Finance

In cities all over the nation there are neighborhoods that people avoid because they are considered rotten or dangerous. Commuters drive by with a quick glance out their windows and then back to the road, thankful that they don't have to live or even visit these desolate areas. It is easy to forget that others have to sleep, work, and attend school there. Sometimes in the news we hear about the numbers of children who go hungry or live in squalor in these neighborhoods, and yet we do nothing because it is easier to forget the numbers than to try and help. Jonathan Kozol made it his mission from 1988-1991 to put a human face on these numbers and to see how dangerous our policy of apathy has been.

These neighborhoods consist of blocks of abandoned buildings, trash-filled streets, and burned out cars. It is as if there has been a war. It begs the question: What can grow here? The sad, but true answer is that children do. The children in these communities have only one hope for lifting themselves out of the soot and ashes. It is education. However, when taxed with providing something so simple, we utterly fail. The scale of failure is mind blowing. The education policy in the U.S. regarding black children and the poor is not decades behind, but rather a century. How could we have fallen so far and so fast especially after the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s? More importantly, how can we remedy this terrible state of affairs?

The answer to the first is a complicated question, but lies primarily in the fact that these neighborhoods lie out of sight or are just ignored. It is a neglect of our responsibility to our fellow citizens. They are not wealthy and so are unable to make donations to political campaigns, which would result in favors or improvements in their neighborhoods.