Amazing Grace
Within the next few pages here I intend to address two issues. First I will try togive a personal review of what I saw this book to hold, and second I will try explain therevelence which this book has to the field of Public Administration. First try to picturechildren in a slum where the squalor in their homes is just as bad as that which is in thestreets. Where prostitution is rampant, thievery a common place and murder and death adaily occurrence. Crack-cocaine and heroin are sold in corner markets, and the dead eyesof men and women wandering about aimlessly in the streets of Mott Haven are all tocommon., Their bodies riddled with disease, disease which seems to control theneighborhood. This is Mott Haven, in New York City's South Bronx, the outback of thisAmerican nation's poorest congressional district, also the setting of Jonathan Kozol'sdisturbing representation of poverty in this country. The stories, which are capturedAmazing Grace, are told in the simplest terms. They are told by children who have seentheir parents die of AIDS and other disease, by mothers who complain about teenagersbagging dope and loading guns on fire escapes, by clergy who teach the poor to fight
He also tell us thatPediatric AIDS, life-consuming fires and gang rivalries take just as high a toll on thissociety of Mott Haven. In his book, Kozol tells the stories of a handful ofchildren who have--through the love and support of their families and dedicatedcommunity leaders not yet lost their battle with the perils of life in America's mosthopeless, helpless, and dangerous neighborhoods. What seems to bother Kozol is thatmany people do not even want to look at this picture of America, but in Amazing Gracehe dares us to recognize it does exist. e who are afraid to answer 911 calls. If on the other hand anything can, it may be Kozol'sforecasting visions and the openness and humanity of the remarkable people whose"amazing grace" he so vividly shows us. Kozol spent a year wandering through Mott Haven and its neighboringcommunities; visiting churches, schools, hospitals, parks, and homes. Regardless you would still have to feelbadly for the people in the book, especially the children. Even though rats may chew through apartment walls in the homes of MottHaven, the children still say their prayers at night. Perhaps nothing can halt the tides of social policy where citizens of this nation areallowed to live in such conditions. I can see hoe it might be possibleto see this book as manipulating and only telling on part of the story. It could be arguedthat this book unfairly blames the government, society and particularly New York MayorGuilliani for the problems in the Bronx. As I read this book I thought about all of the creative and brilliant ideas that Ihave been expose to over the years and how I would not have the chance to benefit fromthem if I were a poor child, not given the chance to properly learn and grow, like thoseof Kozol's book in Mott Haven. Kozol seems to be disparageabout the situation of the poor in American today, especially when more and more thepoor are blamed for being poor. I believe thatKozol says at one point something like, one fourth of the child-bearing women in theneighborhoods, where these children live, test positive for HIV. Amazing Grace reveals thehearts of children who grow up in the SouthBronx--and has produced, perhaps, the mostaffecting book in trying to portray the problems faced by poor Americans.
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Acceptance Essays
