Discussion on Kozol/Goldberg

Amazing Grace: Johnathan Kozol
100 People Who are Screwing up America : Bernard Goldberg

Goldberg argues that today many kids don’t care about learning and many schools are violent. Goldberg states the person to blame for this is Jonathan Kozol who is saying how traditional schools aren’t good and schools should be more liberal. In the story by Jonathan Kozol I think it is basically describing a hell on Earth and how society doesn’t care. Through the story it talks about parts of New York that are really bad and gives vivid descriptions how terrible life is. The author also shows that many of the people who are in these ghettos are made up of minorities.
Goldberg Quote: “We are taught U.S. history out of politically correct textbooks….They take care not to offend America’s past enemies, but don’t seem to worry about offending Americans…Perhaps needless to add, there are no lessons on the virtue of patriotism” This quote was very interesting because in certain aspects we do see this in our society. America is always making sure to watch out for everyone else’s interest, but not our own. Some could even argue that’s why we are in our economic crisis now. America doesn’t want to piss off other people so we make sure to keep countries happy, but at home we do stuff that irritate the citizens. We should be proud of our country, but instead we make others look good and us look bad. What Goldberg is saying is that today in schools when we teach history we lack patriotism.

Kozol Quote: “Most of the addicts and prostitutes are black. Some are Hispanic. But they’re all people of color. It made me feel frightened for my race. The men are killing themselves with needles and the women are laying their bodies down with anyone they meet, not know who they are.” Many of the cities that the author talks about are minority that he has shown through the reading. Through this reading it shows that in parts where the majority is black, Hispanic etc. the conditions there are poor and bad. Where the majority is white the conditions are obviously better. This quote to shows that living in these poor conditions the people didn’t have much opportunity to grow so the guys either became drug users,dealers,gangmembers and the girls became prostitutes. Through these limited choices the people will eventually kill themselves by overdosing, being killed or the environment itself will kill them.

“I don’t know how sick you have to be to qualify for SSI. My girlfriend died from AIDS in March. …After she died, the checks began to come. Now they keep on coming. Her boyfriend sashes them each month.” The author is talking to a lady he interviews Martha Washington, and she tells of the struggles about how hard it is to get help from the government. This quote shows that in this area in New York the government could care less, and that you have to be practically dying and bleeding to get any sort of money to help you. Many of the people have AIDS and the environment isn’t that clean so there health is very fragile. The SSI check should help them survive, but as seen in this story it shows that the government doesn’t care. I think Kozol is trying to show that the society is very flawed and that they have to take care of there people a lot better than they are.

Through these stories I gathered a lot of information. From Goldberg’s I think in society I do think that many people today don’t have a good sense of American history, and they really don’t support or try to help out. In Kozol’s story I do believe that there are some cities in the United states that are in bad shape and the government isn’t doing much to help. I don’t think they are as bad as he describes in the story I think some of it might have been exaggerated for more effect. Kozol’s article relates to Delpit because race is involved in both of them. Delpit says that people who have power should help those who can’t and in Kozol’s article it shows that the people who do have power aren’t helping those who don’t.