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Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace presents powerful and personal accounts of the struggle of the poor in the United States and how a society could be allowed or "let loose" to become ravaged by disease, violence, poverty, and ineffective planning by government control and greediness by large business and wealthy individuals who essentially own some of the responsibility to fix it. This work by Kozol covers the South Bronx which is considered one of the poorest and racially segregated cities in the United States.
This website listed above clearly reflected what Kozol was trying to convey by describing the South Bronx. Allowing such a disastrous situation happen can lead to many profound effects not only in its own area, but can spread to other major cities and eventually globally. One major part of this website that clearly depicts Kozol's accounts is the poverty cycle in which one problem hardly lies alone. Bad sanitation like in the neighborhoods of the south Bronx lead to the spread of new and old diseases and viruses like HIV in his accounts. These poor conditions are made even worse with malnutrition and lack of water to stay healthy in order to fight diseases, and inadequately supplied hospital facilities to help treat the sick and injured also brought to light in Kozol's account of Ms. Washington. Unemployment as detailed also in Kozol's writing in which it was said by another woman maybe five or six out of twenty-five had legitimate (stable) employment. Unemployment based on the article above attributes to property burglaries. Consequences associated with poverty are alcohol and substance abuse, injury related to unsafe labor in which young impoverished children are forced into, and diseases related to poor water and food supply and living conditions. All of these aspects were covered by Kozol in which children live in infested households with rats, roaches, no heat, and negative environmental hazards such as the dump and incinerator. The connection between Kozol's accounts and this website are that the poverty cycle is something that has to be broken or controlled by those in power. Children are born as impoverished and they are leading the unsuccessful lives their parents lead because they also did not have much. Allowing poverty to occur and reoccur and relocating homeless people to a society that's already diminished does not provide an opportunity for growth.
We understand today that the wealthy (upper) class is safe while the poverty (lower) class is not. Poverty stricken people have many fears most often being violence, shelter, illness, and education. Throughout the world poverty stricken people are taken advantage of, more so in third world countries where the justice systems are broke and their is no control of civilizations. As discussed in Kozol's writing the end of poverty such as in the South Bronx requires more than change by the government, but by the people. This was clearly stated in Kozol's article by Lawrence Mead of New York university saying "if poor people behaved rationally" "they would seldom be poor for long in the first place." This is a direct connection to this Huffington post article because the direct cause of poverty is directly caused by violence. Taking actions against violence such as enforcing laws will allow opportunities to open up such as education, and jobs for those affected.
Connection: This writing by Kozol directly relates to Kristof's Land of Limitations because it shows the correlation with adults and children in which ones future is largely determined by your past generations such as parents and grandparents. Ones struggle is clearly depicted as another's struggle in these specific situations.
Point to Share/Discuss: Kozol represents his writing of poverty through his descriptions of different individuals who provide meaning and voice behind the stereotypes that are given to them, but that was mostly attributed to their upbringing.
Great hyperlinks blog. I thought the sites you picked perfectly reflected similarities within Kozol's article. Your descriptions of the articles and Kozols dealing with poverty, unemployment, and living conditions reflected the main points and the many factors in which families deal with. Your writing described the many issues as well as the solutions that could be taken to ensure a better community such as different opportunities and laws being enforced. The connection you made to Kristof was good because it shows the relation of how growing up into poverty often determines what happens later in life.
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