BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
LPITTS@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Sometimes, the directness of children is unsettling. Sometimes, the directness of children is challenging.
They just have this way of making things plain. I am thinking of a 10-year-old white boy I met in Montgomery,
Ala. in 1995. My late colleague Michael Browning and I were driving across the South, visiting battlefields of the
Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. We filed five days of reports — learned, eloquent dialectics deconstructing the Gordian knot of race.
But we never cut as close to the meat of the matter in all our thousands of words as that little boy did in just a few when we told him what we were writing about. Appalled, he said, “No fair you have to do this because you’re this color and you have to do that because you’re that color.
No fair.”
His indignation felt, well . . . childish. “No fair?” That’s what you say on the playground when somebody is hogging the swing. It’s what you say when big brother won’t let you have a turn playing video games. Is that really what you say about this great betrayal of America’s promise, this ugly bloodstain on America’s flag? Can something so complicated really be reduced to words so simple?
Well, as it turns out . . . yes.
Sometimes, the directness of children is eye-opening.
And that brings us to Malala Yousafzai. She is, you recall, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban last year for the “crime” of advocating education and equal rights for women and girls. In an authentic miracle, she not only survived, but recovered. A few days ago, she addressed the United Nations in New York and said this:
“We are really tired of these wars. Women and children are suffering in many ways in many parts of the world.”
Hearing Malala’s words, I feel as I felt 18 years ago. I want to tell her that these are lovely sentiments, but she is too young to understand this sort of thing. How do you advance women’s freedoms in societies where women’s subjugation is regarded as holy writ? How do you win universal education when so many tyrants depend on universal ignorance for their power? How do you encourage people to stand and be brave when there are so many inducements to sit and be scared? How do you say
“Stop fighting” and expect the world to listen when war is such a useful and profitable thing?
And it’s funny. Those observations have the odd distinction of being logical, realistic, indisputable and yet, wholly unsatisfying.
Sometimes, the directness of children is confounding. And it can be burdensome, too.
It forces you to confront realities you’d as soon not confront, see truths you’d as soon not see. It has a way of cutting through complexities the way you do cobwebs in a room that has been too long shuttered and dark. You find yourself thinking maybe the automatic rejection of children’s directness says more about you than it does about them. Maybe it says that “logical,” “realistic” and
“complicated” have become words you use to anesthetize your own hope, embalm your own idealism.
“We are really tired of these wars” says the child who was shot in the head — and lived. And you realize, well, heck,
I am tired of them, too.
Sometimes, the directness of children is haunting.
This is one of those times. [word count = 656]
Mind you, she said other things. She said we must advance women’s freedoms. She said education should be every child’s right. She said we must stand together and be brave.
All in all, it was a remarkable speech. But at day’s end, what encapsulates it all for me was that statement about war — not the words of it so much as the fact of it, the idea of this child — she’d turned 16 that day — standing before the assembled nations of this warring world saying,
We are tired of all the fighting. Cut it out.

Carefully read Leonard Pitts’s essay from the previous page. Then, thoughtfully complete the chart below. Create at least three responses in each section; responses in the left hand column should demonstrate careful, detailed thought, and responses in the right hand column should include specific evidence from the passage.
Pitts argues Evidence to Support his Assertions
 
 
 
 
Leonard Pitts incorporates supporting evidence beyond personal knowledge, experience and reflection. This evidence may come from literary knowledge, current/recent events, historical/scientific events, etc. Look at the evidence you have listed in the right hand column above and determine what kind of evidence Pitts employs. Discuss why each example is effective in making his argument.
:
Finalize the ONE quotation to which you will respond in your argument and brainstorm at least two pieces of evidence from outside your personal experience to support your position. TYPE the following: the entire quotation, a clear thesis statement expressing your position on the topic, and your TWO detailed examples from outside your personal experience. This assignment is due next block.
Example
Quotation :
The making of illusions—misleading images or ideas that appear to be authentic or true—has become the primary business of our society. Included in this category are not only the false promises made by advertisers and politicians but all of the activities which supposedly inform, comfort, and improve us, such as the work of our best writers and our most influential leaders. These promises and activities only encourage people to have unrealistic expectations and to ignore facts. - Adapted from Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image
Thesis: Modern Americans claim to crave contentment and frankness yet are – at least en masse – dissatisfied and cynical; perhaps this void between our hopes and our realities is the result of a society that emphasizes appearance over substantive truth.
Evidence:
1. Young women and girls devour fashion magazines, websites, and blogs, an obsession that can result in severe body image issues and a false sense of beauty.
Millions of dollars are spent annually on trendy cosmetics, fad diet supplements, and gym memberships. Sadly, this obsession can result in even more desperate measures like bingeing and purging or invasive plastic surgery options -- all to reach an impossible ideal. Advertisers and editors in popular magazines like Teen
Vogue and Seventeen, for example, use airbrushing techniques and extensively manipulate the original photographed images to create flawless skin, enhanced body shape, striking eye color and hair color, and even edit facial features by altering the size or shape of someone’s nose or lips. Though a 2013 report by the
American Society of Plastic Surgeons indicates that surgeries for persons ages 13-19 make up the smallest portion of total surgeries, it also reveals that teenagers who choose such surgeries most often request nose reshaping, male breast reduction, ear surgery, laser hair removal, and laser skin resurfacing. Even if, as indicated, only 2% of cosmetic surgeries performed in 2013 involved teenagers, this 2% translates to 220,000 surgeries – 220,000 young people mislead by an illusion of perfection.
2. In an effort to expose the practices of deception in advertising, the Dove soap company has launched a campaign touting real beauty and a movement aimed at protecting a generation of young women affected by the false images of beauty. Released in 2006, one Dove video shows an amazing evolution of an average woman being made over and then electronically enhanced into an unrecognizable image of perfection in the end, concluding, “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.” The Evolution video received 40,000 hits in its first day online and later won an award, an indication that its message appropriately captures the dissatisfaction of many consumers. This campaign, along with other efforts to require advertisers to post a disclaimer when these methods are used, takes necessary steps to encourage viewers to question facades and focus on reality instead.