This book (along with the sequel by the same author) was our required reading for an on-line class in Race, Gender, and Class in Education. Quite impacting, to say the least. Here are a few quotes from the book that stuck with me. Some are from the author; most are from people he interviews in the South Bronx or Mott Haven, New York.
On my list of most impacting writers, including Brueggemann, Richard Foster, Dostoyevsky, etc…, now goes Jonathan Kozol. The past four months I’ve been taking classes on multiracial education, which have been largely quite stale except for some alarming statistics and interesting perspectives. The chapter on class was certainly the most moving.
However, the two books we read by Jonathan Kozol were the most impacting. I was totally engrossed in each one, compelled to read from cover to cover. His writing is good, his interviewing technique is of the highest quality, and the themes he explicates throughout his books are deeply impacting. And deeply religious, incidentally. He states his ambivalence to formalized religion repeatedly, however, his two books have undoubtedly been the most intensely religious writings I’ve read in a long, long time. He communicates a sort of subtle spirituality without being preachy.
The themes he deals with probably explain why I am so obsessed with his writing… the way he describes the insights of the children he interviews is eloquent and fascinating. He combines this with social commentary on poverty and racism, and mixes these with a sacred reverence for the teachers and priests working in the South Bronx. The religious theme running through the book about communion, holy water, heaven, etc… is right on, something I’ve striven to describe in my journals in relation to some of the places I’ve worked. So basically, he mixes religion, education, poverty, racism, and the insight of children in a self-reflective way that is poetic, piercing, and as Brueggemann described it, “summoning.”
These two books and his writing have helped me in articulating the complexity, contradiction, hope, and mystery that these themes hold for me. Here are some quotes:
“What is it like for children to grow up here? What do they think the world has done to them? Do they believe that they are being shunned or hidden by society? If so, do they think that they deserve this? What is it that enables some of them to pray? When they pray, what do they say to God?” (5)
“Why do you want to put so many people with small children in a place with so much sickness? this is the last place in New York that they should put poor children. Clumping so many people, all with the same symptoms and same problems, in one crowded place with nothin’ they can grow on?” (11)
“Evil exists…. I believe that what the rich have done to the poor people in this city is something that a preacher could call evil. Somebody has power. Pretending that they don’t so they don’t need to use it to help people – that is my idea of evil.” (23)
“We came here in chains and now we buy our own chains and we put them on ourselves. Every little store sells chains. They even have them at check-cashing…” (24)
Maybe once a year they [think of us]. Some of them have parties around Christmas to raise something for the poor…. What’s goin’ to happen on December 26? Who is this charity for? In a way, it’s for themselves so they won’t feel ashamed goin’ to church to pray on Christmas Eve.” (44)
Often during times like these I have to fight off the feeling that I am about to cry. I do fight it off because i do not want to be embarrassed…. When I leave, I sometimes give in to these feelings, which I never can explain because they do not seem connected to the things we talk about. It’s something cumulative that just builds up during a quite time. (46)
If the police are scared to come there, why does the city put small children in the building? (53)
The notion of the ghetto as a ‘sin’ committed by society is not confronted. You will never see this word in the newspapers. (72)
Many here are a great deal more devout than people you would meet in wealthy neighborhoods. Those who have everything they want or need have often the least feeling for religion. (78)
“There’s something wrong. There’s something sticky dripping from the elevator.”
“My mother said, ‘It’s only grease.’ But the woman said, ‘It looks like blood.’ So my mother was afraid and went downstairs to check, and it was blood, and it was coming through the ceiling of the elevator, which was on the second floor. So then my mother came upstairs to make sure that the children were all right. We found the other children but we could not find Bernardo.” (104)
[Fourth grade rapid drill where the children respond in unison]:
“What are these holes in our window?”
“Bullet shots!”
“How do the police patrol our neighborhood?”
“By helicopter!”
“What do we do when we hear shooting?”
“Lie down on the floor!” (122)
“In heaven you don’t pay for things with money. You pay for things you need with smiles.” (Anabelle, 129)
Being treated as a friend this way by children in the neighborhood feels like a special privilege. It seems like something you just wouldn’t have the right to hope for. Why should these children trust a stranger who can come into their world at will and leave it any time he likes? (130)
There is a golden moment here that our society has chosen not to seize. We have not nourished this part of the hearts of children, not in New York, not really anywhere.” (131)
Prisons, schools, and churches, many religious leaders have observed, are probably the three most segregated institutions in our nation, although the schools in New York City are quite frequently more segregated even than the prisons. (147)
I worry about speaking too much of the triumphs that such people and communities achieve without positioning these stories in realistic context. (161)
“Mr. Mongo sells drugs. I don’t feel sorry for him any more. He tried to get my brother.”
“What did he do?”
“There’s an old trick they have,” he says. “It goes like this.” He holds out both hands wrapped into fists. “Choose one.” I pick one hand. He opens it up and looks in his palm and smiles. “It’s your lucky day, my friend!”
“What’s in his hand?”
“White powder. Whichever hand you pick, there’s powder in it.”
“You’ve seen him do it?”
“I was there. He did it twice. I saw it.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘Please, God, don’t let him do it to my brother.'” (219)