Talking Points #1

1.Kozol/Goldberg

Kozol’s publications to me have always been both enlightening and absolutely and terrifyingly depressing. His power to show people a world that does exist in our own neighborhoods and puts it in our faces, whether we were unaware or aware of it. This piece from Amazing Grace is so depressing, but it’s topics Kozol is more than happy to educate the masses who are blind and or ignorant to the horrible living conditions of groups of people, mainly lower classes of minorities. The way some people are forced to live in this country is appalling and what’s absolutely disgusting is the facts that the U.S. Government’s “help” isn’t anywhere close to a saving grace. It’s bad enough that welfare is just a joke in this country. The only things that the government surpluses people with are clean needles and condoms to stop the spread of AIDS in the area. In these living conditions how are lower class minorities expected to rise up and overcome the problems that have been inflicted on them for so long?

Then you have Bernard Goldberg who puts Jonathan Kozol on his list of “110 People who are screwing up America”. Claiming that “Kozol is the patron saint of today's powerful liberal educational establishment.” (Goldberg, 294). What really makes me mad is the fact that Goldberg classifies Kozol as a “Liberal” because he likes to talk about things that are not addressed. From what Goldberg is saying people who follow this “rhetoric” are dooming America’s way of life. Who said that these people hate America? If anything many “Liberals”, better than that how about just PEOPLE in general are getting disgusted by American Government policies and politics. Have guys like Goldberg ever realized that maybe the ignorant slandering and a paranoid accusation is what “liberals” hate? Maybe people in general love where they live but just hate the people who are running things? How are Kozol’s descriptions of inner city youth going through hell everyday or talking about Chicago’s dilapidated school’s with no resources “ruining America”? Guys like Goldberg are those people who get defensive because writers like Kozol are, in a way, scaring them by letting general public know that there are less fortunate people out there and Goldberg is afraid people are going to blame America for that. The only thing people are blaming are the guys who hold the power who are turning a cheek to the pain and suffering that poor, minority, inner city kids are face every single day.

2.McIntosh/Muwakkil

In McIntosh’s article she talks about the innate, yet “unknown” privledge that white people are born with. She discusses the idea that there are things that people of the white persuasion don’t necessarily have to fear like people of different ethnic groups have to face. She also talks about the inequalities that women face compared to men, but she makes a point to talk about how even though she is a white woman who has to deal with inequalities between her gender and men that she has a higher advantage that people who are of either sex in a different racial, and class group. One of the statements on the list she wrote that I found interesting is when she states “I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.” (McIntosh, pg. 50) One thing I have noticed a lot, is when someone of a different race when speaking their mind, especially in a public political debate, that they are representing everyone in their race. I remember in one of my Psychology classes we watched “Eye of the Storm” in which after Martin Luther King Jr’s death the media kept saying things like “who’s going to represent them” or “who is going to speak for them”. The “them” in this class were African Americans. A plethora of news media personnel were acting that Martin Luther King Jr. represented and entire race in America, almost as if he was “the Black Representative of the U.S.”. Whites seem as if they don’t understand that it’s just a human speaking his or her mind, but that a person of a different race is talking about their race as a whole, regardless of sex and class.

Salim Muwakkil’s article is about how stastically whites think that African Americans have just as many job opportunities as whites. It was also mentioned that whites believe that racism and bigotry has declined greatly in America. In some aspects to me it has, but when I say that I mean that it’s not so much open racism and bigotry anymore. What I see people do, which is in my experience only done by white people. Whenever someone is going to make a racist joke they look around the room to make sure no one is in earshot, the joke is told, and then everyone laughs about it. This makes me think about how racism hasn’t really gone away in more than one sense. First off, the joke being told it is racist so therefore people are laughing at specific traits of other races. Secondly, this whole thing brings me back to Johnson’s article and how we don’t use specific racial terms and names, but yet we have no problem being blatantly racist in what is suppose to be a “harmless joke”. This newspaper article has some amazing statistics about how Whites are more likely to be called back for a job interview than African Americans, Whites who spent time in jail get jobs over African Americans who have never been to jail, etc. Both McIntosh and Muwakkil’s articles show that inherited White privilege is very prevalent in the lives of whites, yet they don’t think that they actually have an advantage, either that they ignorant to it, or that they just choose to ignore it.

All Together
Both of these articles tie me back to Goldberg’s book. With McIntosh and Muwakkil’s articles clearly stating that whites have a more of an advantage in American culture does that mean that they’re ruining America as well? Issues like this become less Liberal and less “Conservatism” and more of an issue of Whites don’t want to be called “racist” or “inherently powerful” so they get defensive and write articles about this. Now if someone like Kozol writes about people in terrible areas and tells their stories because those people would never be able to publish something that means Kozol is being too “Liberal”. Now if a person of a different race, let’s say African American talks about the inequalities he’s being “racist against whites” and he’s speaking for his entire race. This is why I get aggravated by high power white Americans who feel under attack and have to write ignorant, overly defensive things. To me, it’s very frustrating, or is that because I tend to identify with middle/lower working class people, and by statistics include whites and many people of color…