Talking Point # 1 on Kozol

1) What is the article about?

• poverty
• children with fear, anxiety, and depression
• violence
• poor education
• poor hospitals
• encouragement of sex and drugs
• AIDS
• illnesses
• trapped
• Prejudice
• People with power not using it

2) Argument

Jonathan Kozol argues that in order to solve the problems of poverty, violence, and illnesses in South Bronx, the people with power should change their believes of poor people behaving irrational to, blind poor people trapped in a cage by evil people with power.

3) Evidence. Kozol had many good quotes to prove his argument.

• Poverty

HOMES:

"These houses in which these children live. Two thirds of which are owned by the city of New York, are often as squalid as the houses of the poorest children I have visited in rural Mississippi," (pg. 4).

"Some of these houses are freezing in the winter," (pg. 4).

SCHOOLS:

"...only seven of 800 children do not qualify for free school lunches. Five of those seven... get reduced price lunches, because they are classified as only poor..." (pg. 3).

" Have you read about George Washington? ' I don't even know the man,'" (pg, 9).

HOSPITALS:

" [T]he room is not prepared. The bed is covered with blood... either you wait for hours until someone cleans the room or else you clean the room yourself... why should a patient have to make her bed and wash her room?" (pg. 15).

"I had pneumonia. I waited in the emergency room two days to be admitted," (pg. 16).

• Violence

STREETS:

" I saw a boy shot in the head right over there," (pg. 6).

"... a mother was murdered and her baby wounded by a bullet in the stomach while they were standing on a South Bronx corner," (pg. 5).

HOMES:

"...South Bronx resident was discover in his bathtub with his head cut off," (pg. 5).

" The mother's boyfriend was 42 years old and he had AIDS as well. He raped the little girl right in her bed." (pg. 13).

• ILLNESSES

" Nearly 4,000 heroin injectors, many of whom are HIV-infected, live there," (pg. 4).

"Rates of pediatric AIDS...are high," (pg. 4).

"Asthma is the most common illness among children here," (pg. 4).

• PEOPLE WITH POWER BELIEVING " IRRATIONAL BEHAVIOR"

" If poor people behave rationally..they would seldom be poor for long in the first place. Many social scientists today appear to hold this point of view and argue that the largest portion of the suffering poor people undergo has to be blamed upon their own behaviors, a word they tend to pluralize," (pg. 21).

• TRAPPED IN A CAGE BY EVIL PEOPLE

" I believe that what the rich have done to the poor people in this city is something that a preacher could call evil. Somebody has power. Pretending that they don't so they don't need to use it to help people-that is my idea of evil," (pg. 23).

"The point is that they put a lot of things into our neighborhood that no one wants...[t]he waste incinerator is just one more lovely way of showing their affection," (pg. 10).

ENCOURAGEMENT OF DRUGS AND SEX:

"Volunteers arrive here twice a week to give out condoms and clean needles to addicted men and women," (pg. 12).

4)

I agree 100% with Kozol's argument. The people with power are trapping these poor people by hiding their power. They are encouraging these people to continue having sex and consuming drugs, instead of providing useful information and medicine. What these volunteers are doing is increasing the number of people with AIDS.When I read about the waste incinerators I was disappointed because it's like the people with power continue to infect these people. Another thing that bothered me were the conditions of their homes especially the 2/3's that belonged to the government. This goes out to show how much the government cared. Instead of distributing heaters and blankets they should remodel these homes. I am very disappointed with what the people of power are doing. Instead of helping they are critizing these people without giving them a chance to change.