Example Of Art And Architecture Essay

QUESTION 3.

Children are crucial in any community and in any place where they are looked down upon the impact that this has on future generations is very bad. Social sin is something that according to Gregory Baum is propagated by ignorance to what is happening around or what he calls blindness. Despite people having knowledge of what is going on around them, they always do what they feel good about themselves without concerning themselves with the society around them. It makes people get involved in destructive actions without their knowledge since they are not concerned. It is what amounts to social evils that are detrimental to the lives of those living in these types of people. Jonathan Kozol links the suffering of the poorest children of New York to this blindness. This paper highlights the relationship between social sin and the suffering of poor children in New York and how neo-liberation and racism have contributed to the social sin. In his book Amazing Grace, Jonathan Kozol highlights the problem of racism as the critical factor that was leading to failure of the education system. The poor black children in Boston were offered with learning facilities that only made them subjective to their situation and never provided them with the chance to grow and develop their talents. The inhabitants of Mott Haven, which is among the poorest region in South Bronx, the people struggle and do their best to raise in the social ladder despite the prevailing conditions they are in. The ideology of social meaningfulness of persons was not common in this place. Racism was the main proponent that determined many issues that took place in the region. It made the region unbearable. He uses children like David Washington and Anthony to show how devastating the lives of these poor children are. The st. Ann’s church is one of the facilities that seems to offer hope to these poor children. Kozol notes that the children who came to the church for food and their fathers and mothers who came to pray were among the most miserable in New York. It indicates that these families lived below the poverty line, and they had no hope. It is somewhat sarcastic that Kozol identifies that when you enter the Number 6 train from Manhattan to the South Bronx it stops about nine times, he says “when you enter you are in the train you are in the seventh richest congregational district and when you leave you are in the poorest.” It shows how the rich people are blind to the condition of their neighbors who are next to them. According to Gregory Baum, these social are caused by institutions that are put in place in the society but they are not sensitive to the affairs of the people who they are supposed to be taking care of. It prompts those in lower social classes who cannot afford to be given services by significant social amenities to suffer. Kozol underscores the racism that is going on in the New York City whereby the majority of people who are poor are either Hispanic or Blacks. He notes that when Mrs Washington is taken to hospital, she waits for four nights without getting a bed and all the while she was on a stretcher. The conditions are awful for the poor to an extent that they seem as if they are being punished for being poor. There are many deaths of children that are recorded in the book. This show the nature of people who were living in the area and their insensitivity to the conditions of the people around them, a number of children die because of causes that could be prevented if people were sensitive enough. Children are always suffering from diseases which are due to the conditions that they are prone to. Kozol says, “Asthma is the most common illness among children here”. He adds that the result of this is because even the houses that these families live in are freezing during the winter season. It is to mean that the wealthy had blinded themselves not to see the prevailing conditions around them as they went on with their activities. In conclusion, the situation in which the children are brought up in are so dehumanizing, and they expose them to danger. Kozol noted a number of murders that were done and everywhere around these poor regions and no one seemed to bother. His questions that he poses have to be answered by people who have the privilege of getting the best environment and envision what they would be like if as children they were prone to such condition. It is very true that no particular child chooses where to be born. Everyone is born without their consent and they have to survive in the environment in which one finds them in, but this does not mean that people should be blinded by their state of complacency and availability of everything they need to themselves and thus not think about those around them. For all these to end there needs to be an elimination of ghetto schools and hospitals, so that such issues as violence can be fought to their roots.