Essay about Finding Strength in Poverty in There Are No...
There are No Children Here Finding Strength in Poverty
Being privileged is something that I didn t understand until I read There are No
Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz. The truth is that I knew I had it better than others,
but the absolute difference was not truly recognized until I met the boys Lafayette,
and Pharaoh. These boys were presented to me by Kotlowitz, via his book, and the
evident pain and sorrow that these young men went through on a daily basis was
more than most privileged people experience in an entire lifetime. That is what being
privileged is.
When I started reading this book, I thought that is was going to be another poor me
story about some poor black kids who got a raw deal. That was my ignorant, ... Show
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The grass was green, the flowers were all around, and the hallways seemed to go
on forever. Their family was the first to move into the homes, and at that time, they
were proud of that. Here they were, in a nice, affordable place where they could
raise their children in a descent environment, around other people. As more
families moved in, they relied on each other, and would gather in the court yard to
talk and enjoy each others company. The times sure changed though. The Chicago
Housing Authority started neglecting the Homes. Grass would go months without
mowing, the appliances would deteriorate without replacement, and the plumbing
was left to self destruct. When the CHA didn t control the Homes, and the police
wouldn t enforce the laws, crime soon ran free to torture the inhabitants of the
once grand Henry Horner Homes. The people of Henry Horner, especially the
good people, longed for a place that they could sit up at night on a porch without
fear. They had a dream of a place without the violence, but many of the people here
became so conditioned to think that this is the way it was supposed to be, that a
thought of getting out was a fleeting one. Pharaoh, the youngest of the two boys,
was a daydreamer in the beginning of the book. The child had his head in the
clouds, and often times dreamt of a place that offered safety, and a piece of the
American Dream . The progression in the boy was evident from the summer of 1987,
the beginning of the book,