Courtland Milloy, an African American columnist for the Washington Post, examines the effects inadequate educational facilities have on children. His article, ”Young Minds Injured by Our Inattention”, is focused towards the ethnically and socially diverse adults of the Washington area. Milloy’s intention in speaking is to explore the problems society has with it’s educational system. Although effectively appealing to emotions and values, Milloy lacks strong arguments of character and fact to convince the diverse community that the absence of recreational and educational facilities effect children and lead them to a life of violence. Milloy draws his audiences’ attentions by retelling a tragic story of a 1st grader named Maurice getting run over in a school zone. He describes the driver as “barreling through...and not even slowing down after striking the boy” who “suffered serious head injuries.” Milloy’s story wins sympathy from the readers. The boy was just beginning to learn the complexities of life when he was forced to start all over again because of a reckless driver. Fatal injuries, especially those effecting children, touch the hearts of most adults. Parents of any social status wonder is this could ever happen to their kids and how devastating an event like this would be. In response to the young boy’s accident, volunteers sympathized fore the inner city school and built a playground to replace the concrete slab the kids used to play on. Most intended readers can relate to not having play grounds for their kids to enjoy. Parents almost always want nice facilities for their kids to play on whether it be a stick with a ball attached, a local park, a school playground, or an extravagant sports court in their back yard, depending on social class. Sympathy extends to children who are deprived of recreational facilities due to weak funding in the educati...
