Letter To Kozol's The Uses Of Diversity

Framed within a letter he wrote to the Boston inner-city 1st grade teacher Francesca, in “The Uses of ‘Diversity’” Kozol’s use contemporary rhetoric and personal anecdotes easily persuade the reader of how segregation is still in effect in the late 20th century. His frankness and personal experience makes what would otherwise be an untouchable subject somewhat less controversial. When his own authority is not enough, he brings in numbers and statistics to further cement his viewpoint.
“The Uses of ‘Diversity’” begins with a bang which pretty much sets the tone of the rest of the letter: Kozol describes the presentation Francesca gave at a conference as “pretty damn amazing” (608). He agrees with her statement that “there is almost no diversity at all in most of the schools in which diversity curricula are generally use” (609). He points out that there is almost this silent rule among the public and written press to never use the phrase “racial segregation”. And how even if a school has just a couple of kids from different ethnicities, the school is deemed
Civil Rights heroes such as Ruby Bridges and Linda Brown should not be just admired from afar, but serve as an example to emulate (610). Students should be able to see and speak about their present-day situation where only “1 or 2 percent of the enrollment” (611) is white and the rest of the students are black. Kozol makes a funny observation where the few white children he has seen in majority black schools have only been there by mistake; they were new foreign immigrants and were usually transferred out when the mistake was realized. He then goes on to mention some example schools when modern-day segregation is in effect. Most inner-city schools do not even abide by the rulings of court cases such as Brown v. Board of Education or Plessy v.