Jonathan Kozol argues that the conditions of the individuals he reports on is detremental to the community and the lives of children. The author paints the picture of a little seven year old boy named Cliffie who has a child like wonder to him although he has seen the detrimental effects of an area stricken by poverty, drug use, disease and prostitution. The same area was seen through the eyes of Alice Washington, an older woman, who experienced a segregated and low poverty life. Eventually she arrived where she resides in the South Bronx where you may have to wait 3 days in a hospital waiting room. The author's main point circles around the unfair determination in which SSI is provided to people and how they declare if you are "sick enough" to receive benefits. Ms. Washington had cancer and three surgeries resulted from it; she tested positive for HIV and became sick enough to not hold down food or even eat at all. SSI did not deem her sick enough to receive help. Kozol meets with Lawrence Mean, a professor of political science at New York University who says "if poor people behaved rationally they would seldom be poor for long in the first place." But the story depicted by the author in regards to Ms. Washington does not describe her as irrational, it describes her as a destitute mother and woman who has not had the benefit of a blessed life through no fault of her own but the failure of the system of government that doesn't provide to people who need it. Cliffie's story is seen through the eyes of a child who has matured beyond his seven years of age by the destruction he has witnessed around him. He smiles at a tree named for lives lost and takes the author to a waste incinerator where he reports the limbs and body parts of other departed people who are burned away. The smell of the incinerator matches the words the boy relays. The sadness of the maturity and happiness of the boy in such a hard situation is apparent and relates to another argument the author states as a main concern for many people in the community- Why are so many children bearing witness to this horrible condition of existence?
The healthcare of the community is minimal to none- with three options to hospitals in the surrounding area one of them is so bad that a nurse at Harlem carries a card in her wallet asking not to be taken to Harlem in a state of emergency. With these conditions in any community there is no growth or room for improvement. The more it is ignored the more we see the next generation graduating to the same dreary fate. Some hold onto hope like Cliffie who is not too young to be victim but lucky enough to have avoided a personal experience but will likely loose his hopeful demeanor with his own demise one day.
That video was creative and powerful. Thank you for sharing it. I hope we can see it in class and let it spark some of our discussion.
ReplyDeleteIt was difficult to read the part about Lawrence Mean. It seems so heartless to be able to believe that these people are in the situations that they are for being irrational. These people are driven by the horrors of society to end up in the places that they do.
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