Blog Post #3: Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol (Argument)

                   South Bronx (1990) 

  In Amazing Grace, author Jonathan Kozol argues that those a part of the lower class, living in run-down, dangerous neighborhoods, are often in that situation through no fault of their own, and have to deal with experiences due to someone else's decisions. He describes the culture of the South Bronx, and how it is a very crime-ridden community with countless homicides. Many victims are younger people, often harmed at random, like in one instance where a mother was murdered and her baby was wounded after being shot in the stomach while standing on a street corner. Kids have even been shot simply waiting at the bus stop. Another clear example of this is Pediatric AIDS, in which babies are born with the virus because their mother was infected. The common denominator is that many people enter the world under harsh circumstances, and must live in an environment that could be fatal for them or their loved ones... and there is nothing they can do about it. Kozol ponders, "What it is like for children to grow up here? What do they think the world has done to them? Do they believe that they are being shunned or hidden from society? If so, do they think that they deserve this?" (5) These children must grow up in a place where drugs, illness, and death are so normalized, that they become desensitized. Kids play in the playground while their parents wait for needles to inject heroin. They have become so used to the tragedy and the struggle that it is almost a joke to them. Take Cliffie, a seven-year-old boy who's a South Bronx resident, for example, saying that "Everyone is going to burn to crispy cookies" (10) in reference to the new medical waste incinerator put down the street. Their fate is seemingly permanent, as those with power don't care to help, and if they do, they don't get it 'right,' such as making it very difficult to get welfare payments, or people only qualifying for the SSI program if they are extremely sick. This is a obliviousness and a negligence that the text describes as "evil," and Kozol makes it clear that those among the impoverished should not be blamed for their status, but instead the larger society is to blame for making their hardships almost inevitable, because of the "rules" of privilege and power.

Point of Discussion:  Kozol mentions the elementary school in the South Bronx neighborhood, saying that 7 out of 800 students do not qualify for free lunches, as these students only classify as "poor," while the rest are considered "destitute." This put a lot of things into perspective because growing up, in my school, those numbers were probably flipped, because of the rarity of impoverished students in the community. It shows the gravity of their situation and how so many of the kids were in the same 'boat' when it came to lack of money.

                                               

This New York Times article discusses the New York City crime rates