Amazing Grace
The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation Currently there are about 600,000 people who live in the South Bronx and about 434,000 who live in Washington Heights and Harlem. This area makes up one of the most racially segregated areas of poor people in the United States. In this book we focus on Mott Haven, a place where 48,0000 of the poorest people in the South Bronx live. Two thirds of the people are Hispanic, one-third are black and thirty-five percent are children. There are nearly four thousand heroin users, and one-fourth of the women who are tested are positive for HIV. All of this and more in one little area of the South Bronx. In the middle of all this chaos and confusion are children. Children who have daily drills on what to do if gunshots are heard, children who know someone who has died of AIDS, children who have seen someone been shot right in front of their face wondering if its their father, children who long to be sanitation workers, and children who die everyday. The lives of these children almost seem lost with depression, drugs, and death all around them. As we see, there are little sparks of light in most
What are the suppose to think about the United States itself. This just seems to strengthen the stereotype that all blacks are drug users and lazy. A government owned ghetto that people are just thrown into when the don't fit into normal society. The depiction of these people he showed truly should make NY think of what they are exactly doing to this community and these children. If the people of NY see them as less of a person, then its easier to overlook them. Its like segregation isn't even present in the state of NY because it is not talked about. Many of these children go into Manhattan around Christmas and see NY how it should be, then they return home and nothing has changed. People shouldn't have to feel like a monster that no one wants to see or speak of. Access to resources makes it harder for minorities to get ahead. Even though the child said it with a shrug, the thought was still there. No one should be forced to the bottom of society and deemed so inferior that they shouldn't even be helped. The people of Mott Haven just want help,they want normal lives just like everyone else. Discrimination and prejudice are so prevalent, you would think that the state of New York would want to do something. Mott Haven seems like a place that no one could even imagine existing. The action here is that these people are being ignored.
Common topics in this essay:
Mott Haven,
Spike Lee,
South Bronx,
Deadly Persuasions,
Mott Havens,
Bronx Harlem,
Avenue Originally,
Heights Harlem,
mott haven,
Christmas NY,
Children's Park,
south bronx,
cultural bias form,
deemed inferior,
sparks light,
people mott,
children die,
racially segregated,
form prejudice,
people mott haven,
cultural bias,
lives children,
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