a billion people, two-thirds of them women, will enter the 21st century unable to read a book or write their names,” warns UNICEF in a new report, “The State of the World’s Children 1999.”
UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, points out that the illiterate “live in more desperate poverty and poorer health” than those who can read and write. The shocking number — 1 billion people illiterate — generated frightening headlines in major newspapers.
Poverty in the poorest countries is indeed something that ought to concern all of us, especially in a season when we pause to remember the less fortunate. But as usual, there’s more to this striking statistic than UNICEF tells us. Consider three points.
The Good News. Bad news sells, news watchers tell us. And 1 billion people unable to read and write — about 16 percent of world population — is certainly bad news. But let’s deconstruct the news.
First, UNICEF’s actual number is 855 million, a figure that did not appear in major newspapers. That’s still a large number, but it is 15 percent less than 1 billion.
Answer:
In "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," Hughes talks about the importance of identity and race in art. He argues that a true artist cannot be one in a way that is separate from his own identity. This is particularly true in the United States, where your racial background determines every aspect of who you are, what opportunities you have access to, and how people treat you.
This is illustrated in "Arrangement in Black and White." In this story, we see an African American artist who is admired by a white woman. The woman considers herself to be liberal and accepting of others. However, she is unable to look past her own racism and bias, despite her claim of being modern and understanding. This supports Hughes idea of the artist being unable to be an artist independently from his racial identity.
Explanation:
Answer:
Judge Patterson’s background illustrates the entrenched culture that makes it difficult to secure justice for Walter. By resisting de-segregation, which was a federally issued mandate, Patterson demonstrated his willingness to break the law in order to preserve the practice of discriminating against black people. Stevenson’s arguments, which claim that Walter’s conviction was faulty because of racial bias and illegal proceedings, likely seem irrelevant to Patterson, who has demonstrated his loyalty to racist traditions over the law. Patterson isn’t the first person in the book to question where Stevenson is from: this illustrates the importance that Stevenson places on the anti-outsider mentality he encountered in Southern courts.
Explanation:
The most exciting and yet the saddest part of the story comes when the end is near for the stowaway. The pilot of the spaceship shuttle is able to reach the authorities who refuse to make an exception to inevitable death for the stowaway. However, she finally gets to speak to her brother whom she was planning to see and explain her position on why she did what she did. Her realization that death is inevitable for her comes when she is forced to become an adult in a very brief period of time to face her fears and her consequences. Then the hatch opens and she is gone . . .
