In the American criminal justice system, we are often led to believe that they serve for the good of the people, but have we overlooked that these intentions may truly be for the good of themselves? In the novel, There are No Children Here, written by Alex Kotlowitz, motives behind decisions made by the criminal justice system are revealed, shining light on an unbiased truth which begs the question: Can we even rely on our justice system to protect us, if they can’t do the same to those who have a different skin color? There is an unfortunate shadow of devastation in many corners of this book, reflecting how the American justice system has failed to bring their so-called justice to many Americans due to their own selfish, mercenary agendas. One of the biggest tragedies …show more content…
Additionally, Craig’s aspirations guided the community, allowing them room to believe they also had the opportunity for a better life. Along with that, he was a kind and respected figure who many people looked up to. Because of this, his death was especially tragic, but his innocence also made his homicide even more mournful for the people who knew the truth. Kotlowitz stated, “The room seated two hundred, but at Craig’s funeral an additional fifty to a hundred mourners stood along the walls, overflowing into the hallway outside” (Kotlowitz 204). This proves how many people cared about Craig and how his inequitable death painfully influenced the community. It also proved how little the public outside of the projects cared about what happened within, since their perspective was tainted by the cruel, unnerving article published addressing his death. Another way of looking at this is through the mindset of his loved ones; Lafeyette, Pharoah, Craig’s mother, father, and girlfriend all care deeply about
Early in his impressive and disturbing book, "no children here," Alex Kotlowitz describes a suburban commuter train passing through West Chicago bleak slums. From a nearby housing project, who has been playing along the track of a boy, he began to cry, because he had been told that the passengers will shoot intruders. These same passengers pulled back from the window, the sniper will strike fear ghetto. What Kotlowitz provide scene is nothing less than a paradigm of race relations in the United
In the book “There Are No Children Here” by Alex Kotlowitz, the author followed the lives of two young brothers (Lafayette and Pharoah) while they grew up in the harsh streets of Chicago in the late 1980’s. The author uses the story of the two boys’ lives to discuss the social divide in our very own society and to persuade readers that there is a major problem in “the projects” of the United States. The historical context of the book is the story took place in the late 80’s-early 90’s in the streets
There are No Children Here; by Alex Kotlowitz is a story about two brothers and their mother, Pharaoh, Lafayette and LaJoe Rivers and them growing up in the late 1980's in the (HHH) Henry Horner Homes, a housing project in Chicago. In the story the boys try to retain their youthfulness while they see constant gang violence, death of people close to them and their brother is in jail and their dad is struggling with drug addiction. In Horner, there are two gangs that claim it as their area, and the
There Are No Children Here Alex Kotlowitz was a freelance journalist. In 1985 a friend came to him and asked him to write a text for a photo essay he was doing on (children living in poverty) for a Chicago magazine. That is when he met the Rivers brothers, Lafeyette, age ten, and Pharoah age seven. He spent only a few hours with them interviewing for the photo essay. Lafeyette had an impact on Kotlowitz. When asked what he wanted to be, Lafeyette responded with "If I grow up, I'd like to
No Solutions Offered in There Are No Children Here Does your home have a lock on your door, a telephone and working appliances and plumbing? Do you dodge bullets in your sleep, have 13 people living in one apartment or wash your dishes in the bathtub because the kitchen sink hasn’t worked for months? Do you wash your clothes in the bathtub because the laundry room is too dangerous to do your washing? Do you live in an environment with no role models, where the gangs control everything and you
There are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America (or There are No Children Here For short), is written by Alex Kotlowitz. Kotlowitz grew up around New York City. He attended Wesleyan University in Connecticut. After graduating from Wesleyan, he worked on a cattle farm and then finally after one year started working at a Journalism firm in Lansing, Michigan. After he became a popular writer for the Wall Street journal and New York Times. He also has works from The
Effect of Environment in There Are No Children Here In There are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz, the way of life in Chicago's Henry Horner projects has a profound effect on all the residents who live there. The children become desensitized by the constant violence that they are forced to witness every day. Children are forced to walk home from school through the urban war zone of these housing projects. It is not unusual for the children to run home from school to avoid becoming casualties
Life in the Projects Exposed in There are No Children Here The book There are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz is a very tough yet emotional book. This book is important to me because it really made me see how fortunate I am to be living in a good and safe environment. In this powerful and moving book, reporter Alex Kotlowitz traces two years in the lives of ten-year-old Lafeyette and seven-year-old Pharoah Rivers as they struggle to beat the odds and grow up in one of Chicago's worst housing
Are No Children Here Throughout There Are No Children Here, a continuous, powerful tension always lurks in the background. The gangs that are rampant in the housing projects of Chicago cause this tension. In the Henry Horner Homes, according to Kotlowitz, one person is beaten, shot, or stabbed due to gangs every three days. In one week during the author's study of the projects, police confiscated 22 guns and 330 grams of cocaine in Horner alone (Kotlowitz 32). For the children of the
The Horror of Poverty Exposed in There Are No Children Here When one thinks of poverty often the mental picture that comes to mind is of single parent welfare, dependent, women and unemployed, drug-addicted, alcoholic lackadaisical men. The children are often forgotten. The impact of poverty, the destruction of crime and stigmatization of the violence on the children is more devastating and irreversible than the miseducation and illiteracy that most often companies poverty. The implication is
No Hope for the Children in There Are No Children Here Henry Horner Homes, an inner-city housing project, is the setting in which the story of two boys growing up in America’s inner-city occurs. The story tracks the River’s family, particularly the two middle boys, Lafeyette and Pharoah, focusing on the strife-ridden times of drugs, death, gangs, and poverty. The author describes how devastating life in the inner city is for a family, but mainly for the children. Public housing complexes
The impetus for the title of this book by Alex Kotlowitz is a quote from the mother of Lafeyette and Pharoah, two young boys who are growing up in a Chicago public housing project in the 1980s. The mother said, “But you know, there are no children here. They’ve seen too much to be children” (Kotlowitz, p. 12). Lafeyette is twelve, and he has had to learn a lot about the world just by taking care of Pharoah as well as three younger siblings. He tells the author, “If I grow up, I’d like to be a bus
is abundant throughout our world, it’s image is often magnified in urban cities. In the book, There Are No Children Here, Alex Kotlowitz describes the striking story of two brothers, Lafayette and Pharoah, struggling to survive in the community of Henry Horner Homes, a public housing complex on the West Side of Chicago disfigured by crime and neglect. With their mother’s permission, Kotlowitz follows the lives of the brothers for two years, taking note of their disappointments, joys, and tragedies
Alex Kotlowitz’s book, There are No Children Here, is a story about two boys, Pharoah and Lafeyette Rivers growing in the late 1980’s in Henry Horner, a housing project in Chicago. The boys try to retain their youth while they see constant gang violence, death of close friends, their brother in jail and their dad struggling with a drug addiction. In Horner, there are two gangs that claim it as their turf, and the Rivers family is constantly ducking from shots of gunfire there. They live in an overcrowded
In the ridged and shocking book that follows the lives of impoverished African American children, There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz accurately displays what life can be like for those who are not as fortunate as some. The story is set in the inner city of Chicago in and around 1987, and pivots around drug violence and the nightmare that is living in the Henry Horner housing project. Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers, two brothers who were born into the life of poverty, are followed throughout