Savage Inequalities

While it's on my mind, I wanted to share a bit from a book sitting on my shelf right now. In Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities (1991), he aimed to expose the very separate and very unequal state of schools in America that, with the support of the courts' gradual degredation of Brown v. Board, perseveres still today. The following passage stood out to me:

“The parents or the kids in Rye or Riverdale [two notably affluent communities in New York]…may well tell themselves that Mississippi is a distant place and that they have work enough to do to face inequities in New York City. But, in reality, the plight of children in the South Bronx of New York is almost as far from them as that of children in the farthest reaches of the South.

All of these children say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. Whether in the New York suburbs, Mississippi, or the South Bronx, they salute the same flag. They place their hands across their hearts and join their voices in a tribute to ‘one nation indivisible’ which promises liberty and justice to all people. What is the danger that the people in a town like Rye would face if they resolved to make this statement true? How much would it really harm their children to compete in a fair race?”

A colleague of mine recently pointed out his frustration with the fact that Kozol has been writing books like this for years without ever attempting to offer solutions to any of the problems he exposes. But maybe some of us need only to be reporters - to shine the klieg light on the truth - so the dissemination of the knowledge we report can inspire others to action. (Which reminds me, thanks to my good friend Ephraim for lending me this book.)

References:
Kozol, J. (1991). Savage Inequalities. New York: Crown Publishers.