Kozol "Amazing Grace"

Okay.  Does anyone else feel guilty?  I feel guilty.  I feel horrible that I was fortunate enough to not be born in the South Bronx.  Why should I be so lucky as to be born in a town like Smithfield, Rhode Island while Cliffie walks the streets of the Bronx witnessing murders and ingesting harmful toxins?  Why am I in college at age 20 simply beginning my life while Cliffie might not even make it until age 20?  These are the questions that rolled through my head as I read Kozol's Amazing Grace.

One thing is certain; and Kozol makes this argument very clear.  I am not more fortunate than Cliffie or David and Alice Washington simply because I am more rational than them.  I might not even be smarter, kinder, stronger, or more determined than them but here I am at Rhode Island College; and there they are in South Bronx fighting to survive (that is, if none of them have passed away yet- which I doubt having read about Alice's condition).  Surely, I have just astounded professors and social scientists like Lawrence Mead who apparently cannot find any other causal factor of poverty other than some sort of personality defection.  I'm going to go ahead and assume that Lawrence Mead was not born in the South Bronx.

"And if I was born in the South Bronx," says Mr. Lawrence OMG America is the amazing land of opportunity Mead, "then I would have studied hard in school, gotten myself a decent job, and rose above the destruction of the South Bronx and made a better life for myself!"

Oh, Mr. Mead, if it were only that simple...

With his stories, Kozol demonstrates how low class people are naturally disadvantaged socially, economically, and politically.  I use the term “naturally” because the situation of low class members cannot be attributed to anything that they have done.  They are not lazy, careless, or irrational- they are just unlucky and then treated unfairly by their government and society.

For example, Kozol discusses the health care situation in the South Bronx with Alice Washington.  If she or her son falls ill, they are forced to visit an unaccredited hospital that is understaffed and makes patients wait for days to be seen by a doctor.  Many people avoid going to the hospital if they are sick because they are afraid they will catch an additional illness while waiting with other patients.  Many patients who do go, wait for days, and get a room in the hospital end up having to clean up after a previous patient because the hospital is understaffed.

We can compare this situation to health care in higher income areas.  For example, Kent Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital are accredited health care facilities where the most a patient is going to wait is several hours before they are seen by a doctor.  Once they are seen, they surely do not have to clean up after the previous occupant of their assigned room.

As for the individualistic suggestion that low income people can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get ahead through school and hard work: I’m sure it is incredibly difficult to focus and rise above your situation when you are concerned about your health.

This is all demonstrative of Kozol’s argument about low income groups being disadvantaged despite their actions.  If an unaccredited hospital was the only health care available to a middle class community, the community members would find a way for that to change and their voice would be heard.  The people of the South Bronx do not have any voice and have to live the way they do- due to bad luck and disadvantage- but not due to their ability or inability to think rationally.