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Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation
The children in this book defy the stereotypes of urban youth too frequently presented by the media. Tender, generous and often religiously devout, they speak with eloquence and honesty about the poverty and racial isolation that have wounded but not hardened them. The book does not romanticize or soften the effects of violence and sickness. One fourth of the child-bearing women in the neighborhoods where these children live test positive for HIV. Pediatric AIDs, life-consuming fires and gang rivalries take a high toll. Several children die during the year in which this narrative takes place. A gently written work, Amazing Grace asks questions that are at once political and theological. What is the value of a child's life? What exactly do we plan to do with those whom we appear to have defined as economically and humanly superfluous? How cold -- how cruel, how tough -- do we dare be?
284 pages, Paperback
First published October 10, 1995
173 people are currently reading
3580 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Kozol
49 books535 followersJonathan Kozol is a non-fiction writer, educator, and activist best known for his work towards reforming American public schools. Upon graduating from Harvard, he received a Rhodes scholarship. After returning to the United States, Kozol became a teacher in the Boston Public Schools, until he was fired for teaching a Langston Hughes poem. Kozol has held two Guggenheim Fellowships, has twice been a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, and has also received fellowships from the Field and Ford Foundations. Most recently, Kozol has founded and is running a non-profit called Education Action. The group is dedicated to grassroots organizing of teachers across the country who wish to push back against NCLB and the most recent Supreme Court decision on desegregation, and to help create a single, excellent, unified system of American public schools.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 399 reviews
January 11, 2008
While the content of the book is very heart wrenching, and the statistics and the accounts Kozol provides are all very real, I hated this book. What troubles me is not the book, but its author Jonathan Kozol. Kozol motives are sincere and genuine but it always takes a sympathetic white man to expose the world. Which is almost unnerving as it is sad. On a whole, most of the white community in New York City doesn’t ever see what is happening around them; a train ride away. It’s as if the horrors of the world are blurred into the background. That is until; one of their own spends a night in a homeless shelter, and writes of the rapes and murders that occur. Only until then, does the help, reform, sympathy and money come in. However, if a white man is what it takes, than a white man it shall be. If allowing an outsider to record and rewrite your life is the necessary meanings to improving your situation, then by all means whore yourself out to the white man. I fully understand that Kozol is only trying to help those less fortunate, but when will it be the blacks turn to help their own?
February 15, 2020
such a moving book. a bit difficult to read at times, because your brain does not want to process the amount of pain and grief these children experience. highly recommend
August 13, 2024
I read this book back in college in 2011 ; it is thought provoking, heartbreaking and beautiful all in one package. It focuses mainly around children of color in the 1990s who live in low income households. Some of the things these children go through in this book is so abhorrent. I did like the fact the community would try to help each other out any which way they could, I thought that was beautiful. It’s been a long time since I read this, but I remember this book had a huge impact on me . Some of the topics in this book were so repulsive and very depressing but I recommend everyone to read this book. Just be prepared to shed a few tears. 5⭐️
May 11, 2016
I was moved by the stories told by the old & young in this community. I truly admire Anthony's (a 13 year old) wisdom and ambition as an aspiring writer. The centrality of the church in providing hope and relief for people in this community reminded me of my own childhood. Despite one's religious beliefs we must never devalue the relationships that people have to spiritual places and the sense of belonging and community that is achieved through these relationships. I respect Kozol for being able to give voice to each person he befriends and serving more as a messenger. The book ends with an analysis of a sermon with questions to think about:
"Will the people Reverend Groover called "the principalities and powers" look into their hearts one day in church or synagogue and feel the grace of God and, as he put it, "be transformed"? Will they become ashamed of what they've done, or what they have accepted? Will they decide they do not need to quarantine the outcasts of their ingenuity and will they then use all their wisdom and their skills to build a new society and new economy in which no human being will be superfluous? I wish I could believe that, but I don't think it is likely. I think it is more likely that they'll write more stories about "Hope Within the Ashes" and then pile on more ashes and then change the subject to the opening of the ballet or a review of a new restaurant. And the children of disappointment will keep dying."
I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants a sobering reminder of what many kids go through in low-income communities. It was written in the 90s but its message is still relevant today.
"Will the people Reverend Groover called "the principalities and powers" look into their hearts one day in church or synagogue and feel the grace of God and, as he put it, "be transformed"? Will they become ashamed of what they've done, or what they have accepted? Will they decide they do not need to quarantine the outcasts of their ingenuity and will they then use all their wisdom and their skills to build a new society and new economy in which no human being will be superfluous? I wish I could believe that, but I don't think it is likely. I think it is more likely that they'll write more stories about "Hope Within the Ashes" and then pile on more ashes and then change the subject to the opening of the ballet or a review of a new restaurant. And the children of disappointment will keep dying."
I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants a sobering reminder of what many kids go through in low-income communities. It was written in the 90s but its message is still relevant today.
May 21, 2023
Originally bought this book as required reading for one of my Religious Studies classes but didn't read it properly the first time. On second reading I'm glad that I didn't toss this book to the curb. Kozol crafts an eye-opening piece on the impact of inequality on the lives of children living in the South Bronx, touching on the education system to healthcare to living conditions.
One thing that I really appreciated from Kozol was his approach to writing this book - he did not pretend to have solutions for the issues he highlighted (which would have come off dismissive and ingenuine), but simply documented what he saw and heard during his time observing the Mott Haven neighborhood. That being said, because of Kozol's approach, it was hard for me to put this book down with a sense of there being any "amazing grace" for the future of children living in these impoverished communities.
...
Some quotes I liked:
""The poor are frightening," [St. Vincent] answered, "as frightening as God's justice.""
""The message of the gospel is unalterably clear. 'Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not away.' Those are the words of Jesus." No exception... is made for the stranger who talks too loud in crowded trains, or who may be partially deceiving us about his actual condition, or who offends us by his importunity or by his dirtiness, or color."
"If [people] cannot sing, they scream. They are vessels of the spirit but the spirit sometimes is entombed; it can't get out, and so they smash it!"
One thing that I really appreciated from Kozol was his approach to writing this book - he did not pretend to have solutions for the issues he highlighted (which would have come off dismissive and ingenuine), but simply documented what he saw and heard during his time observing the Mott Haven neighborhood. That being said, because of Kozol's approach, it was hard for me to put this book down with a sense of there being any "amazing grace" for the future of children living in these impoverished communities.
...
Some quotes I liked:
""The poor are frightening," [St. Vincent] answered, "as frightening as God's justice.""
""The message of the gospel is unalterably clear. 'Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not away.' Those are the words of Jesus." No exception... is made for the stranger who talks too loud in crowded trains, or who may be partially deceiving us about his actual condition, or who offends us by his importunity or by his dirtiness, or color."
"If [people] cannot sing, they scream. They are vessels of the spirit but the spirit sometimes is entombed; it can't get out, and so they smash it!"
February 4, 2008
In 1996 this book changed my life. Because of this book my 16th year became a mission to better the lives of the students of Taft High School (a school that is discussed in the book). I visited the school, the churches and neighborhoods talked about in the book. I established an exchange program between American Fork High and Taft High School that still is in existence today. I highly recommend Jonothon Kozol's Amazing Grace.
This book taught me at a young age that I could change the world.
This book taught me at a young age that I could change the world.
October 16, 2020
Absolutely heart wrenching and provocative
August 13, 2017
This was an extremely eye opening read, which taught me all about life for children and adults in the South Bronx. I would never have imagined all of the terrible things people live through in those neighborhoods. Hearing the stories was moving!
September 2, 2010
The crucial realities of a neighborhood’s life districted in South Bronx, New York City were told by Jonathan Kozol. Through his novel, Amazing Grace, he provided the true side and enables the wealthy privileged classes to witness the harsh conditions the poor had gone through. Because of this inequality issue which has been getting worse, readers are able to put their shoes in the lives of the poor. Such injustice drove to the huge gap between the rich and poor. More importantly, all these unfair treatments have not come to an end. Yet, it was taking advantage of. Since the truth has been revealed in the inner city, New York City, it’s to be spread throughout the world to educate others.
Finding my favorite part was difficult because all parts hid some sort or tragic and harsh living conditions. However, regarding the writing structure, there’s no doubt that when reading the conditions of health problems and lack of education privileges, it’s so touching. The imagery was painted so well with the help of setting and plot description. Furthermore, the part where innocent children from desperately poor neighborhoods are dealing with their health issues, it was very touching and memorable. But on the other hand it’s unacceptable how we’re all human but are getting total different treatments and rights.
I feel real bad for the new born babies because they had no choice to the type of family they born in. For these children, growing in such bad condition yet, still having to bear witness to the cruel reality was plain harsh! But it was all fate… Anyways, I would highly recommend this to all people as a continuation to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn—a great follow up!
Finding my favorite part was difficult because all parts hid some sort or tragic and harsh living conditions. However, regarding the writing structure, there’s no doubt that when reading the conditions of health problems and lack of education privileges, it’s so touching. The imagery was painted so well with the help of setting and plot description. Furthermore, the part where innocent children from desperately poor neighborhoods are dealing with their health issues, it was very touching and memorable. But on the other hand it’s unacceptable how we’re all human but are getting total different treatments and rights.
I feel real bad for the new born babies because they had no choice to the type of family they born in. For these children, growing in such bad condition yet, still having to bear witness to the cruel reality was plain harsh! But it was all fate… Anyways, I would highly recommend this to all people as a continuation to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn—a great follow up!
March 21, 2008
New York City slums from the perspective of the kids that live there. The author's sincere attempt to describe life for a select group of kids by compiliting the results of numerous interviews. I knew there was extreme poverty in parts of New York City (and crime, drugs, higher rates of AIDS, gangs), but I had no idea that the "public services" (schools, hospitals, parks, and city services) were so, so bad....dirty hospital rooms that patients have to clean themselves, classrooms meeting in bathrooms, buildings not inspected by the City because inspectors didn't feel 'safe' entering, kids with an average asthma rate 9 times that of kids across town...seriously? You should read this.
October 30, 2012
This book should be read by all. We who are well off can scarcely understand how poor the poor really are. This book brings awareness. The book is difficult to read, given the dire situation described, but is written in such a manner that even humor is thrown in. The book lacks structure; that is why I reduced the stars.
And religion? One clearly sees why sometimes people need it.
Absolutely perfect narration by Dick Hill.
You should read this book.
And religion? One clearly sees why sometimes people need it.
Absolutely perfect narration by Dick Hill.
You should read this book.
September 3, 2018
While not quite a call to action, nevertheless, "Amazing Grace" is a deeply sobering look at the disparity of wealth in this country. Kozol makes an effort to shed light on some of the more systemic and dehabilitating institutional circumstances which perpetuate poverty specifically in the South Bronx in the mid-90s.
Kozol addresses the complex ways in which the wealthy continue the oppression. He shows all the terms used in publication to soften and hide the real issues, for instance, "under-served," "low-income," "minorities," "gritty," "impacted," but never, "segregated." He talks about, "compassion fatigue," in which those with means are just too tired to give more effort and drive real change. He goes so far as to posture that these systems are so well established, "we just move in."
In the end, Kozol seems to conclude the folks he encounters are ultimately more spiritual guides for him. The people Kozol speaks with often provide biting spiritual insight, given the context. One reverend speaks of churches which overdo, "the blood-and-thunder" messages of acopocalypse, missing the focus of Jesus', "I came that you might have life." Kozol argues some churches, while well-meaning, donating to charity once a year on Christmas Eve are only assuaging their own guilt-ridden wealthy attendants and not at all addressing the misalignment of our humanity. Through the book, Kozol hints at the Holy Spirit working on him in the process. Amazing Grace, indeed.
Kozol addresses the complex ways in which the wealthy continue the oppression. He shows all the terms used in publication to soften and hide the real issues, for instance, "under-served," "low-income," "minorities," "gritty," "impacted," but never, "segregated." He talks about, "compassion fatigue," in which those with means are just too tired to give more effort and drive real change. He goes so far as to posture that these systems are so well established, "we just move in."
In the end, Kozol seems to conclude the folks he encounters are ultimately more spiritual guides for him. The people Kozol speaks with often provide biting spiritual insight, given the context. One reverend speaks of churches which overdo, "the blood-and-thunder" messages of acopocalypse, missing the focus of Jesus', "I came that you might have life." Kozol argues some churches, while well-meaning, donating to charity once a year on Christmas Eve are only assuaging their own guilt-ridden wealthy attendants and not at all addressing the misalignment of our humanity. Through the book, Kozol hints at the Holy Spirit working on him in the process. Amazing Grace, indeed.
September 24, 2022
This book has been on my TBR list for quite some time. " Amazing Grace is a book about the hearts of children who grow up in the South Bronx-the poorest congressional district of our nation. The children you meet ...defy the stereotypes of urban youth portrayed on tv...the children speak with clarity about the poverty and racial isolation that have wounded but not hardened them" ( Jacket Cover). With a current political climate that tries to keep history from speaking the hard truths to today's students, it is an important read.
September 30, 2017
This 1995 account of Kozol's visits to the South Bronx is quite eye-opening. The people there live in horrible, squalid conditions, and virtually no one knows, or cares. I imagine things have only gotten worse there, although I am not sure how that would be possible.
January 18, 2018
This book is not really about poverty. This book is about segregation & the violence it inflicts.
April 22, 2019
“I think that they believed it but they did not comprehend it. They didn’t understand how this could happen in our country.” -David Washington
Sometimes reality checks are brutal, but boy are they necessary. Amazing Grace is difficult to read because the truth is difficult to come to grips with.
Sometimes reality checks are brutal, but boy are they necessary. Amazing Grace is difficult to read because the truth is difficult to come to grips with.
June 16, 2020
A powerful book. Everything I've ever read by Jonathan Kozol has been thought-provoking and eye-opening. I'm very curious what has changed since this book was published in 1995- I'm hopeful things have improved, but I'm sure in some ways they have not.
May 28, 2022
Heart wrenching book about NYC lives in the early 1990’s.
February 4, 2021
Update Feb 2021: Just read The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America which shows how pervasive discriminatory housing laws, policies, and norms were and are; it reminded me of this book I read almost 10 years ago that provides an intimate look at how local government housing policies "grind the faces of the poor." (Isaiah 3:15) Increasingly relevant and highly recommended.
Feb 2012:
This book was so simply written and was so heartfelt. I think part of what made it so effective was that he didn't push any specific agenda, but simply tried to convey what he read, heard, and felt - true journalism.
I know that God will hold us all accountable for how we treat those who are poor and suffering. It is so easy to ignore, forget, avoid, and rationalize. I am grateful that Kozol wrote this book to expose the things that are hidden to those who aren't looking (I'm not holding myself exempt, by any means).
Even though Kozol implies that he isn't very religious (in a formal way), he still manages to convey that that this is at its root a spiritual and moral issue for all of us. I will add my testimony to his: "this is pure religion, to visit [the poor in their] affliction" (James 1:27) instead of avoiding and relocating them.
Feb 2012:
This book was so simply written and was so heartfelt. I think part of what made it so effective was that he didn't push any specific agenda, but simply tried to convey what he read, heard, and felt - true journalism.
I know that God will hold us all accountable for how we treat those who are poor and suffering. It is so easy to ignore, forget, avoid, and rationalize. I am grateful that Kozol wrote this book to expose the things that are hidden to those who aren't looking (I'm not holding myself exempt, by any means).
Even though Kozol implies that he isn't very religious (in a formal way), he still manages to convey that that this is at its root a spiritual and moral issue for all of us. I will add my testimony to his: "this is pure religion, to visit [the poor in their] affliction" (James 1:27) instead of avoiding and relocating them.
January 28, 2008
I had to read this for a night class where we were to finish it within the span of a week. Being busy with other things, I had two days to start and finish it. I'm literally exhausted from it. This book is powerful, emotional, depressing, macabre and at times even joyful and uplifting. The children that Kozol speaks with are remarkably brilliant and eloquent in their thoughts. Some of them have reached a maturity in their thinking that I don't see in most adults I know. The women and few men that he speaks with are equally as amazing, strong and resilient. I have to bite my tongue when I feel the urge to say that Mrs. Washington is, perhaps, my favorite "character" from any book I've read, because I have to remind myself that this book is not fictional. These stories and people are very, very real. Like most, I'm sure, this was my first real glance into the actuality of the destitution that thrives in our country... I think it's an important book that everyone should read.
December 26, 2019
The south Bronx, and many communities like it, are in crisis. They were in 1994, when Amazing Grace was first published, but also are now, in 2019. My own experiences have brought me to the same streets among which Kozol walked while researching this book. Sadly, not much has changed in these 25 years. The families face many of the same issues, systemic and otherwise, that they did in 1994.
Kozol does not offer any solutions. That is not his purpose. While I was hoping for some commentary, he instead leaves us with with something different but still immensely valuable: a clear rendering of the exciting yet mundane lives of his subjects, leaving you wondering for yourself - where should we go from here? How can we create hope and change in places where it can feel like there is none?
Kozol does not offer any solutions. That is not his purpose. While I was hoping for some commentary, he instead leaves us with with something different but still immensely valuable: a clear rendering of the exciting yet mundane lives of his subjects, leaving you wondering for yourself - where should we go from here? How can we create hope and change in places where it can feel like there is none?
June 3, 2008
Jonathan Kozol is the conscience of education in this country, which he once again proves with this book. Even though the societal ravages he describes these children undergoing make Job's sojourn seem like a walk beach, the children remain the soul of innocence. This is a motivational book: it may turn you into an advocate for underprivileged children in your own community, like the champions depicted in these pages. Always, always, though, his focus is on these beautiful children who are being neglected and left behind by the cold and uncaring, bureaucratic society in which we all live.
April 26, 2009
I use this text while teaching freshman English as a companion to Huxley's Brave New World. It enlightens the all too appropriate comparison and starts a discussion of what America's landscape is really like and how it is crafted, and by whom.
August 21, 2007
This book is absolutely heart breaking, but we all need to hear the stories it tells. Even I was amazed at how the richest nation on earth that boasts of freedom and justice can have such devastating circumstances. If this doesn't motivate you to go protest, I don't know what will.
October 10, 2010
It surreally opened my eyes to see that such stuff can happen in America in all places. It made me feel soiled and childish how I thought I was unhappy because of the situation I'm in.
August 6, 2012
Difficult. Diligent. Brilliant.
July 12, 2011
Although Jonathan Kozol wrote and researched this book almost 20 years ago (when I was just a little girl), sadly, so much of it still rings true today. The primary focus of this book pertains to the lives of children within the South Bronx. Kozol particularly emphasizes the ways in which these young children process and understand the world in which they live, as well as their places within it. Whenever I'm reading, especially nonfiction texts, I often highlight quotations that I feel are significant, startling, etc. Below I have included some of these quotations; my hope is that they will convince you to read this book if you have not yet done so.
The following are things that various residents, along with religious leaders and teachers, of the South Bronx, said to Kozol during interviews. Most often, the "they" referred to in these quotations are the leaders and citizens of New York City.
--"[They] don't clean up your neighborhood, don't fix your buildings, fix your schools, or give you decent hospitals or banks. Instead, [they] paint the back sides of the buildings so that people driving to the suburbs will have something nice to look at."
--"It's not like being in a jail. It's more like being 'hidden.' It's as if you have been put in a garage where, if they don't have room for something but aren't sure if they should throw it out, they put it where they don't need to think of it again."
--"If you weave enough bad things into the fibers of a person's life--sickness and filth, old mattresses and other junk thrown in the streets and other ugly ruined things, and ruined people, a prison here, sewage there, drug dealers here, the homeless people over there, then give us the very worst schools anyone could think of, hospitals that keep you waiting for ten hours, police that don't show up when someone's dying, take the train that's underneath the street in the good neighborhoods and put it up above where it shuts out the sun, you can guess that life will not be very nice and children will not have much sense of being glad of who they are. Sometimes it feels like we've been buried six feel under their perceptions."
--"You see destruction around you, but you do not know who the destroyer is."
--"Cops think of the building like a death camp. But if the police are scared to come there, why does the city put small children in the building?"
--"There is nothing predatory in these children. They know that the world does not much like them and they try hard to be good to one another."
--"You have to remember that for this little boy whom you have met, his life is just as important, to him, as your life is to you. No matter how insufficient or how shabby it may seem to some, it is the only one he has."
--"Sometimes, in front of a wonderful place like FAO Schwartz, you wonder if poor kids like these have fantasies of breaking in and stealing toys or games, electric trains--whatever children play with nowadays. If they ever did it, if they just went in one night and cleaned the whole place out, you have to ask if they could ever steal back half as much as has been stolen from them."
--"I think it grieves the heart of God when human beings created in His image treat other human beings like filthy rags."
--"Another boy, I used to ask him, 'Where do you want to go eat?' He always said, 'McDonald's.' One time, when he was 12, I took him to a Burger King in Queens. I later learned from his teacher that he wrote an essay on our lunch, 'My Trip to Burger King'--the way that wealthy kids might write about a trip to Florida."
--"This out here is not God's kingdom. A kingdom is a place of glory. This is a place of pain."
--"Every child among us has a precious life and holds a precious dream."
--"Going outside for youngsters in the building means going to the hallway, since the road outside, where they could get some air, is just too dangerous."
--"I like to look at children on the train. You don't see many people who look friendly on the train. But children do. Some of them do. Some of them look joyful. Some of them say hello to you, even to strangers. No one else does. They want to be loved."
--"With his intelligence, he could have been successful in an honest occupation. But he had nothing in his life but drugs."
--"'Traumatization' as an ordinary state of mind is closer to the fact of things for many children here. They lead the life most people only read about."
--"Many of the ambitions of the children are locked-in at a level that suburban kids would scorn. It's as if the very possibilities of life have been scaled back. Boys who are doing well in school will tell me, 'I would like to be a sanitation man.' I have to guard my words and not say anything to indicate my disappointment. In this neighborhood, a sanitation job is something to be longed for."
--"If you want to get your outcasts out of sight, first you need a ghetto and then you need a prison to take pressure off the ghetto. The fact that it doesn't make financial sense is not the point. Short-term terror and revulsion are more powerful than long-term wisdom or self-interest."
--"Bigotry is not the only factor in the flight of some white children from these schools. Many of their parents simply don't believe these schools are good for any child, their own or anybody else's. So they put their own kids into private schools and try to raise some scholarships to pay for black kids to attend them, too. But it tends to be a triage operation. The black kids who get into private schools like these are screened quite carefully. So, in one sense, it simply makes things worse in public schools by pulling out the children that a teacher counts on to keep class discussions going and to spur the others to succeed."
--"The view of the United States that children get in looking out the window of a school in Harlem or the Bronx is not one likely to affirm a sense of confidence in human goodness."
--"Down south people let you know exactly where you stand. Here in New York they smile and smile and pat you on the head and then they send you back where you belong."
--"If a woman's black, Hispanic, and on welfare, maybe a drug user, or has HIV, she knows she isn't welcome in a first-class hospital...If they wouldn't want you as a neighbor, why do you think they'd want you in the next bed?"
--"Keepin' a man is not the biggest problem. Keepin' from bein' killed is bigger. Keepin' your kids alive is bigger. If nothin' else works, why should a marriage work?"
--"Of course the family structure breaks down in a place like the South Bronx! Everything breaks down in a place like this. The pipes break down. The phone breaks down. The electricity and heat break down. The spirit breaks down. The body breaks down. The immune agents of the hearts break down. Why wouldn't the family break down also? If we saw the people in these neighborhoods as part of the same human family to which we belong, we'd never put them in such places to begin with. But we do not think of them that way. That is one area of 'family breakdown' that the experts and newspapers seldom speak of. They speak of the failures of the mothers we have exiled to do well within their place of exile. They do not condemn the pharaoh."
--"It has to take extraordinary self-deceit for people who plant flowers on Park Avenue but pump their sewage into Harlem and transport their medical waste, and every other kind of waste that you can think of, to Mott Haven, to image that they have the moral standing to be judges of the people they have segregated and concealed. Only a very glazed and clever culture in which social blindness is accepted as a normal state of mind could possibly permit itself this luxury."
--"The viral path of AIDS has crept through the family tree in many South Bronx neighborhoods, breaking branch after branch."
--"Do I need this bottle of expensive perfume more than a child needs a doctor or a decent school? What does it mean, in theological terms, when grown-ups can eat caviar while Anthony eats oatmeal? What does this say about a city's soul?"
The following are a variety of observations that Kozol makes throughout the book:
--"Jeremiah and his friends do not speak during our meeting with the jargon that some middle-class Americans identify with inner-city kids. There's no obscenity in their speech, nor are there any of those flip code-phrases that are almost always placed within the mouths of poor black children in the movies--a style of speech, I sometimes think, that may be exaggerated by the media to lend a heightened sense of 'differentness' to children in the ghetto."
--"In a deep side gutter, one small child, wearing only underpants, lies on his stomach in a pool of dirty water about six inches deep, slashing joyfully, pretending he can swim."
--"This is where Bernardo played for eight and a half years. This is the best New York could do for him. The kennel where I leave my dog while I am in New York is cleaner and smells better."
--"Anabelle's images of heaven give me a delightful feeling that I rarely have in New York City. I speak of these kinds of things as often as I can, and of the feelings children voice for animals they love, because I think they show us something very different from the customary picture we are given of a generation of young thugs and future whores. There is a golden moment here that our society has chosen not to seize. We have not nourished this part of the hearts of children, not in New York, not really anywhere."
--"In order to keep these different children clear in my mind, I finally have to make a map of the South Bronx and put it on the wall over my desk, placing a marker on each block in which a child died, using one symbol for death by fire, one for death by accident, and one for death by gunshot."
--"Twice as many black men in New York are under control of the criminal justice system as are enrolled full-time in all the colleges within the state."
--"It is at the secondary level--in junior high and, more dramatically, in high school--that the sense of human ruin on a vast scale becomes unmistakable. Numbers cannot convey the mood of desolation that pervades some of these secondary schools."
--"At one junior high school in the South Bronx in which money was so scarce in 1994 that girls were using pieces of TV cable as their jump ropes at the time I visited the area, only 15 teachers in a faculty of 54 were certified."
--"So long as the most vulnerable people in our population are consigned to places that the rest of us will always shun and flee and view with fear, I am afraid that educational denial, medical and economic devastation, and aesthetic degradation will be virtually inevitable...So long as there are ghetto neighborhoods and ghetto hospitals and ghetto schools, I am convinced there will be ghetto desperation, ghetto violence, and ghetto fear because a ghetto is itself an evil and unnatural construction."
--"One wants instead to know how certain people hold up under terrible ordeals, how many more do not, how human beings devalue other people's lives, how numbness and destructiveness are universalized, how human pity is at length extinguished and the shunning of the vulnerable can come in time to be perceived as natural behavior...How does a nation deal with those whom it has cursed?"
--"A handful of good, publicly funded clinics, which are perennially overcrowded, try to compensate for the abandonment of New York City's poorest children by much of its medical establishment."
--"239 of 277 swings for children in Bronx parks aren't 'in place' or 'need repair.' Trivial as it is, this disappointing detail seems to say it all."
The following are things that various residents, along with religious leaders and teachers, of the South Bronx, said to Kozol during interviews. Most often, the "they" referred to in these quotations are the leaders and citizens of New York City.
--"[They] don't clean up your neighborhood, don't fix your buildings, fix your schools, or give you decent hospitals or banks. Instead, [they] paint the back sides of the buildings so that people driving to the suburbs will have something nice to look at."
--"It's not like being in a jail. It's more like being 'hidden.' It's as if you have been put in a garage where, if they don't have room for something but aren't sure if they should throw it out, they put it where they don't need to think of it again."
--"If you weave enough bad things into the fibers of a person's life--sickness and filth, old mattresses and other junk thrown in the streets and other ugly ruined things, and ruined people, a prison here, sewage there, drug dealers here, the homeless people over there, then give us the very worst schools anyone could think of, hospitals that keep you waiting for ten hours, police that don't show up when someone's dying, take the train that's underneath the street in the good neighborhoods and put it up above where it shuts out the sun, you can guess that life will not be very nice and children will not have much sense of being glad of who they are. Sometimes it feels like we've been buried six feel under their perceptions."
--"You see destruction around you, but you do not know who the destroyer is."
--"Cops think of the building like a death camp. But if the police are scared to come there, why does the city put small children in the building?"
--"There is nothing predatory in these children. They know that the world does not much like them and they try hard to be good to one another."
--"You have to remember that for this little boy whom you have met, his life is just as important, to him, as your life is to you. No matter how insufficient or how shabby it may seem to some, it is the only one he has."
--"Sometimes, in front of a wonderful place like FAO Schwartz, you wonder if poor kids like these have fantasies of breaking in and stealing toys or games, electric trains--whatever children play with nowadays. If they ever did it, if they just went in one night and cleaned the whole place out, you have to ask if they could ever steal back half as much as has been stolen from them."
--"I think it grieves the heart of God when human beings created in His image treat other human beings like filthy rags."
--"Another boy, I used to ask him, 'Where do you want to go eat?' He always said, 'McDonald's.' One time, when he was 12, I took him to a Burger King in Queens. I later learned from his teacher that he wrote an essay on our lunch, 'My Trip to Burger King'--the way that wealthy kids might write about a trip to Florida."
--"This out here is not God's kingdom. A kingdom is a place of glory. This is a place of pain."
--"Every child among us has a precious life and holds a precious dream."
--"Going outside for youngsters in the building means going to the hallway, since the road outside, where they could get some air, is just too dangerous."
--"I like to look at children on the train. You don't see many people who look friendly on the train. But children do. Some of them do. Some of them look joyful. Some of them say hello to you, even to strangers. No one else does. They want to be loved."
--"With his intelligence, he could have been successful in an honest occupation. But he had nothing in his life but drugs."
--"'Traumatization' as an ordinary state of mind is closer to the fact of things for many children here. They lead the life most people only read about."
--"Many of the ambitions of the children are locked-in at a level that suburban kids would scorn. It's as if the very possibilities of life have been scaled back. Boys who are doing well in school will tell me, 'I would like to be a sanitation man.' I have to guard my words and not say anything to indicate my disappointment. In this neighborhood, a sanitation job is something to be longed for."
--"If you want to get your outcasts out of sight, first you need a ghetto and then you need a prison to take pressure off the ghetto. The fact that it doesn't make financial sense is not the point. Short-term terror and revulsion are more powerful than long-term wisdom or self-interest."
--"Bigotry is not the only factor in the flight of some white children from these schools. Many of their parents simply don't believe these schools are good for any child, their own or anybody else's. So they put their own kids into private schools and try to raise some scholarships to pay for black kids to attend them, too. But it tends to be a triage operation. The black kids who get into private schools like these are screened quite carefully. So, in one sense, it simply makes things worse in public schools by pulling out the children that a teacher counts on to keep class discussions going and to spur the others to succeed."
--"The view of the United States that children get in looking out the window of a school in Harlem or the Bronx is not one likely to affirm a sense of confidence in human goodness."
--"Down south people let you know exactly where you stand. Here in New York they smile and smile and pat you on the head and then they send you back where you belong."
--"If a woman's black, Hispanic, and on welfare, maybe a drug user, or has HIV, she knows she isn't welcome in a first-class hospital...If they wouldn't want you as a neighbor, why do you think they'd want you in the next bed?"
--"Keepin' a man is not the biggest problem. Keepin' from bein' killed is bigger. Keepin' your kids alive is bigger. If nothin' else works, why should a marriage work?"
--"Of course the family structure breaks down in a place like the South Bronx! Everything breaks down in a place like this. The pipes break down. The phone breaks down. The electricity and heat break down. The spirit breaks down. The body breaks down. The immune agents of the hearts break down. Why wouldn't the family break down also? If we saw the people in these neighborhoods as part of the same human family to which we belong, we'd never put them in such places to begin with. But we do not think of them that way. That is one area of 'family breakdown' that the experts and newspapers seldom speak of. They speak of the failures of the mothers we have exiled to do well within their place of exile. They do not condemn the pharaoh."
--"It has to take extraordinary self-deceit for people who plant flowers on Park Avenue but pump their sewage into Harlem and transport their medical waste, and every other kind of waste that you can think of, to Mott Haven, to image that they have the moral standing to be judges of the people they have segregated and concealed. Only a very glazed and clever culture in which social blindness is accepted as a normal state of mind could possibly permit itself this luxury."
--"The viral path of AIDS has crept through the family tree in many South Bronx neighborhoods, breaking branch after branch."
--"Do I need this bottle of expensive perfume more than a child needs a doctor or a decent school? What does it mean, in theological terms, when grown-ups can eat caviar while Anthony eats oatmeal? What does this say about a city's soul?"
The following are a variety of observations that Kozol makes throughout the book:
--"Jeremiah and his friends do not speak during our meeting with the jargon that some middle-class Americans identify with inner-city kids. There's no obscenity in their speech, nor are there any of those flip code-phrases that are almost always placed within the mouths of poor black children in the movies--a style of speech, I sometimes think, that may be exaggerated by the media to lend a heightened sense of 'differentness' to children in the ghetto."
--"In a deep side gutter, one small child, wearing only underpants, lies on his stomach in a pool of dirty water about six inches deep, slashing joyfully, pretending he can swim."
--"This is where Bernardo played for eight and a half years. This is the best New York could do for him. The kennel where I leave my dog while I am in New York is cleaner and smells better."
--"Anabelle's images of heaven give me a delightful feeling that I rarely have in New York City. I speak of these kinds of things as often as I can, and of the feelings children voice for animals they love, because I think they show us something very different from the customary picture we are given of a generation of young thugs and future whores. There is a golden moment here that our society has chosen not to seize. We have not nourished this part of the hearts of children, not in New York, not really anywhere."
--"In order to keep these different children clear in my mind, I finally have to make a map of the South Bronx and put it on the wall over my desk, placing a marker on each block in which a child died, using one symbol for death by fire, one for death by accident, and one for death by gunshot."
--"Twice as many black men in New York are under control of the criminal justice system as are enrolled full-time in all the colleges within the state."
--"It is at the secondary level--in junior high and, more dramatically, in high school--that the sense of human ruin on a vast scale becomes unmistakable. Numbers cannot convey the mood of desolation that pervades some of these secondary schools."
--"At one junior high school in the South Bronx in which money was so scarce in 1994 that girls were using pieces of TV cable as their jump ropes at the time I visited the area, only 15 teachers in a faculty of 54 were certified."
--"So long as the most vulnerable people in our population are consigned to places that the rest of us will always shun and flee and view with fear, I am afraid that educational denial, medical and economic devastation, and aesthetic degradation will be virtually inevitable...So long as there are ghetto neighborhoods and ghetto hospitals and ghetto schools, I am convinced there will be ghetto desperation, ghetto violence, and ghetto fear because a ghetto is itself an evil and unnatural construction."
--"One wants instead to know how certain people hold up under terrible ordeals, how many more do not, how human beings devalue other people's lives, how numbness and destructiveness are universalized, how human pity is at length extinguished and the shunning of the vulnerable can come in time to be perceived as natural behavior...How does a nation deal with those whom it has cursed?"
--"A handful of good, publicly funded clinics, which are perennially overcrowded, try to compensate for the abandonment of New York City's poorest children by much of its medical establishment."
--"239 of 277 swings for children in Bronx parks aren't 'in place' or 'need repair.' Trivial as it is, this disappointing detail seems to say it all."
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June 29, 2020Amazing Grace by Johnathon Kozol
For June, I read the book Amazing Grace by Johnathon Kozol. Although this book does not relate to technology, it touches on and dives deep into social determinants. The children mentioned in the book have similar life stories as some of the youths I am currently serving or have served. Due to this, I became interested in the book and it has opened my eyes to another side of the world that I may not have known.
Amazing Grace takes place in one of the poorest and racially segregated urban neighborhood of the United States, South Bronx. The living condition in South Bronx is one that has been overlooked. In recent years, the city has been relocating more homeless individuals into the area despite the lack of adequate hospitals, schools, and public services. Drugs and prostitution runs strong in the area while police protection is very limited. Rats have took over homes due to the reduction of housing inspectors and the lack of jobs have increased the rates of poverty in the neighborhood.
Access to any quality care or resources are not present, as youths in the area are stereotyped by the media as ‘bad’ kids. Johnathon Kozol does a great job describing the area to help his readers understand the hardships that exists in the area. He introduces a group of aspiring youth who are seen in society as harmful due to the stereotype put on them. He challenged these stereotypes by forming relationships with them, which enabled him to understand how poverty and racial isolation affects them. Although the youths resent the dehumanizing stereotypes of the poor, they feel powerless, afraid, and stuck. These feelings may lead some youth to a path of destruction, which will become a never-ending cycle.
Kozol’s book challenges the idea of life and death. Life can bring joy and hardship, as death can be seen as sad, yet a way to escape. When it came to death, many youth would die randomly not due to criminal activities, but because of hunger, elevator accidents from lack of inspection and in apartment fires due to poorly heated tenements. I could sense how depress Kozol was feeling because many of these youth have the potential to do so much, but are deprived of resources and opportunities. Many of the deaths could be prevented, but no one cared.
After reading this book, it made me think about if programs like CTEP were to develop in the South Bronx, how beneficial that would be for the youth there. Many youth there have aspirations to do so many things, but because they are not given resources or opportunities to carry on their aspirations, they end up living in this cycle of poverty that refrain them from being hopeful.
This book relates to the service I provide because I work with students in the urban areas, some who have faced homelessness. By teaching them about technology, I am able to give them access to the world and it always makes me proud to see how excited they are working with computers. If this kind of support is given to youths in South Bronx, I am sure it will begin to restore the area and instill a sense of power to these youths.
For June, I read the book Amazing Grace by Johnathon Kozol. Although this book does not relate to technology, it touches on and dives deep into social determinants. The children mentioned in the book have similar life stories as some of the youths I am currently serving or have served. Due to this, I became interested in the book and it has opened my eyes to another side of the world that I may not have known.
Amazing Grace takes place in one of the poorest and racially segregated urban neighborhood of the United States, South Bronx. The living condition in South Bronx is one that has been overlooked. In recent years, the city has been relocating more homeless individuals into the area despite the lack of adequate hospitals, schools, and public services. Drugs and prostitution runs strong in the area while police protection is very limited. Rats have took over homes due to the reduction of housing inspectors and the lack of jobs have increased the rates of poverty in the neighborhood.
Access to any quality care or resources are not present, as youths in the area are stereotyped by the media as ‘bad’ kids. Johnathon Kozol does a great job describing the area to help his readers understand the hardships that exists in the area. He introduces a group of aspiring youth who are seen in society as harmful due to the stereotype put on them. He challenged these stereotypes by forming relationships with them, which enabled him to understand how poverty and racial isolation affects them. Although the youths resent the dehumanizing stereotypes of the poor, they feel powerless, afraid, and stuck. These feelings may lead some youth to a path of destruction, which will become a never-ending cycle.
Kozol’s book challenges the idea of life and death. Life can bring joy and hardship, as death can be seen as sad, yet a way to escape. When it came to death, many youth would die randomly not due to criminal activities, but because of hunger, elevator accidents from lack of inspection and in apartment fires due to poorly heated tenements. I could sense how depress Kozol was feeling because many of these youth have the potential to do so much, but are deprived of resources and opportunities. Many of the deaths could be prevented, but no one cared.
After reading this book, it made me think about if programs like CTEP were to develop in the South Bronx, how beneficial that would be for the youth there. Many youth there have aspirations to do so many things, but because they are not given resources or opportunities to carry on their aspirations, they end up living in this cycle of poverty that refrain them from being hopeful.
This book relates to the service I provide because I work with students in the urban areas, some who have faced homelessness. By teaching them about technology, I am able to give them access to the world and it always makes me proud to see how excited they are working with computers. If this kind of support is given to youths in South Bronx, I am sure it will begin to restore the area and instill a sense of power to these youths.
November 15, 2017
Published in the 1990s this book focuses on the plight of Blacks, especially children, living in the poorest sections of New York City - the ghettos of the South Bronx. At that time, at the height of the Aids crisis, a huge portion of the black and Hispanic population was infected , or affected by the illness or death of someone with AIDS.
Kopzol anecdotally, and through statistics, details the horrific living conditions of the community and the apathy, even hostility, directed at them from those better off. The 1960s into the 1970s held great promise for fighting poverty and for providing all American citizens with their civil rights. Some time after that, we got tired of the complaints and the intractable problems faced by minorities and the poor.
In NYC, homeless shelters in Manhattan were emptied and the residents sent to live in places like the South Bronx, where the proportion of poor, sick and unemployed had already reached critical mass. "why", asks one interviewee "would the city send children into such a poisonous environment?".
Kozol illuminates the inequities created when the poor and sick are segregated, hidden away behind murals depicting happy homes that are painted on empty buildings, while families live in decrepit projects without water or heat. The city, recognizing that people will freeze to death distributes sleeping bags, rather than provide actual livable shelter.
I don't know how dated the material is. Certainly, the AIDs epidemic is getting a lot less press these days, and there are combinations of drugs that can be used to combat it (if the patient has adequate insurance - a big if for the very poor). But despite annual pleas for a living minimum wage, many people are still living in poverty. In the poorest neighborhoods, not even low-paying food service or service industry jobs may be available. As a society, we seem to have given up the "war on poverty", turning our collective backs on our most vulnerable citizens.
The book, calling attention to these overlooked, purposefully forgotten people, calls for action. But no specific actions are really suggested. These are after all, intractable problems. Even thropwing money at the problems offers no more than a bandaid approach, but we are in economic times that promote a political agenda of "helping the middle class", where the middle class may mean someone earning half a million dollars a year. Tax cuts planned provide yet more welfare for the very rich, while no one does more than pay the least bit of lip service to helping the very poor. The poor do not vote - and they don't fund campaigns or pay graft. we are increasingly an oligarchy, where only the top 1% of the wealthiest people really have a say in government and use that opportunity to make themselves even richer.
Kopzol anecdotally, and through statistics, details the horrific living conditions of the community and the apathy, even hostility, directed at them from those better off. The 1960s into the 1970s held great promise for fighting poverty and for providing all American citizens with their civil rights. Some time after that, we got tired of the complaints and the intractable problems faced by minorities and the poor.
In NYC, homeless shelters in Manhattan were emptied and the residents sent to live in places like the South Bronx, where the proportion of poor, sick and unemployed had already reached critical mass. "why", asks one interviewee "would the city send children into such a poisonous environment?".
Kozol illuminates the inequities created when the poor and sick are segregated, hidden away behind murals depicting happy homes that are painted on empty buildings, while families live in decrepit projects without water or heat. The city, recognizing that people will freeze to death distributes sleeping bags, rather than provide actual livable shelter.
I don't know how dated the material is. Certainly, the AIDs epidemic is getting a lot less press these days, and there are combinations of drugs that can be used to combat it (if the patient has adequate insurance - a big if for the very poor). But despite annual pleas for a living minimum wage, many people are still living in poverty. In the poorest neighborhoods, not even low-paying food service or service industry jobs may be available. As a society, we seem to have given up the "war on poverty", turning our collective backs on our most vulnerable citizens.
The book, calling attention to these overlooked, purposefully forgotten people, calls for action. But no specific actions are really suggested. These are after all, intractable problems. Even thropwing money at the problems offers no more than a bandaid approach, but we are in economic times that promote a political agenda of "helping the middle class", where the middle class may mean someone earning half a million dollars a year. Tax cuts planned provide yet more welfare for the very rich, while no one does more than pay the least bit of lip service to helping the very poor. The poor do not vote - and they don't fund campaigns or pay graft. we are increasingly an oligarchy, where only the top 1% of the wealthiest people really have a say in government and use that opportunity to make themselves even richer.
December 2, 2017
Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation, a New York Times Bestseller, was written by Jonathan Kozol and published by Harper Collins on September 27th 1996. Initially, I was not a fan of the book. I was struggling to stay interested as I read through the first chapter. There were some parts in the beginning of the book that were attention grabbers to me, but I didn’t start to get into to the book until about the second or third chapter. As I continued to read the book, I found myself getting sucked into life in the South Bronx as explained by Kozol.
I believe Kozol’s purpose in writing the book was to introduce the reader to life and death in the South Bronx. Throughout the book, Kozol covers topics ranging from overcrowded schools, to depression and anxiety, to the spread of AIDS. Through Kozol’s work, I was able to understand the stories of individuals who really had nothing at all. I was able to get an idea on what it was like to live in one of the most poorest, racially segregated, places in the United States. It was very mind blowing for me to see how toxic a place could be. I one hundred percent recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading it. Kozol has an amazing writing style, and definitely knows how to succeed in expressing his message.
I believe Kozol’s purpose in writing the book was to introduce the reader to life and death in the South Bronx. Throughout the book, Kozol covers topics ranging from overcrowded schools, to depression and anxiety, to the spread of AIDS. Through Kozol’s work, I was able to understand the stories of individuals who really had nothing at all. I was able to get an idea on what it was like to live in one of the most poorest, racially segregated, places in the United States. It was very mind blowing for me to see how toxic a place could be. I one hundred percent recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading it. Kozol has an amazing writing style, and definitely knows how to succeed in expressing his message.
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