Jonathan Kozol-Amazing Grace

“but she assures me that it's better than the other major hospital that serves the area, a city run institution known as Lincoln Hospital, which has been denied accreditation more than once over the years because of the failure of the staff to monitor patients after surgery and to enter critical data in their records. 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.”

This amazes me how this can happen in the USA. How can any hospital in this country have these sort of things occur? It’s not even like the hospital is in the backwoods of West Virginia or something either. The hospital is in the middle of New York City! Even the supposed “mega liberal” New York City cannot provide for these people. Just the thought of a hospital being referred to as a “cesspool” is an abysmal shock. This should be a wakeup call to the country that something really needs to be done with our healthcare system. Of course, it always more convenient for those with the power to change the situation to ignore the poor rather than doing something about it. That’s too much work. What other industrialized nation does this so blatantly?

"The point is that they put a lot of things into our neighborhood that no one wants," she says. "The waste incinerator is just one more lovely way of showing their affection.”

Another lovely abuse of the poor. Let’s put a waste incinerator into their neighborhood! They won’t notice! Besides they’re not really people anyways. They don’t have money to line our pockets with.

It’s sad that these people have very little power just because they don’t have money or influence. You would think that people would have the decency to have these plants in areas with a low population density. Although I’m not sure of New York City’s geography, if it’s depiction in comic books is any indication, there are abandoned islands throughout the harbor. These would be much more likely candidates for a location for these plants. Even if there weren’t abandoned locations, would it not make more sense to move these plants out of the city? I mean as much as an environmentalist I am, I think we need to take care of people first.

“A person who works in a real job at a place like Chemical Bank, she tells me, is a rare exception in the neighborhood. "Almost no one here has jobs like that. Some are too sick. They live on SSI"-a federal program for sick and disabled people. Maybe five or six in 25, she says, have some legitimate employment. "Another five or ten are selling drugs or doing prostitution.”

That is a startling number. It makes me wonder why that is that so many people are qualified for SSI. Surely the rates of crippling injuries aren’t that much higher in this community? I also wonder what the effect this has on the children in the area. They might see SSI as the only way of gaining income and that would definitely have a negative effect on them. Same with seeing so many people unemployed or selling drugs or engaging in prostitution.

One point I’d like to bring up is the rampant drug use that seems to be present in the neighborhood described. I’m wondering why if people see all the problems associated with its use and the cost of such behaviors why it would keep going. I mean, just because you aren’t from the privileged class doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have common sense. I’d think it’d be apparent to see the connections.