Kozol: Amazing Grace - Reflection

My first reaction upon reading this piece is anger. My second reaction, following close behind, was dismay, sadness, heartbreak--disbelief. I have been aware throughout my whole life that poverty exists. It's unavoidable. There are people with no homes, no food and no warmth sitting in the doorways and street corners every Christmas, hoping for a sign of human kindness or compassion. There are millions of families who live in single-room apartments, or homeless shelters. However it's very different when you read a piece like Kozol's "Amazing Grace". It really opens your eyes to the deplorable conditions that fellow humans have to live through when you see words like:

In humid summer weather, roaches crawl on virtually every surface of the houses in which many of the children live. Rats emerge from holes in bedroom walls, terrorizing infants in their cribs. …In dangerously cold weather, the city sometimes distributes electric blankets and space heaters to its tenants. In emergency conditions, if space heaters can't be used…the city's practice, according to Newsday, is to pass out sleeping bags. (Kozol 1)

At this point in the piece, I have already reached anger--some, if not most, of the houses in this city must have children, if not babies or infants. Being in the middle of winter with little more than sleeping bags, a hat and a few sweaters can only lead to hypothermia, pneumonia or something even worse.



Additionally, the air quality in South Bronx was enough to cause Asthma to be the most common children's illness at the time that this was written. Fortunately, the city's population has been fighting to improve their air quality.



A large reason for my anger while reading this piece was at the fact that just because the people in this city are poor and at some points below poverty level, they are treated as less than humans; as if just because they are addicted to drugs, just because some are prostitutes, do not have jobs, cannot go to school--they do not deserve the same quality of life as those in cities that are better off. The children's health is compromised. The population is subjected to trash being dumped in their neighborhood;

The waste products of some of these hospitals…were initially going to be burned at an incinerator scheduled to be built along the East Side of Manhattan, but the siting of a burner there had been successfully resisted by the parents of the area because of fear of cancer risks to children. (Kozol 2)

Why is the risk of cancer not a fear when it comes to children in South Bronx? Did they somehow magically develop some kind of immunity? It is not their fault that this is the neighborhood they live in; like Kristof said in his article, where you end up in life is a result of how you are brought up. It is not the children's fault that they were born into that neighborhood; they and their health is being punished for a choice that was never theirs.



Yet throughout all of this, I am amazed and happy to see that children can find happiness and kindness even with the trouble that surrounds them. In Cozol's piece, we see Cliffie's generosity-although he doesn't have much-when he offers Cozol a cookie multiple times. He tells a story of a starving homeless man, who he shared his pizza with-"three slices, one for my mom, one for my dad, and one for me". (Cozol 3) He talks like someone much older than he really is, however there is still an element of cheerfulness and energy to his countenance that gives me hope that the people who have to live in these conditions will grow passed the hard lifestyle they are forced to endure.

Even though this is such a morbid piece, I absolutely love it for opening my eyes. I love it for its honesty.

Below is a video that depicts the type of conditions that Cozol writes about, with first-hand accounts from residents.

Thanks for reading!