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Definition
a person who engages in the study of religions and spiritual matters (theology)
“Thinking often of a teacher I had met some months before at P.S. 65, who had wondered whether the kinds of questions I was asking could be answered by a teacher and whether they were ‘better asked to priests and theologians,’ I go back again and again to talk with ministers and priests in neighborhoods I’ve visited before, to Gregory Groover in Hunts Point, to the priest of St. Luke’s Church, near P.S. 65, in which Bernardo Rodriguez had been baptized and in which a memorial mass was held upon his death, and to the ministers of storefront churches on Brook
Avenue and elsewhere in the area”(185). |
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Term
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Definition
a large bridge-like structure, typically a series of arches, carrying a road or railroad across a valley or other low ground
“The trains, from this point on, run along the street for several blocks until Park Avenue dips slightly and the tracks are elevated on a large stone viaduct that shadows children playing in the sun of afternoon”(186). |
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Term
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Definition
without any reduction in intensity or strength
“The Times concedes that the area is not ‘a Garden of Eden,’ that it has ‘among the worst-rated public schools’ and ‘highest crime rates’ in New York, and that the Mott Haven section, where ‘the ravages of crime and drugs. . . have continued unabated,’ has been largely ‘left behind’ by these renewal efforts”(190). |
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Term
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Definition
(in South Africa) a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on the grounds of race (Adopted by the successful Afrikaner National Party as a slogan in the 1948 election, apartheid extended and institutionalized existing racial segregation. Despite rioting and terrorism at home and isolation abroad from the 1960’s onward, the white regime maintained the apartheid system with only minor relaxation until February 1991.)
** Also, any other type of segregation (sexual apartheid).
“The newly built Lincoln Hospital has proven to be another poorly funded and chaotic monument to medical apartheid”(191). |
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Term
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Definition
lasting for a very short time; having a very short life-cycle
“They are convinced that those who benefit will be ‘the least poor of the poor,’ for whom the city or a nonprofit corporation may provide unusual security and private sanitation, so that the immediate environs may become an island of protected, if ephemeral,
wholesomeness within a sea of suffering and sickness”(192). |
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Term
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Definition
unnecessary, nonessential, redundant, unneeded, waste
“I have met politicians equally dedicated and enthusiastic in Detroid and East St. Louis, but
their energy and dedication could not bring back life-sustaining jobs or first-class schools or anything like modern health care to a population viewed as economically and socially superfluous; nor, of course, could they reverse the flight of most white people from those cities”(193). |
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Term
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Definition
having to do with a time or place that is extremely peaceful, happy, and picturesque (beautiful); blissful, idealized, heavenly
“The child, who is nine years old and named for a spring flower, has idyllic memories of Harlem.”(198). |
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Term
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Definition
occurring at irregular intervals; not continuous or steady
“On a mild night in early May, rain falls intermittently on Boston Road as I walk up the hill
to Ms. Washington’s apartment building from East Tremont”(203). |
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Term
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Definition
(in the New Testament) the last battle between good and evil before the Day of Judgment; a dramatic and catastrophic conflict, typically seen as likely to destroy the world or the human race
“ ‘That sounds a little like Armageddon,’ I say”(209). |
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Term
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Definition
sacrilegious: violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred or holy; disrespectful
“That’s why I think that this is sacrilegious”(223). |
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