Jonathan Kozol, "Amazing Grace"

QUOTES

1: " I ask how many people in the building now have AIDS. 

       'In this building? Including the children, maybe 27 people'"(13).

Kozol focuses on the amount of infected people for a few paragraphs. The number 27 leaves a bigger impact rather than Kozol just saying that "most people in the building are living with AIDS".  Additionally, a few sentences later Mrs.Washington adds that those 27 people are those who are aware they have the virus- and the number will most likely rise. This quote stood out to me because I have never meet someone who knew they had HIV or AIDS while the people of St.Anne's are living in apartment building full of sick people. 

2:  "At least 12 people, including two infants, says the Times, have died because of staff mistakes at Lincoln, which is the hospital relied upon by families in the St.Ann's Neighborhood"(15).

This quote reminded me of the discussion of oppression in last weeks class. The staff's mistakes is an institutional oppression because they are not providing the best care. Likewise, the staff of the hospital are most likely from a poor area and have gaps in education or other outside forces acting upon the quality of their work. This idea then made me ask myself why it is that hospitals can't have a universal care system... why is it so that a richer area has a better hospital/more technology and better staff? 

3:  "'That's how it is. What can I say?'" (17)
The people of the communities that Kozor observed have come to their own terms that their is no social mobility. This is their life, poverty will forever surround them and their families. What else can she say? The life she has lived is all she's known and change won't happen over night. Maybe if other people cared that 27 people were infected with AIDS in one apartment building, or maybe if they knew that children went to bed cold and afraid every night. Or that heroin is as common as a box of Cheerios. What can you really say when no one is willing to help, to care, or to listen? You just have to accept it.