it thatwe can't at least pour vast amounts of money, ingenuity, and talent into public education for these kids?"

"these are americans. why do we reduce them to this beggary -- and why, particularly in public education?...is fairness less important to americans today than in some earlier times?...what do americans believe about equality?"

quoting rev. jim wolff, " 'God's beautiful people live here in the midst of hell...there are good people in this neighborhood...determinedd and persistent and strong-minded people who have character and virtues you do not see everywhere. you say to yourself, 'there's somethinghere that's being purified by pain.' all the veneers, all the facades, are burnt away and you see something genuine and beautiful that isn't often found among the affluent. i see it in children -- in the youngest children sometimes. beautiful sweet natures. it's as if they are refined by their adversity. but you cannot sentamentalize. the odds they face are hellish and, for many, many people that i know, life here is simply unendurable.' "

"about injustice, most poor children in america cannot be fooled"

"one would not have though that children in america would have to choose between a teacher or a playground or sufficient toilet paper. like a grain in a time of famine, the immense resources which the nation does in fact possess go not to the child in the greatest need but to the child of the highest bidder -- the child of parents who, more frequently than not, have also enjoyed the same abundance when they were schoolchildren."

"a local counterpart to jesse jackson often gives a motivational address. he tells the kids, 'you are somebody.'...but the fact that they are in this school, and doomed to be here for no reason other than their race and class, gives them a different message: 'in the eyes of this society, you are not much at all.' this is the message they get everyday when no celebrities are there and when their business partners have departed for their homes in the white suburbs."

"business leaders seem to have great faith in [these messages]. exhortation has its role. but hope cannot be marketed as easily as blue jeans...certain realities -- race and class and caste -- are there, and they remain."

"i enter another special class. of seven children, five are black, one is hispanic, one is white. 'placement of these kids,' the principal explains, 'can usually be traced to neurological damage.' in my notes: how could so many of these children be brain-damaged." (this quote comes in the middle of a story about a visit to a school where the the students were divided into gifted, extra-special gifted, regular, and special. in the gifted and extra-special gifted classes, there are no black or hispanic children. all are white or asian. conversely, in the special classes, the students are overwhelmingly black and hispanic.)


if you've stuck it out this long to get to the end of this post, i appreciate that :) if you have any thoughts on these quotes, i'd love to hear them! i'm still thinking through all of this and wrestling with it at the moment.

lots of love.

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