Jonathan Kozol, Amazing Grace

I want to start of by saying how shocking this article was to read. The sheer magnitude of these writers’ words gave the reader a very surreal image of what life was like in the South Bronx. Throughout the entire reading I could picture what Kozol was talking about. It was absolutely horrifying because most of us have no idea that some of this goes on in our country and those that do seem to want to ignore it.
There were many things that the writer paid close attention to when giving facts and statistics about this area. He talked about AIDS, homicides, drugs and health care among other things. In just the first paragraphs he mentions that "virtually every child at St. Ann's knows someone, a relative or neighbor, who has died of AIDS, and most children here know many others who are dying now of the disease". The reason most of these people have AIDS is because of inter venous drug use. The kids there even have names for it. There are murders that happen all the time in the area as well. A pregnant woman was murdered along with; a minister, parishioner, child, and a resident who was decapitated in his bathtub. This all happened around the same time and there are no words to describe how I felt when I was reading through all of this. There was even mention of a girl who was fifteen and died of a drug overdose. Another thing that also blew my mind was when the mother was talking about the medical care around the area. That some people had to clean there own room in the hospital and proceeded to wait days to be treated. The tombstones in the area had numbers on them because no one could afford to put names of their loved ones. One hospital even had a reputation for killing people so no one wanted to go there for care. There are so many other things that Kozol described that are embedded in my mind and give me an awful feeling in my stomach.
There was also a whole section when he was speaking with a child named Cliffie from the area. This was a young boy who had been brought up around all of these things and encountered everything on a day to day basis. I wonder what happens to a child psychologically when they are exposed to these things. This boy seemed extremely aware of the things around him pointing to a place and saying “they’re burning bodies there" and he was somewhat right. They burn undesirable parts of human bodies. The boy seems completely unbothered by this concept and that makes me think that he is completely used to the prospects of the area. It is interesting how the child knows who Oprah is but has no idea about George Washington. He also knows what crack containers look like and how they are used. One of the things that hit me the hardest was when Cliffie pointed out the teddy bears in the park. Kozol then says "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 a jungle gym while their mothers wait for needles".
I think it is somewhat clear why the author wrote this article. I think he wanted to address an audience that ignored the fact that this was going on in our country. He was probably focused on the wealthy people as well as the government so that something might be done. I think he wanted people to become more aware of the poor and oppressed as well as the children that have to cope with this everyday life. At the end of the article Kozol is speaking to someone whose mother is dying and still does not qualify for health care. The son says “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". We all see this happening around us but no one does anything about it. Some people simply cannot help, but drawing more attention to problems such as this may influence those who have the ability to fix it.