Talking Point #1

Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace

1. "...the place is known as 'Children's Park.' Volunteers arrive here twice a week to give out condoms and clean needles to addicted men and women, some of whom bring their children with them. The children play near the bears or on the jungle gym while their mothers wait for needles." (Kozol 12)

Children's Park stands as a strong representation of how unbelievably traumatic the living situations are for the children of the South Bronx. This shows how the innocence of the children are completely demolished from as far back as they can remember. It is incredible that these people have reached the point of taking their children with them to get supplies to continue their, most often, fatal habits; that the children become so accustomed to watching people, even the people they look up to most, do drugs as well as many other harmful things.

2. " ...Lincoln and Bronx-Lebanon are generally considered better than another nearby institution, Harlem Hospital, which the minister of Harlem's leading church refers to as a 'cesspool' and which has also lost accreditation several times....A nurse who works there, according to one press account, carries a card in her wallet with the message 'Do Not Take Me To Harlem Hospital in an Emergency." (Kozol 15-16)

The fact that one of Harlem Hospital's own nurses refuses to be seen as a patient there proves how unsafe it must be. Nurses get to experience most things that go on inside a hospital. This particular hospital must be unbearable if she would choose no hospital at all over the option to be taken to Harlem Hospital; that they would do more harm to her than if she was not taken to a hospital at all.

3. "I believe that what the rich have done to the poor people in this city is something that a preacher could call evil. Somebody 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 quote exemplifies Johnson's idea of taking the blame and being the change. This is the exact reason why we are being faced with problems of privilege; those who have the privilege are unwilling to give it up or even acknowledge that they have it in order to help those without the privilege. It is much easier for the rich to segregate the poor and live in oblivion than to have to face the hardships that the poor are faced with on an everyday basis and accept that their privilege is what put them there.

This is one of the most powerful articles I have ever read in my life. I believe every adult in the world should read this. It truly opened my eyes about how privilege, or lack there of, can set a basis for a person's life. There is no doubt in my mind that a child born in the South Bronx is provided less opportunities than a child born in a prominently wealthy location. This, therefore, makes Americans unequal. Whether we like it or not, privilege can predetermine the hardships that a people will face in their lives. It may makes things easier or harder, but either way it definitely has some kind of impact.

This article stands out in my mind much more clearly than any other piece of writing that I have read. The reading was easy to follow and the narrative approach that Kozol used really pulled me in as the audience. The realness of the article was overwhelming. The lack of innocence in the children, the amount of illness, the lack of care, and most of all the people who continued to fight on through horrific times had a lasting impact on me. I have heard stories of people in poverty before. However, Kozol created an entire scenario of each aspect of the South Bronx. The details were intense, the stories were real, and the facts were mind boggling. Reading Johnson's piece was very fundamental and important to read when understanding the idea of privilege. This article, though, took the idea a step further and truly helped me to understand how exactly the lack of privilege affects people.