I chose this clip because part of Obama's speech "A More Perfect Union" had mentioned how school segregation still exists. The man in this clip is Jonathan Kozol and he wrote the book "The Shame of the Nation". The shame that he discusses in his book is how in many major cities across the United States, the schools are still segregated. He mentions that it is the public schools that contain mainly black people, with very seldom white people present. Not only are these black students separate, but they are receiving a lower education as well. I know first hand that this is true. I am from New Orleans, where the public schools are primarily black, and the private or Catholic schools are the ones who provide a better education. I agree with Kozol because it is not fair that all children do not have equal opportunities to receive the best education possible. The sad thing is, the more money you have, the more potential you have to succeed in the future because of the education received when younger. He brings up the irony of how the segregation in schools began returning the year that Martin Luther King died. Instead of our nation moving forward in achieving peace and equality, we keep taking steps backwards, only preventing us from solving any future issues.
Do you feel that if Martin Luther King had not died when he did that the nation would have further progressed in achieving equality, and would have never regressed? If so, explain. If not, explain.
New Orleans and inner cities are a little different than most other places. In New Orleans, public schools are predominantly black, but in most States this is not true. Almost everywhere else public schooling is the main way of education. Louisiana and inner cities are notorious for their public school system, so if private school is affordable you do it. This causes poorer families who can’t afford private schools, get a worse education than richer families who can afford private schools, and in New Orleans these poor families happen to be black. That is the reason most of New Orleans’s public schools are predominantly black. Before you can stop the segregated school system, you must segregate neighborhoods. Think about it. How do you determine who goes to what public school? School districts and these districts are drawn up by neighborhoods. So to be honest you can never segregate the schools totally until you segregate neighborhoods, and I think Martin Luther King would have seen this if he were still alive and would push for neighborhood segregation to help fix this problem.
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