The Role Of African Americans In The

Civil War Essay, Research Paper

Jonathan Kozol & # 8217 ; s Amazing Grace is a book about the tests

and trials of mundane life for a

group of kids who live in the poorest congressional

territory of the United States, the South Bronx. Their lives

may look extraordinary to us, but to them, they are merely as

normal as everyone else. What is normal? For the kids

of the South Bronx, populating with the pollution, the illness, the

drugs, and the force is the lone manner of life many of them

hold of all time known.

In this book, the kids speak openly and candidly about

experiencing & # 8216 ; abandoned & # 8217 ; , & # 8216 ; hidden & # 8217 ; or & # 8216 ; forgotten & # 8217 ; by our state, one

that is blind to their jobs. Analyzing the people

themselves would merely acquire us so far in understanding what

their community is truly similar and why they feel this manner.

Jonathan Kozol truly got to cognize the people separately.

We can take his cognition and narratives to seek for a better

apprehension of the environment in which they live. By

making this, we can research the many grounds why the people

hold jobs, what some degrees of intercession could be,

and perchance happen some

solutions to doing the South Bronx a healthier and safer

topographic point for these kids and others to populate.

Problem Designation

The environment in which we study these people can merely

be defined by first taking a expression at possible grounds why the

people have jobs. Some of the jobs discussed in

Amazing Grace have festered throughout the United States

for some clip now. The high Numberss of drug users in the

community, the high sums of gang-related force, and

the legion instances of people who have contracted the

AIDS virus are merely some of the jobs that have arisen in

this ghetto. There are many differences between this

community and others in the United States, one of which is

that the authorities has grouped these people all together

and made a ghetto of the lowest income households. This has

ostracized them from the remainder of the state. It has given

them many abandonment issues to cover with, while besides

stating them they are non worthy of life among the wealthier

population.

Environmental factors are involved in the jobs originating in

the South Bronx. Pollution, for

illustration, could be the biggest beginning of the high figure of

kids in the community who have asthma.

Asthma is a status in which 1 has problem external respiration.

Without clean air, take a breathing for an asthmatic is about

impossible. A waste burner in the center of the South

Bronx causes a batch of pollution and makes the air the people

breath, below safe degrees of cleanliness. Another

environmental factor that affects the occupant & # 8217 ; s wellnesss has to

make with how most of the edifices in these vicinities

are run down and infested with rats. Many of the edifices

have no on the job lifts. This causes people to hold to

walk several flights of stepss each clip they want to go forth

their flats. This is really clip consuming and tiresome.

Then, when they find that there is so much force and

drugs in the street, that it is non safe to be out at that place anyhow,

they normally end up remaining in their flats for most of

their free clip.

The cultural differences between these people and others of

higher income communities is besides a

ground why they may hold jobs. Racism is really

obvious to the people of the South Bronx, particularly

when they go outside of their territory. If a adult female from this

country goes to a infirmary outside of her

territory, a infirmary that is more than probably wealthier and

cleansing agent, she is normally turned away and told to travel to a

infirmary in her ain territory. Others, who are admitted into

these infirmaries, are put on a particular floor, chiefly for the

lower income or Medicaid patients. ( Amazing Grace, P.

176 )

Another manner the authorities discriminates against them is

how they are housed. Most of the

occupants are populating in authorities lodging where the

authorities pays their rent. When the authorities

helped the people to acquire off the streets and out of homeless

shelters and so set them into low cost

lodging, they put all of the occupants in the same country. This

created their ghetto and kept them

segregated from the remainder of the universe.

Degree of Intervention

If we look at these people through an exosystem, or & # 8220 ; a

scene in which a individual does non take part but in which

important determinations are made impacting the individual or others

who interact straight with the individual, & # 8221 ; we would inquire the

inquiries & # 8220 ; are determinations made with the involvements of the

individual and the household in head? & # 8221 ; ( Social Work and Social

Welfare, p.79 ) Did the authorities truly believe of the

people of the South Bronx when they grouped all of the

sick, troublesome, and low income households

together in the same community? What sort of chance

construction can people hold when the authorities puts them

into ne’er stoping state of affairss such as giving them merely plenty

money to acquire by, but non plenty to acquire out of poorness?

Some people say that it is non the authorities & # 8217 ; s duty

to acquire people out of poorness, but so whose mistake is it that

they got at that place in the first topographic point? No 1 asks to be hapless, no

one asks to be stateless. Cultural differences are an alibi

some usage for

handling people of different backgrounds

otherwise. But can the authorities besides take part in this

obvious signifier of racism? Our state has tried for many

many old ages now to halt racism and biass, but the

job is still prevailing in communities all over the universe.

We could besides look at the people and their jobs utilizing

a macrosystem, or the & # 8220 ; & # 8216 ; designs & # 8217 ; for

specifying and forming the institutional life of the society, & # 8221 ;

( Social Work and Social Welfare, p.79 ) to

make up one’s mind if some groups are valued at the disbursal of others

and make these groups experience subjugation? As

we have seen, the people of the South Bronx feel

abandoned, this is a type of subjugation. They are

pushed off from the remainder of society, where the lone topographic point

they can turn is to this community that is

filled with offense, force, disease, and poorness. The

occupants have shared premises about what the

authorities wants and expects from them. The

authorities & # 8217 ; s attitude towards these people is such that the

occupants feel devalued and non worthy of being seen or

heard. Without much hope of fiscal stableness, many have

turned to selling and/or utilizing drugs. Selling drugs is seen as

an easy manner of doing some money, and utilizing drugs supports

a individual on a high so they do non hold to confront world. This

merely continues the rhythm of jobs they face since selling

drugs to others supports those others high, and remaining on a

drug induced high merely prolongs the jobs.

Discussion and Recommendations

Because of all the tests and trials they go through, you

would believe that everyone in this

community would lose hope. This is non true for many of the

kids that Jonathan Kozol talked to and

became friends with on his many journeys into their

vicinity. The kids speak of their jobs

with great adulthood. Many of these kids are far older

than their old ages on Earth, for they have felt

true forsaking by our state. Many of the issues they

hold had to cover with are non 1s which we

think of as kids & # 8217 ; s issues. AIDS, for illustration, is non

something that many think of as an issue that

kids talk about or even think about. For the kids of

the South Bronx though, it is a major

issue. With & # 8220 ; one-quarter of the child-bearing adult females in the

vicinities where these kids live

proving positive for HIV, & # 8221 ; ( Amazing Grace, indoors screen )

paediatric AIDS takes a high toll. The Numberss

of kids who have had one or both parents dice of AIDS

in the South Bronx and environing countries is the highest

among the state. If the authorities keeps directing the low

income and troublesome households into these vicinities,

& # 8220 ; it is likely that full blocks will shortly be place to mourning

orphans, many of whom will follow their ain parents to an

early grave. & # 8221 ; ( Amazing Grace,

p. 194 )

The authorities & # 8217 ; s arrangement of a waste burner in the South

Bronx is another premier illustration and a

ground why the kids feel like they are being & # 8220 ; thrown

away. & # 8221 ; Many occupants believe that the waste burner is to

incrimination for their wellness jobs. Many kids in the

community are merely able to take a breath

with the usage of a external respiration machine because their asthma has

gotten so bad. ( Amazing Grace, p. 170 ) Why

so would the metropolis decide to set one there? Did the metropolis

hold the occupants in head when they built the

waste burner in this community? The occupants do non hold

much of a say in metropolis, province or governmental

issues. Positions in authorities are held by wealthier and

more powerful people who more so probably have no first

manus cognition of life in a low income ghetto. How can we

alteration this?

To alter a whole community involves much more so

direct pattern with persons. Reding

people on an single footing gives single responses.

The jobs of the South Bronx are non with the persons

themselves, but instead community organisational jobs.

Changing the societal policy of the community is of utter

importance in doing it a better topographic point to populate. The norms for

the people in

these vicinities have gotten to be that of force and

drugs. These are non healthy norms. To

alter them, the communities could utilize more instruction on

societal issues in the schools and communities to

assist the people learn to populate healthier life styles, to acquire the

word out that force and disruptance are

non all right, and to assist the people obtain some community

integrity. Geting some of the well known

community members involved in political relations is another manner they

could acquire their voices heard and allow the

authorities know their demands and desires. Support groups

held for people with AIDS, for people who have lost loved

1s, and besides for people who merely need a topographic point to speak

about

their emotions and acquire their defeats out, would assist the

community as a whole and acquire more people

involved in the healing procedure of that community. If the

people in the South Bronx would move as a

community edge together to assist themselves and each

other, there would be less tolerance for pervert

behaviour among it & # 8217 ; s members. Then the 1s who act

rebelliously could be out-numbered, and the good

citizens of the South Bronx could repossess their places and

their lives.