Thinking Week

On Sunday, Me & Kristine went and saw the movie "Freedom Writers." It tells the real-life story of Ms. Erin Gruwell and her students in room 203, at Wilson High School. The movie takes place in 1994, two years after the Rodney Kind beating and at the highest point of racial tensions in Los Angeles. The movie starts out with the classroom segregated; Whites in this corner, Latinos in this one, Blacks here and Asians there. Being the wrong color in the wrong place on the street could get you killed, and many of the students carry guns for protection. When a racist cartoon drawn by one of the students reaches Ms. Gruwell, she decides to make tolerance the backbone of her course. By relating that cartoon to propoganda against the Jews during the Holocaust, she makes the students realize that the war they were fighting was a war of hate. The students are required to write in their journals, to share their experiences, thoughts, feelings, whatever they wanted. I won't ruin the rest of the story, but by the end of the movie the class decides to combine their journal entries into a book, calling themselves the 'Freedom Writers," a tribute to a group of people in the 1960's (whites and blacks) that fought seregation by riding in a bus together from New Orleans to Washington, calling themselves the 'Freedom Riders.' I've picked one of the entries that i read tonight to include in this post. It describes an event in the classes trip to Washington, DC, enjoy!

Diary 85
Dear Diary.
Yesterday I was up all night having fun with my roommates. I was planning to go to bed earlier, because we were supposed to be ready to leave for the museum at 8:00 A.M. but my roommates wouldn't shut up. I put a pillow over my head and tried to rune them out. I tried to get to sleep, but i couldn't. I couldn't stop thinking about the Holocaust Museum. I wondered what it's going to be like? I was so curious, but at the same time i was scared. Scared ow what I might see. My roommates didn't fall asleep until 4:00 A.M. so when the alarm went off at 6:30, i thought I was going to die.
God! I can't believe what I saw at the Holocaust Museum. I tried to hold back the tears as I walked through the museum, but i couldn't help it. As I walked through them entrance, i thought about Renee Firestone and Gerda Seifer, two Holocaust survivors who were visiting the museum with us. I couldn't stop thinking of the pain and suffering they went through.
As I walked from room to room, I saw videos about thousands of people being buried in a single grave. How could this have happened? Why didn't someone stand up for these people? How did people just allow them to die? I asked myself these questions as I headed to the next room. I looked at the wall and something caught my attention. It was a quote from a German preacher that summarized the outcome of what happens when no one takes a stand. "They came for the trade unions, but i was not a trade unionist, so I didn't' respond. Then they came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist, so i didn't respond. Then they came for the Jews, and since I was not a Jew, I didn't respond. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me." Next to this quote there was a picture of the concentration camp. I looked at that picture for a while repeating the words in my head. The more I thought about it, the more I cried.
Gerda caught up with me and started telling me about the cattle cars that the people were squeezed into. We walked into the next room and she just stopped. She started crying and when i asked her what was wrong, she raised her arm pointing at the cattle car right in front of us. We had to cross through a real cattle car in order to exit the room. She was afraid. She must have imagined her friends and family being shoved into one just like it. I asked her if she was OK. She took a step forwad and then started describing how crowded the cars were. She told me that many of the people died before they even got to the concentration camps. When we finally got across it, both of us were crying. Gerda grabbed my hand and thanked me. But I should be the one thanking her.
On our way back to the hotel, I saw the swastikas that we had covered. Before, if I saw something bad happen, I probably wouldn't have done anything. I used to think, "If it doesn't affect me, why bother?" With the covering of the swastikas, and everything that happened today, I now know that there is not a day that will go by, when if I believe something is wrong, I won't do anything about it. It is better to take a chance and make a change, than it is to pass and pity.

--The Freedom Writers Diary. Copyright 1999.