Blog#3 Jonathan Kozol’s “Amazing Grace,

The lives of children and the conscience of a nation”

(Reflection - connection)

This reading was a real call to the conscience of a nation, as it makes you ponder on the struggles of

many and the indifference of most. 

This reminded me of the “luxury of obliviousness” of white privilege and I compare this reality to the

luxury of obliviousness’ attitude that all the social economic classes above the poorest have in relation

to the circumstances of the least fortunate. 

“The poorest of the poor, poor by any standard I can think of.”

While some people might argue that immigrants should not be granted the same privileges as American

citizens, author Kozol’s idea of grace and compassion towards the poor shows us that we really need to

think about the importance of empowering the least fortunate in order to be able to break chains and

vicious cycles, for we are all human.

 

The social and economic situation of the students who were interviewed in the video “Precious

Knowledge” reminded me to Kozol’s reading “Amazing Grace”, where people are trapped at the bottom

of the pyramid with few to no opportunities to break through in order to change their situation. In the

video we can see how minority groups have to live facing obstacle after obstacle just to survive. The

struggles are many; immigration status, poverty, lack of education, exposure to crime, cultural identity,

language and other; cycles that are hard to break due to the lack of support and opportunities, but we

can see that empowering them with cultural identity, providing education, and providing them with

tangible opportunities to get out of the vicious cycle where they are trapped, can make a huge

difference. 

Education is supposed to eliminate poverty, yet even today, in some scenarios, education is just a

reflection of poverty itself. The following video portraits the reality of some public schools. 

Video: How America’s Public Schools keep kids in poverty.