As a result of the media, there is a larger gap between the poor inner city kids and the middle class children put into the minds of Americans. The media does this by portraying inner city poor kids as being stupid and not caring about their school work or lives. They show them as just wanting to party, do drugs, drink and take part in dangerous or criminal activities. People think the speech of poor city kids will be different and automatically assume that these children are unintelligent. This book shows that many kids are in school but sadly because of lack of money, the schools aren?t able to provide a good education. Some kids just see dropping out as a b

When Kozol goes to talk to groups of children whose ages range from seven to eighteen, he encourages them to speak about their environment and their feelings, thoughts and opinions on things. He gets answers that would make America cringe with sadness. When asked if America is a good country, a nine year old girl replies with a flat out ?no.? Another child describes their world. ?You hear shooting at night. I pray that someone in my family will not die.? (Kozol, 34)

Reading that passage makes me so depressed. I had no idea that there could be a place in American where even police officers were scared to go to! It?s a very unfortunate and bad situation because these areas are the most dangerous in America and the people who live there are the ones who need the police?s protection the most.

?Like many children I have come to know in the South Bronx, Jeremiah and his friends do not speak during our meeting in the jargon that some middle-class Americans identify with inner-city kids. There?s no obscenity in their speech, nor are there any of those flip code-phrases that are almost always placed within the mouths of poor black children in the movies---a style of speech, I sometimes think, that maybe exaggerated by the media to lend a heightened sense of ?differentness? to children in the ghetto. Children, however, are good at psyching out a stranger; it may be that these children would speak somewhat differently to someone they know better.? (Kozol, 34)

One little seven year old girl, Monique, says her father is a police officer. She says she trusts him but does not know him and has never met him. Kozol asks her then if she lives with her mother to which she replies ?I never saw her either.? I find this to be extremely sad, what kind of life could a young child have without ever knowing either of her parents. If she has been cared for by another relative, things could be much better but this just goes to show what kind of society the South Bronx is.

Some topics in this essay:
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