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.