Unequal Schools

There's a community in Illinois, across the river from St. Louis, Missouri called East St. Louis. For years it has been a dumping ground for chemical companies like Monsanto. The city doesn't have the financial ability to re-do the systems that need re-doing and gets thrown to the wayside because the state of Illinois doesn't want to throw any more money into suck a poverty-stricken area, saying that the money is there--they just need to "help themselves."

As a result, sewage lines the streets and the ground is contaminated from chemical spills, sewage breaks, and trash that no longer gets collected because the city can't afford to keep up with trash collection. It's a dump. The schools that do exist in East St. Louis are terrible; they don't have enough school supplies, aren't funded enough to get an adequate number of teachers, and dropout rates are nearly at 50%. Conditions in the school and the community are deplorable, and this place exists in the United States today. Not a third world country.

I read about East St. Louis in Savage Inequalities, a book that talks about problems in the public education systems. Talking about the conditions in this place in class the other day, one of my fellow students said "This isn't a real place, right?" Wrong. This place exists. "Then it must be pretty old." Nope. Published in the early 2000's. When conditions in some place in our home country are so bad that you don't think they are real, there's something wrong. How do people not know these places exist? Better question: why aren't governments and charitable organizations paying attention to these small places that get pushed under the rug? The community is essentially stuck because they don't have the resources to do anything about their situation.

This acts as a reminder to me. Pay attention to the communities around you. Acknowledge the privilege you have and don't forget about your neighbors.