Amazing Grace Social Work Essay Example

Amazing Grace Social Work Essay Example Amazing Grace Social Work Essay Amazing Grace Social Work Essay Amazing Grace In the documentary-style book Amazing Grace, Jonathan Kozol writes about the realities of living in Mott Haven, one of the South Bronx poorest neighborhoods. His goal is to inform readers of the realities of children living in a slum and the unfairness of it all. The population of 600,000 live in the South Bronx of New York City and 43,000 make up Washington Heights and Harlem which is separated by a narrow river, make up one of the most racially segregated concentrations of poor people in our Nation. The question why should their childhood be different from thers across the country? often arose and should be examined by all. The facts in Amazing Grace written in 1995 startled me. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people living in broken, crowded, and rundown apartment buildings, That, says Kozol, most people would not even kennel their dogs in. The first fact that Jumped out at me was in 1991 the median income for the area was $7,600 for a family of three or four. The neighborhood is full of rat infested buildings where faulty electrical wiring, bad elevator doors, and broken staircases are a norm. The bsurdity of it all is that if we were to kennel our pets in conditions like that , we would have all kinds of rights activists protesting for being inhumane, yet we house people there to little fan fair or protests. The local hospitals are not much better. Kozol writes of several instances where the elderly have to wait in the halls to be seen. Another health statistic that causes me great alarm is with the percentage of people that have asthma. Individuals suffering from severe cases asthma have reached epidemic proportions. Hospital Admissions have reached six or more for ne thousand people in the South Bronx neighborhood and only 1. 8 per thousand for the rest in statewide New York. In the six chapters and epilogue of Amazing Grace we come to know and care about chaos and ruin. One of the most shocking contradictions is that the neighborhood of Mott Haven is adjacent to the richest congressional district in the nation. Using their own words, Kozol follows people like David Washington, who cares for his AIDS carrying mother and numerous of other Mott Haven Residence whose stories of drug addiction, prostitution, poverty, AIDS, Drug addicted born babys that need to be etoxed before they leave the hospital, one case of a man that was born in prison and now finds out that he will die in prison. While reading this book I kept thinking back to the Jim Crow Laws of the south with racial segregation. One teacher stated that she has taught at a local Mott Haven school for 20 years and has never taught a Caucasian student. Kozol points out that there is such disproportionate spending between the schools of the South Bronx which are mainly Hispanic or African American to an adjacent congressional district that is the most influential in the Nation and are mainly Caucasian.

The Adventure of Tom Sawyer Quotes

'The Adventure of Tom Sawyer' Quotes The Adventure of Tom Sawyer is a novel by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens). The book is a Bildungsroman, following the development of a young boy, as he experiences one adventure after another. Mark Twains work is told in the third person, looking back with a sense of nostalgia. Here are a few quotes from The Adventure of Tom Sawyer. I aint doing my duty by that boy, and thats the Lords truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. Im a-laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. Hes full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! hes my own dead sisters boy, poor thing, and I aint got the heart to lash him, somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks.- Mark Twain, The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 1He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well thoughand loathed him.- Mark Twain,  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Ch 1Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.- Mark Twain,  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Ch 2He had discovered a great law of human action , without knowing it - namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.- Mark Twain,  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Ch 2 Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.- Mark Twain,  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Ch 2Tom was a glittering hero once more-the pet of the old, the envy of the young. His name even went into immortal print, for the village paper magnified him. There were some that believed he would be President, yet, if he escaped hanging.- Mark Twain, The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 2Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.- Mark Twain,  The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 5The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through an argument that was so prosy that many a head by and by began to nod - and yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone and thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be hardly worth the saving.- Mark Twain,  The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 5Huckleberry was cordially hated and dreaded by all the m others of the town because he was idle, and lawless, and vulgar, and bad - and because all their children admired him so, and delighted in his forbidden society, and wished they dared to be like him.- Mark Twain,  The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 6   You only just tell a boy you wont ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and thats all. Anybody can do it.- Mark Twain,  The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 7The elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time.- Mark Twain,  The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 8They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President of the United States forever.- Mark Twain,  The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 8Five years ago you drove me away from your fathers kitchen one night, when I come to ask for something to eat, and you said I warnt there for any good; and when I swore Id get even with you if it took a hundred years, your father had me jailed for a vagrant. Did you think Id forget? The Injun blood aint in me for nothing. And now Ive got you, and you got to settle, you know!- Mark Twain,  The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 9Oh, they just have a bully time - take ships, and burn them, and get the money and bury it in awful places in their island where theres ghosts and things to watch, it, and kill everybody in the ships - make em walk a plank. they dont kill the women - theyre too noble. And the womens always beautiful, too.- Mark Twain,  The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 13 There was no getting around the stubborn fact that taking sweetmeats was only hooking, while taking bacon and hams and such valuables was plain simple stealing - and there was a command against that in the Bible. So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing.- Mark Twain,  The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 13Here was a gorgeous triumph; they were missed; they were mourned; hearts were breaking on their account; tears were being shed; accusing memories of unkindnesses to these poor lost lads were rising up, and unavailing regrets and remorse were being indulged: and best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole town, and the envy of all the boys, as far as this dazzling notoriety was concerned. This was fine. It was worth being a pirate, after all.- Mark Twain,  The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 14As the service proceeded, the clergyman drew such pictures of the graces, the winning ways, and the rare promise of the lost lads, that every soul there, thinking he recognized these pictures, felt a pang in remembering that he had persistently blinded himself to them always before, and had as persistently seen only faults and flaws in the poor boys.- Mark Twain,  The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 17 What a hero Tom was become now! He did not go skipping and prancing, but moved with a dignified swagger, as became a pirate who felt that the public eye was on him. And indeed it was; he tried not to seem to see the looks or hear the remarks as he passed along, but they were food and drink to him.- Mark Twain,  The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 18I could forgive the boy, now, if hed committed a million sins!- Mark Twain,  The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 19Huck Finns wealth and the fact that he was now under the Widow Douglass protection introduced him into society-no, dragged him into it, hurled him into it-and his sufferings were almost more than he could bear. The widows servants kept him clean and neat, combed and brushed... He had to eat with knife and fork; he had to use napkin, cup, and plate; he had to learn his book, he had to go to church; he had to talk so properly that speech was become insipid in his mouth; whithersoever he turned, the bars and shackles of civilization shut him in and bound him hand and foot.- Mark Twain, The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Ch 35 Study Guide The Adventure of Tom Sawyer Review