Reflection: Amazing Grace

            Sometime ago in the South Bronx, a robbery was made. The residents of the apartment called the police and reported the theft of a tv and a radio. After three hours, two policemen finally arrived with anxiety and dread blatantly displayed on their face. When the grandmother asked, the two officers replied that when the call was made, everyone at the station was afraid to go for they knew the location. Even though no one said it, the grandma knew the police thought the place as a death camp.

            When people think of police, they think of the brave officer who will sacrifice his own life to protect his community. If this event took place in Canton, Toledo, or anywhere else, people would be upset and would say the cops had chosen the wrong profession. Yet there was no public outcry, the folks in the South Bronx had begrudgingly accepted this as reality. For a place synonymous with crime and violence, no one has seriously thought why people raise their children there, or how national government that cares for children so much that they made an agency for the sole purpose of keeping them safe lets kids live there.

            The reality of the Bronx, as horrid as is it is, exists all because we let it, not that we wanted it. Jonathan Kozol interviewed a woman, in his book dubbed Ana Oliveira who was director of program Services at The Osborne Association, described what happens in the South Bronx “is a form of quarantine.” They provide their service to poor people, ex-prison inmates, colored folks and the like, but their service aren’t good. Anna says they only seem benevolent. Giving homes seem like human kindness, but when you are shoving the sick and poor into one of the worst, grimiest neighborhood where they’ll never get out because there are no jobs there, you are giving them a fate worse than death.

            While we are talking about the place that is a rat-topia, why is the place like that? How come the buildings are coated in lead paint and other hazards that make them inhabitable only to rodents of unusually large sizes? That’s because people don’t want to pay taxes. The Mayor, as of the time Jonathan Kozol visited announced that he would make budget cuts to sanitation and inspection services along various other public services to lower taxes for the wealthy. While beneficial to the well-to-do, this further cripples the lackluster services the people of the South Bronx.

            So what can be done? How can you change the fate of the unfortunate? Nothing. One person, or a group can’t solve this. This is a result of societal choices and views. Until we as society stop this self-perpetuating system that keeps folks trapped in poverty, disease, and ghetto neighborhoods, and until we as a society start working to change those neighborhoods, nothing will change this ugly reality. Being aware of this awful reality is only the first step in making the world better.