Post #3

 Amazing Grace Reading and a Reflection

RACISM IS A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE!!!

"'We came here in chains and now we buy our own chains and we put them on ourselves'" is the line that really stuck with me after reading the first chapter of Amazing Grace. This chapter does a fantastic job of covering the sad truth that comes with poverty, particularly in an urban environment. I have visited New York City numerous times, I truly love it there. As I am not somebody that comes from much money and am not yet 21, I have not had the luxury of staying in Manhattan hotels more than a couple of times. When I visit, I tend to stay in Airbnbs that are outside of Manhattan. I have stayed in Canarsie, Washington Heights, and Brooklyn. The Airbnbs were relatively cheap, which did not always mean they were the safest places to stay as a young blonde white girl with her young white boyfriend. Numerous times, I have experienced people yelling at me for having a tote bag on me, telling me that I will get robbed. When I travel on the subway with my small bags of luggage, I get called out for it. I stand out, it makes sense. The areas I have stayed in are not used to seeing a face like mine do anything positive for them. With the way that poor people of color are treated in New York, I cannot blame them for giving me dirty looks. How are they supposed to know I mean no harm? The wealthier white folks that live in the city overlook these communities, blame them for 'keeping themselves in poverty.' In reality, this isn't true at all, as Kozol argues in this book. My boyfriend's mom grew up in NYC, and my boyfriend was born there, hence why we travel there quite often. His mom hears from her family that still lives in the city how the neighborhoods she grew up in are unrecognizable now due to gentrification. The rich believe that pushing the poor further out of the city is masking the problem, but it is just ruining their lives even more. This is a type of trauma to those in poverty that this directly affects. The dynamics of NYC are something I could go on about all day, and I wish every time that I visit that there was a way to show the people of color in these rougher neighborhoods that I am on their side. But how can they believe that when the faces that look like mine have neglected them for so long? 

Hyperlink: https://www.osc.state.ny.us/press/releases/2022/12/dinapoli-nearly-14-percent-of-new-yorkers-live-poverty-surpasses-national-average-eight-straight-years (Showing current poverty rates in NYC)