Chapter Five of Amazing Grace
As a kid growing up in the Bronx, I have seen, heard, and felt first-handthe issues of injustice, racism, poverty, and gender inequality in my ownneighborhood. I attended segregated schools; as Kozol states, "segregation"is not a word used often in the popular press or in the common vernacular,but there is no doubt that schools in the Bronx are racially segregated. Asa boy with half African-American roots, I fit in fine with my brown andblack schoolmates. We didn't quite know what to make of the few white kidsat our school and I rarely associated with them. My neighborhood and myschool were poor, as poor as many of the places Jonathan Kozol describes inhis book Amazing Grace. Although the writer was an outsider, a whitejournalist interested in the perspectives of minority youth in one of thepoorest areas in the nation, Kozol does an excellent job of describing forhis readers the situation in the Bronx. In fact, it might take an outsiderto objectively observe and describe the disparities, disillusionment, anddespair that is very real in the lives of many people who live in the Bronxand other similar areas in the United States. Chapter Five of Amazing Gracedeals with almost every aspect of life: spir
Called a sell-out or any number of othernames, students who obtain scholarships or who show the smallest signs ofsuccess are duly ostracized from their community because of anger, envy orwhatever other emotions stir beneath the surface. However, many turn to religion and prayer, spirituality and innerstrength. Blaming the victim is one of the most common ways the media andpoliticians conspire to keep ghetto walls intact. Kozol touches upon the presence ofpreventable, environmentally-caused sicknesses like asthma, anxiety, andtooth decay in young children. Segregation isnot only by race but by class as well; it just so happens that the twoissues go hand-in-hand. The roots of school segregation run deep: atbottom are the dual biases of racism and class-ism. So-calledliberals try to foster genuine dialogue but the solutions they offer areabstract at best, puerile and insulting at worst. When he delvesinto the myth of the "breakdown of the family" on page 180, it becomesclear that family problems are but a symptom of the bigger picture andcannot be blamed for society's ills or looked at in isolation from otherproblems. Many of themAIDS victims and drug abusers, these mothers have endured every tragedyimaginable from rape to battering. Manyof them turn to drugs as the only means of assuaging the intense emotionalpain that permeates their lives. The fear of ethnicminorities and the fear of poor people fuels many parents' motives forfleeing poor neighborhoods and making their kids attend "better" schools. " These are only physical manifestation of the differencebetween the near 90% discharge rates at local Bronx high schools versusStuyvesant's boasting of producing more PhD recipients than any other highschool in the nation. Women are therefore the worst victims ofthe class and race conflicts that beset their neighborhoods. However, a deeper exploration reveals that the problem withpoverty and racism can be traced outside the ghetto walls. Kozol is reluctant to speak oftoo many inspirational stories in fear that they will provide anunrealistic portrait of life in the Bronx.
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