Amazing Grace- Kozol

Amazing Grace

By: Jonathan Kozol

I will be examining Amazing Grace through quotes.

"Some of these houses are freezing in the winter. 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, because substandard wiring is overloaded, the city’s practice, according to Newsday is to pass out sleeping bags. ‘You just cover up… and hope you wake up the next morning’ says a father of four children" (Kozol, 4)

The houses spoken of are the tenant houses owned by the state in the South Bronx. As poor people work their way down the system, they eventually end up here, in the poorest of the poor neighborhoods.

 The state does what they can to keep these people sufficiently fed and housed, but can they really be blamed for not being able to adequately care for almost 50,000 people? Aside from the extreme dangers of the community itself (disease, drugs, and homicides) the apartments they live in are also treacherous. Full of roaches and otherwise unclean, unsafe and unhealthy, these families also have to contend with plummeting temperatures in the winter, and dangerous heat in the summer. How can anyone- man, woman or child have the drive to thrive and move out of their current situation when they can’t even be sure they aren’t going to freeze in their beds at night?

"What is it 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 by society? If so, do they think that they deserve this?" (Kozol, 5)

We know without a doubt that it is unhealthy for children to grow up in such environments, and that statistically they will never reach their full potential. Due to malnutrition alone, these children will be stunted, and their brains may never fully develop. The school isn’t even teaching the children basic history (when asked about his hero, the boy Cliffie names Oprah, and has never heard of George Washington). If these children aren’t receiving a decent education that meets the state or national standards, how will they ever elevate themselves out of these situations? They have enough working against them, not receiving a decent education is just one more thing working against them, and holding them in their prison. But school for these children is primarily a place they go for a guaranteed free meal. The church has after school programs for the children as another way to try to keep the children off the streets as much as possible. But this is the world these children grew up in, what they see on television or in magazines is miles away from what they live in, do you think they even realize they live in complete squalor when it is all they know?

"’I believe we were put here for a purpose, but these people in the streets can’t see a purpose. There’s a whole world out there if you know it’s there, if you can see it. But they’re in a cage. They cannot see.’" (Kozol, 24)

It’s important to never underestimate how much children see and understand. This little 7 year old boy does understand that he lives in destitution, and that there may be a way out if you look for it, and work towards that. He also understands that the people around him are so sunk into their drugs and self-pity that they can’t look for the way out. This is a child that spends every day of his life dodging drug dealers and prostitutes, who walks by tables set up to hand out clean needles and condoms, and jokes about an incinerator burning body parts down the block. But he understands that there is more than just this. He has a vivid discussion about what constitutes evil, he believes that it is "Somebody who has power. Pretending that they don’t so they don’t need to use it to help people- that is my idea of evil" (Kozol, 23). This such advanced logic for a child so young. Cliffie also states that it is mostly blacks and Hispanics who are addicted to drugs and that he is scared for his race. In addition, he comes to the apt conclusion that the drug dealers hate him for his lack of addiction. Cliffie’s wisdom far exceeds that of the average seven year old, which is heartbreaking; this little boy never had a real childhood where he wasn’t afraid for his life every day.

I think that in their effort to help these people, the state is just perpetuating their struggle. When the state just provides welfare and housing, they aren’t helping anyone out of the situation, they are just making them dependent on state aid. In the depression, it wasn’t welfare programs that enabled the country to prosper again. It was the public works projects that provided employment. By giving people jobs, they gave people the means to support themselves, and didn’t just give them food. This method also didn’t hinder the working people by taxing them to provide for those who weren’t providing for themselves. While the Great Depression is on a much larger scale, the concept is the same. This goes off the old saying of "give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime". There are so many things that need to be done in the country, whether its highway trash cleanup, landscaping, or housekeeping, there are jobs that need to be done and no one wants to do, and the perfect rehabilitation opportunity.