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Essay / Rhetorical Analysis of Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol
Writer, educator, and activist Jonathan Kozol, in his famous novel, Savage Inequalities, chronicles the many problems facing American schools. Kozol's goal was to draw attention to and assess educational disparities between schools of different classes and races. These issues vary in terms of potential harm in unsafe school conditions relative to the teacher-to-student ratio. Jonathan Kozol illustrates to his readers how these schools and the lives of the children who attend them are totally ignored by the rest of society. It attempts to prove that discrimination is still present in the modern school system and is not a relic of the past as many want to believe. It uses statistics, first-hand experience, and the reader's emotional response to expose and call attention to the wild inequities of the American school system. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Kozol begins his work by bringing the reader into the inequalities of East St. Louis, Illinois. As he explains the situation the small, poor, predominantly black town finds itself in, readers may feel confused and disbelieving. The city is overcrowded and polluted by dangerous substances. Kozol uses the reader's emotional reaction to the city to intrigue them, then uses this advantage to compare the city to American schools. In one of the schools, at the beginning of the book, Kozol enters a boy's toilet: “Four of the six toilets don't work. The toilets, eaten away by red and brown corrosion, have no doors. The toilets do not have seats. One of them has a rotten wooden stump. There are no paper towels or soap. Near the door there is a loop of thread with an empty roll of toilet paper” (Kozol 36). This disturbing, sad, and downright disgusting description of the school bathroom strikes a chord in the reader's heart. A feeling of privilege, guilt or anger may arise. Kozol does a great job of assessing this emotion and bringing it out in readers to achieve his goal. He wants the public to understand teachers who give up their salaries to get supplies for their classes. He wants the audience to see the children who have been through so much at such a young age and who have not had the opportunities that other children have because of where they grew up. He adopts a patient and logical tone. He approaches and constructs his argument in this tone to calmly show readers the blatant evidence he has found. The tone also developed trust between him and his audience as he seemed neither accusatory nor indignant. Kozol clearly has the credentials and experience to write this work, but he further develops trust in his knowledge with his readers. In particular, he recounts his personal experience as a teacher in a Boston school that did not have enough money to provide a room for his class. He then describes his journey through more than thirty neighborhoods and schools from different states and social backgrounds. This adds credibility because it shows that the things he observed were not isolated incidents or problems confined to one school or area. This also demonstrates that he studied both disadvantaged and privileged schools in depth. While the book was published in 1991, Jonathan Kozol used his research and personal experience from 1964 until the final days of its release to better inform his audience. Kozol uses his extensive investigative experience.