Kozol's Amazing Grace

When I was in tenth grade, my History teacher, a recent graduate of Boston College, asked my class if anyone was interested in doing extra credit for her class. I was one of about ten students who decided to do this. Her extra credit seemed simple, however was much deeper than I had assumed. She wanted us to read Kozol's Amazing Grace. In need of extra credit, I began reading, however was too "bored" to complete the reading. I had assumed it was extra credit because anyone who could sit through more than a page of it deserved a few extra points. Now, as a sophmore in college, my outlook is very different, especially on this piece.

1. "The city's practice, according to Newsday, is to pass out sleeping bags. You just cover up..... and hope that you wake up the next morning," says a father of four. In humid summer weather, rats emerge from holes in bedroom walls and terrorize infants in their cribs."
--Not only does this extremely harsh and unbelievable issue seem like something from a really bad nightmare, but it is also the harsh reality that large masses of people endure year in and year out. Society as a whole, is living with this and is offering limited help at sealing up houses and keeping pests under control. (pg.4)

2. "The truth is, you get used to the offense. There's trashy things allover. There's a garbage dump three blocks away. Then there's all the trucks that come through stinking up the air, heading for the Hunt's Point Market. Drivers get their drugs there, and their prostitutes."
--This is an actual comment from a local. This is sad. People have become so accustomed to their miserable and poor conditions of life, and so they no longer care about what happens to them or their neighborhood. There is no hope left that someday their neighborhood will "clean itself up" or become a better place to live. To them, there is no luck in wishing for better conditions; just deal with it and move along." (pg. 8-9)

3. "Wiping a cloth across her throat, she says, "It was 93 degrees today. The air was so sticky, you could hardly breathe. Hotter inside--- but I'm afraid to open up the windows." (pg. 18/19)
---A woman is afraid to open the windows in her own house. Is this ridiculous or what? In the extremely hot and unnerving heat of 93 degrees, a woman is afraid to open the windows of her own house because she is afraid of the outside world.

Extreme living conditions. That is probably the best way to explain the theme and main point of Kozol's Amazing Grace. Not only are the adults living in a truly unbearable society, but the kids are too. In a society where there is really no safe place, men, women and children are faced with the unimaginable. They do not choose to live this way. Many of them are third and forth generation family members who have lived like this their entire lives and will continue to do so for the many years ahead. Children of all types and sizes are stuck in this rut and cannot ever escape. They can dream but rarely will they succeed when they are trapped in this neighborhood. The extremes of rat and cockroach infestation are not surreal but rather an everyday occurance to these families. Homicide is as heavily in the air as the stench that coats the community. In a sense, our worst nightmares are someone else's reality.