Patrick Wygant
Jonathan Kozol Amazing Grace

1. “‘Five of those seven,’ says the principal, ‘get reduced-price lunches, because they are classified as only ‘poor,’ not ‘destitute.’” (Kozol 3) This quote creates a snapshot of the unbelievable poverty that the people of the South Bronx are living in. Jonathan Kozol is writing this piece in order to inform people about the absolute poverty that people are living in, and this quote offers a quick, and concise example of how poor life is in this area of New York.

2. “‘You just cover up… and hope you wake up the next morning,’ says a father of four children, one of them an infant one month old, as they prepare to climb into their sleeping bags in hats and coats on a December night.” (Kozol 4) After reading this, I wondered why someone would bring a child into a place of such absolute poverty, let alone four. I know that if I were to bring a child into the world, I would only want to do it if the conditions were right, not if I were going to go to sleep in a sleeping bag wearing hats and coats, just hoping to wake up in the morning.

3. “‘The point is that they put a lot of things into our neighborhood that no one wants.’” (Kozol 10) This is an example of white privilege, as described by Alan Johnson. The wealthy section of New York, populated by white people, decided that they wanted to put the incinerator into the poor section of New York, largely populated by black people.


I found this reading to be very powerful. I was amazed at the living conditions of people in these neighborhoods. I was especially shocked to learn that many police officers just let a lot of the people do drugs in the parks without bothering them, contributing to the wickedness of this area. The mere fact that young children are exposed to these environments is appalling. I only question if there have been any steps taken since the publishing of this book in order to better that section of New York. I was able to make connections with Alan Johnson’s piece, and with the Lisa Delpit reading. All of the white people who live in New York, and have more money, do not want their children exposed to things like the incinerators, so they have them built in the black neighborhoods. Lisa Delpit writes about a culture of power. The South Bronx is an example of the culture of power. The white people live in nicer neighborhoods like Manhattan, white the black people, who may not be assimilated into the culture of power live in rundown neighborhoods like the South Bronx. Then when the black people who do operate within the culture of power start to make money, and become successful, they leave the Bronx, and move into nicer neighborhoods. There is no-one within the culture of power that will stay in places like the South Bronx in order to improve it.