Sunday, September 14, 2014

JONATHAN KOZOL AMAZING GRACE

(QUOTES) Amazing grace is an extremely in depth view on how almost fifty thousand people in Mott Haven, South Bronx struggle with poverty, disease and just an all around suffering area.  I feel that Kozol paints a really clear picture right off the bat on just how bad every day life is in Mott Haven. On page three Kozol states that "only seven of the 800 children do not qualify for free lunches. Five of those seven, says the principle, get reduced-price lunches because they are classified as only poor not destitute."  In my view that pretty much states that one hundred percent of the children do have free lunch because their families can't afford to pay for them. The magnitude of that number is just astronomical. Another piece of this story that caught my attention was when Kozol says on page four "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." As I stated in the beginning, Kozol really paints a clear picture on just how bad Mott Haven is. People living with just sleeping bags, sounds to me like an a apocalypse. Throughout the course of amazing grace there seems to be one constant and that is religion. Kozol is able to shadow a young boy named Cliffie. Cliffie comes from a poor family that struggles day in and day out. During the time Kozol is following Cliffie around town, they stop at a pizza place to pick up three pieces of pizza. One for Cliffie, one for his mother and one for his father. On page eight  Cliffie explains a story to Kozol about a previous pizza experience " How did you know that he was hungry if he couldn't talk" Kozol asking Cliffie about a homeless man. " He pointed to my pizza. What did you do? I gave him some! Were your parents mad at you? He (Cliffie) looks surprised by this. Why would they be mad? he asks. God told us, Share!" This might be one of the strongest parts of the dialogue between Kozol and Cliffie. I feel by Kozol explaining this story to the reader he is showing us that no matter how bad someone has it in life, they can still be good. Religion can be that barrier that divides the poor from the wealthy. If we really think about it, if someone is poor can we judge their character just based on that? Can we say to ourselves "Oh those people are poor they're just for themselves." I think this is something everyone must think about.
St.Anns in Mott Haven

4 comments:

  1. I agree with you that Kozel paints a clear picture of what Mott Haven is really like. For me while reading this I could picture in my head these children, the hospital, the dead bodies, their households, & the church what it really looked like. I believe if someone is poor we can not really judge their character off of that because we do not know the story behind why they are poor!

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  2. I agree with what you say about Kozel painting a clear picture of what it's like to be a kid growing up in these neighborhoods. Over all your reflection really hits the key points in this article. The quote you chose about the kids who qualified for free or reduced lunch made me question what we are going to see when we start volunteering at those schools in providence where it's at least 50% of that.

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  3. I really enjoyed reading your article. I found it interesting how you mentioned Cliffie's generosity when he offered the homeless man his pizza and then addressed that we can not judge a person's character based on their social status or how much money they have. Sometimes the people with the least are willing to give the most.

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  4. Kozol definitely does paint a clear picture from the start! The school lunch statistic really caught my eye too. It's so eye opening to see there are school systems where almost every single student has close to nothing. I really like how you ended you response, it definitely gets you thinking!

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