"Amazing Grace" by Jonathan Kozol

Kozol wrote this book for the purpose of telling the stories he encountered by the children who lived in the run down neighborhoods of New York City. His goal was to inform the reader that the slums do exist and the children who live there did not deserve to be there. The question "why should their childhood by different from others across the country?" needs to be reviewed by by everyone....

Passage of interest:

• A person who works in a real job at a place like Chemical Bank, she tells me, is a rare exception in the neighborhood. "Almost no one here has jobs like that. Some are too sick. They live on SSI."

I cannot believe we call America the "Land of Opportunity"...it seems like the opposite in these ghettos. There seems to be very little opportunity for the people living there. No chance for employment outside the ghetto, or being accepted outside it. It is very unfortunate for these people, this was there home, a place that you are not supposed to leave, and when they did they were looked at by others with disgust. I knew that such places existed but really had no clue on how they functioned or what the living conditions where actually like. It sickens me to think that children are being brought up in such conditions.....

• Alice Washington lives on a street called Boston Road, close to East Tremont Avenue, about two miles to the north of St. Ann's Church. Visibly fragile as a consequence of having AIDS and highly susceptible to chest infections, she lives with her son, who is a high school senior, in a first-floor apartment with three steel locks on the door.

I am truly amazed by people like Alice who live day to day in awful conditions....but yet press on for the sake of her son, hoping that one day everything will be alright and she will find her happiness. As a parent of a high school senior, I can see where Alice wants to raise him "right" and teach him to live morally within a place that is surrounded by terrible things. It is not easy for her to open up to Kozol...she tells him everything about the ghetto and what day to day life is all about for her and her son. I see Alice as a role model for those who live in the ghetto...she is a fighter, sacrificing her well being for the sake of others....determination.

• In 1991, 84 people, more than half of whom were 21 or younger, were murdered in the precinct. A year later, ten people were shot dead on a street called Beckman Avenue, where many of the children I have come to know reside. On Valentine's Day of 1993, three more children and three adults were shot dead on the living room floor of an apartment six blocks from the run down park that serves the area.

The extremely high rates of children's deaths in this ghetto is disgusting....so many young children getting killed, whether it was accidental, a shooting that went wrong, or because of the unhealthy conditions they were living in and the crappy treatments that were available in the area's hospitals. As a parent or better yet...as a human being this is totally DISGUSTING....I cannot imagine myself, my children or anyone living in such horrible conditions....

Questions/Comments/Points To Share:

After reading this, I actually wanted to cry....this is unacceptable in today's society....how can we as human beings let this happen??? This should not be allowed to continue, the people living in these ghettos should not be segregated or discriminated against; they should be treated just like everyone else. How can one help?? Send a check to charity?? No matter what it is that we can do, the truth is that it exists.....and I truly believe as moral people we need to decide how we can help.